July 08, 2021
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Satay is well-loved in Singapore for its intoxicating mix of sweet, salty, savoury and smoky taste thanks to the grilling of meat over charcoal to a glistening finish. There are two broad types of satay found in Singapore, a Malay/Muslim-style and a Chinese/Hainanese-style.
Both are available in a range of proteins and are accompanied by a peanut-based dipping sauce . The latter, however, can be identified from the use of pork and the addition of tangy pineapple puree in the sauce. But whichever style you’re partial to, here are 10 different satay stalls in Singapore to savour them both.
You ll know you re getting closer to one of Singapore s many hawker centres long before you actually arrive. That s because the delicious aromas wafting on the sub-tropical breeze will be of crab, chicken, rice and noodles. We realise it s been a while but let us refresh your memories: hawker centres are those open-air eateries pivotal to life in Singapore, a diverse collection of street food stalls where savvy locals grab quick, delicious and low-cost meals. So ubiquitous are hawker centres that you re never far from one in the Lion City – latest figures show there are a whopping 6000 stalls dotted around more than 110 hawker centres. In fact, so essential is Singapore s hawker culture that it has officially been added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.
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Some civilizations chronicle their pasts with art or books. Others pass on history orally through folklore. In Singapore, the tale of how a humble fishing village in Southeast Asia evolved into a buzzing modern metropolis often comes in spoonfuls of peppery pork rib soup or bites of fried egg noodles at its hawker centers.
Across the city-state, the ubiquitous open-air food complexes are packed with closet-sized stalls, manned by hawkers businesspeople who both cook and sell fare from Hainanese-style chicken to Peranakan
laksa (lemongrass-coconut noodles). For visitors, hawker centers might just seem like jumbo food courts: Follow your nose or the longest line, then pay a few Singapore dollars for a trayful of chow to enjoy at a shared table.