#3 Singapore, Still Gotta Eat to Survive
Editor: Jihyon Park @_j_ihn.b
Before moving to Singapore, my image of the typical working life here was simple: a quick breakfast of an acai bowl, grabbing a Guacamole Greens salad from Sweetgreen, and calling it a day. Honestly, eating like that would probably leave me starving. Maybe it’s a kind of romanticized cliché, like how New Yorkers are often stereotyped as bagel lovers—only here, it’s the vision of a clean, green, health-conscious lifestyle. I’m not quite sure which experiences or media shaped that dream, but the reality of my life has been quite different.
Now, nearly two years since I arrived in Singapore, I find myself constantly on the move—quarterly trips between Korea and Singapore, impulsive getaways to escape the routine, totaling about 14 trips just last year. While this life brought its own satisfaction, it’s clear that anything in excess can be harmful. After each return, I tried to fill my life here with meaningful activities—tennis, jazz piano lessons, pottery classes—but I often found myself putting them off, blaming lack of consistent time.
But I still had to eat. When overwhelmed by thoughts, exhausted from travel, and craving rest, I turned to cooking. If I were in Korea, I’d have immediately ordered delivery, but Singapore is different. The local environment practically forces you to cook for yourself, and that has greatly influenced my “home cooking diary.”
The Singaporean Way to Eat
Eating in Singapore breaks down into four main categories: home-cooked meals, restaurants, hawker centers, and delivery. Let me share why, despite all the options, I often find myself cooking at home—and what that says about Singapore’s food culture.
Hawker center
Of these, the most uniquely Singaporean is undoubtedly the hawker center—essentially a vibrant, bustling food court. Most Singaporeans rely on hawker centers for their daily meals. The city’s public housing estates, called HDBs, often have at least one hawker center nearby, adding up to roughly 120 across the island. Famous spots include Lau Pa Sat, known for its satay street, and Newton Food Center, featured in the movie Crazy Rich Asians.
*HDB: Housing & Development Board, public housing in Singapore
*Lau Pa Sat (Satay Street)
Here you’ll find everything from satay (grilled skewers), stingray drizzled with sambal sauce, carrot cake (a type of fried radish cake, not dessert), and ban-mian (Singapore-style noodles), to seafood dishes like chili crab and the iconic chicken rice. The diversity reflects influences from Beijing, Cantonese, Peranakan, and East Asian cuisines.
Why haven’t I grown fond of hawker centers? Maybe it’s because they don’t provide wet wipes. Just kidding. Honestly, most dishes tend to be oily and heavy on the flour, and except for those rare days when I want to sweat it out with a Tiger beer in hand, I mostly prefer cooking at home.
Sign at hawker center tables: “Clear your table to avoid a fine.”
restaurant
Dining out in Singapore is no joke. Even if two people go to a decent restaurant, after factoring in the 9% GST and 10% tax, the bill typically tops out at 19%. Alcohol is especially pricey, so much so that some people joke that it's better to travel to the area than go for brunch or dinner during the weekend in Singapore. This has led to a popular meme among friends: "For that kind of money, you could go to Bali." (aka. 그돈발)
delivery
The quality of delivery food is also just average for the price. After experiencing the fishy smell of salmon from a sushi delivery once, I mostly avoid ordering in—except for the occasional donut, chicken, or pizza that I can’t make at home.
All these factors—environmental and financial—have nudged me toward cooking warm meals at home regularly. Add to that the surprising lack of healthy salads and nutritious options locally, and my cooking diary is filled with dishes aimed at getting my daily greens.
Home Cooking Diary (5 Dishes)
1. Carrot and Egg Kimbap
Kimbap is truly a beautiful dish. If I had to eat only one thing for life, I once said shabu-shabu—but when told Korean shabu-shabu and Vietnamese fresh rolls were excluded, I switched to kimbap without hesitation. I love it that much.
My goals and intentions shift frequently, but dieting and healthy eating seem to cycle back every few weeks. Carrot Egg Kimbap fits perfectly with that aim. This kimbap contains a whopping three eggs. Slice the carrots, add plenty of pepper, and sauté until the oil turns orange. Because vitamin A in carrots is fat-soluble, sautéing them with oil increases nutrient absorption. Using that as an excuse, add a generous amount of olive oil and sauté. Then, crack three eggs into balls and roll them up. Naturally, when you roll them up with seaweed or rice, you have carrot, egg, and kimbap.
2. Mango-filled yogurt
The best benefit in Singapore is undoubtedly the mangoes. Previously, I'd only had dried mangoes from Olive Young, but now being able to eat fresh mangoes to my heart's content was a small joy for me. Just as I was complaining, "Even the yogurt here is bad?", I found a yogurt that was quite thick and sweet (*Farmers Union Greek-style yogurt). Topping it with freshly sliced mango seemed like the perfect dish to satisfy my acai bowl cravings.
3. Buckwheat noodles
It rains almost every day in Singapore, especially on days when it rains from the morning onward, the sky stays cloudy all day. On such days, I crave something warm, and buckwheat noodles (on-myeon) are the perfect comfort food for those rainy days. My delicious buckwheat noodles are complete with just the buckwheat noodles and a nice broth. Add as many veggies as you like.
Add the stock to the ramen-boiling water, and when it starts to boil, add the prepared vegetables and buckwheat noodles. Finally, whisk in an egg and it's done. (Note: If you're being greedy and add two eggs, you might want to skip them altogether, so it's better to get your protein from other foods.) Buckwheat noodles are so simple that you can have a warm meal. I want to call this "One-Pan Onmyeon," like one-pan pasta.
4. Vegetable Curry
The simple dishes of those living alone or at home are kimchi stew and the long-awaited curry. What these two dishes have in common is that the longer they simmer, the more flavorful they become.
Rather than boiling the vegetables together in the curry until they are mushy, I prefer vegetable curry where the vegetables are roasted separately and placed on top of the curry. I made the curry by finely chopping and sautéing onions, then boiling them with two blocks of solid curry powder and water. The vegetables were mini eggplants, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, paprika, and light green peppers. (I looked it up and found that the light green peppers are called dangjo peppers.) The vegetables were seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil and baked in the oven. If you want to make a full weekend, I recommend making this vegetable curry. One bowl will take half a day to make!
5. Cucumber Peanut Kimbap
The final dish is kimbap again. This time, it's "Cucumber Peanut Kimbap," a protein-free but no-heat kimbap. All you need is cucumber, seaweed, rice, and optional peanut crumble. Since this recipe doesn't need cooking, it requires a bit more preparation: pickling the cucumbers. Slice two cucumbers thinly, add a teaspoon of salt, and let them marinate briefly. Once the cucumbers are soft and the water has drained, rinse the salty cucumbers one or two more times and drain. Add sesame oil and a dash of salt, and your filling is complete. Combine the seaweed, rice, and the prepared cucumber, and you have cucumber kimbap. It's deliciously savory and refreshing on its own, but for a little extra flavor, top with peanut crumble. If you didn't have peanut crumble, you'd probably top it with peanut butter, making this a truly delicious combination. It's definitely worth a try. Add some dessert and you have a perfect meal.
Living abroad, I think everyone has their own unique recipes. Especially branching out into a somewhat unfamiliar space means holding firmly to your roots, making time for self-sufficiency all the more necessary. Food is how I fulfill myself.
This article began as a simple home cooking diary but ends with a bigger hope: to share through this magazine the many ways people around the world nurture and nourish themselves.