Tips For Vegetarian Tourists In Singapore

How To Find Vegetarian Food And Vegetarian Restaurants In Singapore

Oct 16, 2008

Singaporeans love their food, but many of Singapore's famous delicacies are made of meat. Luckily for vegetarian tourists, restaurants get very creative with bean curd.

Singaporeans are known for their love of food, and for a good reason. Eating out in Singapore is cheap and the food is great, because when it comes to eating, Singaporeans like to get value for their money. Vegetarians, however, might find themselves lost amongst local delicacies such as pig organ soup, while enthusiastic hawkers may recommend prawns as a "vegetarian" dish. Just because a dish looks like it is made of mainly green vegetables doesn't mean it won't come with a fish head on the side. Many Singaporeans view vegetarianism simply as a limitation to culinary experiences. So what can vegetarians eat in Singapore?

Hawker centre is essentially a collection of stalls that offer affordable food ranging from Chinese to Indian to Malay to Japanese. At lunchtimes hawker centres are filled with Singaporeans on their lunch breaks.

Most hawker centres in Singapore have at least one stall that is devoted to vegetarian food. It means one can pick any of the dishes without even knowing what it is, and it will be suitable for vegetarians (and often even vegans).

Many vegetarian stalls get very creative with tofu and other soya products, and come up with vegetarian versions of many popular - often Chinese - dishes. The mock meat sometimes looks surprisingly real. A plate of rice and 3 vegetable dishes costs around S$2.50-S$3.50 at a hawker centre.

Bean curd (an Asian version of tofu) is used liberally in Singapore and it comes in both savoury and sweet versions. A Malaysian delicacy is tauhu goreng, deep fried bean curd that tastes delicious with peanut sauce. Bean curd features on many Chinese dessert menus, and hawker centres have stalls dedicated to serving bean curd in many different flavours from ginger to gingko nut. It can also be blended into a drink.

The area of Little India in Singapore (nearest MRT Little India) is filled with vegetarian restaurants. Traditional South Indian food is mainly vegetarian.

Those who want their vegetarian food without artificial flavour enhancers and without too much oil, which are sometimes used in hawker centre food, should head to Ci Yan (8 Smith Street) in Chinatown. The owners make delicious and healthy vegetarian versions of dishes like bak kut teh, and for S$5 a dish, the prices can't be beaten. Their cold noodle salad is delicious.

Singapore's Vegetarian Society has a list of vegetarian food outlets. A real vegetarian treat is Original Sin, a Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant in Singapore's Holland Village.

The copyright of the article Tips For Vegetarian Tourists In Singapore in Singapore Travel is owned by Satu Susanna Rommi. Permission to republish Tips For Vegetarian Tourists In Singapore in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.