15 Traditional Singaporean Foods and Drinks To Try on Your Next Trip

Chili crab is often considered Singapore’s national dish, and is enjoyed during gatherings at seafood restaurants or tze char (casual cook-and-fry) stalls. Chopped mud crabs are wok-fried in a fluffy, sweet sauce primarily consisting of red chili, tomato paste, and eggs, and served shell-on. Eating the crab can be a messy affair, but crab crackers and finger bowls are usually provided, as are fried mantou buns for savoring the sauce. For a variant that packs more heat, try black pepper crab instead. Not sure where to go try this dish? Take a street food tour to be guided to the best vendors.

Legend has it that roti john—literally “John’s Bread”—was created in the 1960s when an Englishman asked a Malay hawker for a hamburger. The improvised dish? A baguette-style loaf topped with an egg mixture containing minced onion and mutton, pan-fried until the bread is toasty.

The whole thing is topped with chili sauce and mayonnaise and cut into bite-sized portions. It’s an ideal hangover food, with variations on the above that include sardine, beef, and chicken.

Related: 7 of the Top Hawker Centers in Singapore

Of the many local dishes that share their history with neighboring Malaysia, laksa might be the least contentious. The Peranakan rice noodle dish is known for its flavorful broth of coconut milk and sambal chili paste, but regional variations abound.

In Singapore, the popular Katong laksa uses noodles that are chopped into shorter sections so it can be eaten with just a spoon, while laksa Siglap features a thicker, nuttier gravy. Want to recreate laksa at home? Join a local cooking class to learn how to make it.

Adapted from a dish brought by Chinese immigrants, Hainanese chicken rice features poached chicken served slightly pink and perfectly tender. The rice is just as vital to the dish, and is pre-fried in chicken fat before being cooked in the poached chicken stock, ginger, and garlic. Traditionally, the poached chicken is served cold, but most hawker stalls also offer roasted chicken rice. Make sure to try it with the accompanying dips—minced chili, ground ginger, and thick soy sauce.

Often used to describe Singapore’s multicultural society, rojak is a hodgepodge salad of sorts: Fruit and vegetables such as pineapple, cucumber, tau pok (tofu puffs), and dough fritters are chopped up and tossed in a sweet and savory dressing, which usually contains fermented prawn paste and chili paste. The dish is then topped with grated peanuts and torch ginger bud, which gives the dish both a floral aroma and a piquant kick.

Fish head curry represents a true blending of cultures: It was invented by a South Indian chef to appeal to Chinese diners, who considered fish head a delicacy. It’s vital to use a fresh red snapper head, which is stewed in a thin and spicy South Indian–style fish curry and served in a clay pot. The flesh around the cheeks is especially delicate, but if you’re feeling adventurous, make sure to try the eyeballs, which are prized for their umami flavor.

Originating from Peranakan families in Indonesia, ayam buah keluak involves tedious preparation. The main ingredient—keluak nut, from a mangrove tree—is poisonous when fresh and must be cured before one can safely enjoy its earthy, truffle-like flavor. The nut and its flesh are cooked with candlenut, turmeric, chili, and shrimp paste to form a rich gravy in which chicken pieces are cooked. The best way to sample this indulgent dish is at a Peranakan restaurant, on a tailored private tour.

Known locally as Hokkien mee, this noodle dish is beloved for its assortment of prawns, beansprouts, squid, pork slices, and egg, which are all stir-fried in a prawn and pork stock before being served with sambal relish and calamansi lime. Locals often identify good Hokkien mee by the strength of its wok hei, which refers to the charred aroma or “breath” of a well-seasoned cast iron wok. Be warned, though: “Hokkien mee” refers to a drastically different dish in parts of neighboring Malaysia.

Sup tulang (bone soup) is a little-known dish, even among locals. This spinoff of sup kambing, or mutton soup, uses mutton bones stewed for hours in a bright crimson broth comprising tomatoes, chili, ginger, and other spices that are usually kept secret by the sellers of the dish.

What you want, though, is the rich and creamy marrow inside the bones—suck it out using a straw for the full experience. The dish is also served with bread on the side so you can mop up the marrow-infused stew.

This classic Singaporean breakfast is a staple in any kopitiam, and offers the perfect start to a day of exploring the city-state. Slices of soft bread are toasted and slathered with kaya, a sweet jam made with coconut milk, pandan leaf, eggs, and sugar. A chunk of salted butter is then sandwiched between the slices to offer a savory counterpoint. Kaya toast is usually sold in combination with kopi (Nanyang coffee) and soft-boiled eggs, which can be seasoned with soy sauce and slurped right from the saucer.

While its name literally means “meat bone tea,” bak kut teh doesn’t contain any tea. It does, however, contain pork ribs stewed in a mixture of various herbs and spices, and was perhaps a tonic for the Chinese indentured laborers who consumed a cheaper, bone-only version. Today, you’ll find two versions commonly available: a light and peppery clear soup that is the standard in Singapore, or a dark and robust herbal soup that dominates next door in Malaysia.

Colorful and bite-sized, Nyonya kueh (cake) are a delightful way to end any street food tour in Singapore. Dozens of varieties of these handmade sweets exist thanks to Peranakan adaptations of Malay, Indonesian, and Chinese favorites, but common ingredients include coconut shavings, glutinous rice, and gula melaka (palm sugar). Make sure to try ondeh ondeh, a sticky rice ball filled with burst-in-your-mouth palm sugar; kueh lapis, a colorful 9-layered cake; and kueh bingka ubi, a fluffy and fragrant baked tapioca cake.

Har cheong gai, Cantonese for “prawn paste chicken,” is another popular tze char dish that fried chicken lovers should add to their must-try list. To make the dish, chicken parts are marinated in Chinese-style fermented shrimp sauce, Chinese wine, and sesame oil. However, unlike most fried chicken recipes, the batter (of flour and potato starch) is then added directly to the marinade and chilled overnight to produce a thick, crunchy crust upon frying.

Unlike its chicken rice counterpart, Hainanese curry rice has no roots in the Chinese province; it was actually developed by immigrant chefs, many of whom happened to be Hainanese, while Singapore was still a British colony. This hearty dish consists of pork chop, fried egg, and braised cabbage smothered in a thick but mild curry. Most curry rice stalls also offer add-ons such as sambal squid and braised pork belly to make for a more substantial meal.

Crafted in 1915 by a bartender at Raffles Hotel, the Singapore Sling is claimed to have helped affluent women of the time to sneak past social norms around drinking in public. Besides gin, cherry brandy, Cointreau, and Benedictine, the electric pink drink typically contains plenty of lime and pineapple juice to create a deceptively sweet and fruity cocktail. Today, the Singapore Sling is a standard offering at local bars, so try it on a historical city tour.

Related: Travel the World with These International Cocktails