What do locals eat?

I would like to think most of Singapore folks are foodies (although a small minority of them live to eat rather than eat to live) but that’s why it is quite easy to find all kinds of food in Singapore. We have all types of cuisine (from our favourite local fare to international restaurants, you can find them all with a bit of research). However, the major issue that most people might face are queues – due to the density of the country, queuing for good food seems to be a norm, and it is very possible that such queues can extend for hours before you even get a seat or get your food and so it is recommended that you actually research for the place you want to eat and if it is that popular, to either go early (or if they accept reservations, to do so early).

On a day to day basis, locals like to get their food from nearby coffeeshops, food courts or hawker centres, due to the expensive pricing in cafes and restaurants. These places typically offer a good variety of food for a very reasonable price (save for some food courts in malls that might be a little bit pricier). However, please bear in mind that popular places might also have another issue besides the queue, which is the lack of seating, leaving people to wait for others before finding a place to seat down and ordering food.

Hawker centres are a great place to try a fusion of different local foods, so I definitely recommend at least visiting it at least once to try food. This is even better if you are in a group, so you can share the different foods from different stores. Many hawker centres do have stores that sell our popular local dishes such as chicken rice, laksa etc so if you are trying to find it, look for a hawker centre near you and you are good to go! You can also check out the hawker page here for some of my recommendations!

One thing to take note is that in Singapore there is a “chope” culture, which is reserving a seat using something like a water bottle or other personal item (even tissue paper). These seats are typically ‘reserved’ so please seat at your own risk (although I doubt any local will blame a foreigner if they do take up the seat). So please look out for these items before thinking it is actually an empty seat.