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Into the belly of the earth
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I wandered across the road to have a look at a little Taoist temple. There was nothing special about it -- incense burning in great brass urns, oranges and little cups of tea set out as offerings, as usual. A small, crude statue of the god of fortune had a smear of raw opium across his mouth, to keep him happy. (So much for the famous mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking.) There were two people worshipping there, an old Chinese woman about four feet tall and a glamorous Indian woman wearing a purple silk sari. There was no doubt she was Hindu; she had a fresh spot of crimson on her forehead. After she left, I asked the caretaker about that. Why would a Hindu come to pray at a Taoist temple? The old man shrugged. "Today Saturday. Horse races today." Paths are many; payoff is one.

Then I headed out to the East Coast Road, on the outskirts of town, for breakfast. When people ask me what my favorite restaurant in Singapore is, I always say the Chin Mee Chin Confectionery. It's a pretentious choice, really -- the Chin Mee Chin is a crowded, un-air-conditioned hole in the wall. There are a hundred better restaurants in Singapore, but not one of them has better kaya. Kaya is something really divine, a kind of custard jam made from coconut milk, egg yolks and sugar, flavored with the pandanus, the leaf of the screwpine, which has a mild taste rather like vanilla. Kaya is the Malay word for rich, and it is. Most coffee shops in Singapore serve canned kaya, but the Chin Mee Chin makes its own, boiling away in tin vats. It's served on freshly baked soft buns, with a slab, not a pat, of butter, and a soft-boiled egg dashed with salty soy sauce on the side. You'll want a second round, but be prepared to trundle your liver away in a wheelbarrow.

Nowhere in Asia can you find food like the food in Singapore. It's not that it's necessarily better than everywhere else -- it would be lunacy to say that any place on earth has better food than Hong Kong -- but for variety and consistently high quality, it's on a par with San Francisco and New York, and I can't think of any praise more glorious than that. Singapore likes to call itself the multicultural city -- not exactly a snappy nickname, but it has the virtue of being accurate. In Hong Kong what you eat is great Chinese, in Jakarta great satay, in Bombay great curry, in Malacca great nonya food. When you go to Singapore, you get all of these, and every bit as authentic. There are also sizable Thai and Korean communities, so there's excellent tom yum and Korean barbecue as well. After a few days in Singapore, you will begin to run out of interesting places to visit, but you won't run out of great restaurants.

After my Chinese morning, I spent the day in Little India, shopping for lurid posters of Hindu gods and goddesses, dolls (Barbie in a sari) and fragrant yellow mangoes imported from Madras. I visited the Abdul Gaffoor Mosque, a fabulous Victorian Moorish fantasy, like a miniature Indian train station painted in popsicle colors. I wandered through the spice market, the betel-chewer's accessory shop and the goldsmiths' row, but it was basically just killing time until I could decently stop for -- lunch: fiery fish-head curry at the Banana Leaf Apollo, the most famous in a strip of banana-leaf restaurants (so called because the food is served not on a plate but on a fresh clean leaf, cut into an oval). Once you get used to the idea of your lunch looking at you, the curry is astonishingly delicious.

I could tell you about my stroll through the Singapore Botanic Garden, possibly Raffles' most beautiful brainchild, laid out in elegant Regency style, with outstanding collections of orchids, gingers and palms. Or my visit to the history museum, a stately Victorian dowager, trimly restored and filled with jade and porcelain and neat little dioramas of scenes from Singapore's history. Or my sunset cruise down the Singapore River on a bumboat (I asked why it's called that, but got only lame jokes for my trouble), to get a close-up look at those much-maligned skyscrapers. Some of them are pretty cool, actually. But I see no reason not to move straight ahead to dinner: I chose the Blue Ginger, which was my favorite restaurant in Singapore until I discovered the Chin Mee Chin.

Next page | A nonya feast -- and the most overrated hotel in Asia?