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SINGAPORE: CITY-STATE (Part 1)
World Cookbook
The city has many excellent restaurants (several are in the top 50 best in Asia according to S.Pellegrino), affordable food courts, and street fast-food stalls selling all sorts of delicious things.
Singapore has always been a kind of melting pot for different peoples and cultures. This is especially noticeable in cuisine. Here, they love curry, peanuts, chili, masala, and tofu, and consume tons of rice, noodles, pork, and seafood. Dim sum coexists with hash browns, and tender oatmeal with fiery lentils stewed with garlic and hot chili.
And yet, which dishes are specifically associated with Singapore? Probably laksa, satay, kaya (original peanut paste with coconut jam), chili crab, fried rice with seafood, and a specific coffee (usually with milk). Kaya, rice, and satay – small meat skewers with a spicy peanut sauce – can be found almost everywhere. Coffee, called kopi in local English, is sold on every corner, in an endless number of versions – from ordinary black kopi kosong to generously sweetened condensed milk kopi gah dai.
The most tender chili crab, which is cooked with a lot of sauce and cherry tomatoes, and served with hot buns, can be safely tried both in a restaurant and in an affordable café, though it is not served everywhere – after all, it's a delicacy. As for laksa, probably the most striking example of multicultural Peranakan cuisine, you'll have to search for it. They say the best is made at an establishment with the unremarkable name Toast Box, lost in one of the endless shopping galleries of the Marina Bay Sands hotel.
From the outside, it's an ordinary eatery, no better and no worse than its neighbors. Plastic tables and the usual hustle and bustle of overpopulated Southeast Asia. But the laksa here is really good. It is a very thick and richly spicy soup based on coconut milk with a lot of spices, especially chili. They add pieces of tofu, fish, shrimp, boiled egg, but the main thing is a special type of noodle, short and thick, resembling soybean sprouts.
At a Height
In Singapore, densely built with skyscrapers, there are two points from which the entire city can be seen at a glance. The first is the Singapore Flyer observation wheel. Height – 165 meters, a full circle is completed in exactly 28 minutes according to all rules of feng shui – the magical infinite figure eight is doubled. The movement is unhurried, so you can calmly and carefully look around, take plenty of photos.
From the windows of a comfortable air-conditioned cabin (there are 28 of them, by the way) with an area of exactly 208 square feet (another doubled infinity!), a stunning perspective and a complex urban landscape open up. And if you're lucky, and the eternal haze from evaporation clears up a bit, you can even make out neighboring Indonesia on one side and Malaysia on the other. The wheel has VIP cabins offering dinner with a view of the city bathed in lights.
The second observation point is the SkyPark observation deck on the roof of the five-star hotel Marina Bay Sands, one of the main symbols of the city. The unique building consists of three 200-meter towers, connected somewhere in the clouds by a common "deck". At the very top is a huge pool with a missing wall, creating an original optical effect as if you are swimming in the sky past skyscrapers. True, only hotel guests are allowed to the pool itself. But even locals often rent a room here for one night to swim in the heavens.
By the Water
Singapore is surrounded by water on all sides. But beaches are somewhat difficult here. One of the best by local standards is on Sentosa Island. It is connected to the main island by a cable car and several bridges. The swimming area is fenced off, and from the shore you have a not-so-exciting view of hundreds of various-sized cargo and fishing vessels bobbing peacefully at the roadstead – after all, the Singapore port is considered one of the largest in Southeast Asia. The water can't be called crystal clear either, but in principle you can swim if you really need to. However, Singapore is certainly not for beachgoers. In this sense, it is very far from both Thailand and Indonesia.
But on Sentosa, there are things to do besides the beach. For example, visit the local aquarium, which can outmatch many others in size and number of inhabitants. Also, go to the funny Trick Eye optical illusion museum. And finally, have a great lunch at the Michelin-starred restaurant Osia Steak and Seafood Grill or at Din Tai Fung next door, which can rightfully be called one of the best dim sum places in the city. If there's one thing, Singapore knows its dim sum.