Eating Cheap in Singapore

This is a small guide to help the first time visitor to eating cheap in Singapore.

If you are a backpacker or travelling on a tight budget where you eat can make a huge difference to how much you spend as a traveller.

This is particularly true in Singapore. If you eat in the tourist areas or in expensive shopping malls you could be spending a lot more money than if you eat where the locals eat.

In Singapore there are many Food Markets where you can get a great meal at a great price and it will be more interesting than eating western food in your hotel’s restaurant or another friggin burger.

Where I am staying near Zhongshan Park I noticed a local food market very close to the hotel so I thought after a long flight I would eat close to the hotel.

After my short walk I came to the Balastier Food Market. The market was busy with locals and tourists alike getting a hot evening meal.

There was a great assortment of dishes pork, seafood and noodles or rice being the main combinations.

I had the Bak Kut Teh set meal. Bak Kut Teh means meat bone tea literally. The dish is braised pork ribs in a fragrant meat broth. The broth also had a bulb of garlic which I think had been cooked in the broth.

I was thinking of the people that I would meet the next day and only had 2 cloves.

Along with the meat and soup you got a plate of baby bok choy in a light soy sauce with fried shallots, a bowl of rice and some fried tofu which I was told I should dunk into the soup – she was right – it was good,

Another tip I got was to get some sauce for the meat. I was told to get the really dark soy sauce and add in some chopped birdseye chillis (which are too hot for me) but I added a couple pieces.

The sauce was delicious. Most soy I’ve had has acted as a salting agent but this was a sweetening agent for the pork.

It was more than enough food and I couldn’t eat it all.

And the cost of this extravagant meal $7.

So the learning here is good food can be found everywhere and at every cost. So if you want to get your dollar to go further look harder and you can find culinary gold at a lower price.