A no-fuss simple guide on 11 Popular Hawker Dishes to try in Singapore for first time travellers.
If you are travelling for the first time to Singapore, you HAVE to go to a Hawker Centre to try some classic dishes enjoyed by many of the locals, expats and travellers alike!
With prices starting as little as 4 SGD per serve, Hawker stalls usually specialize in just one or two dishes. Your serve will be made to order so you will be guaranteed a tasty, authentic meal.
For first-time travellers trying Hawker centres, you can also have some peace of mind that the stalls are rigorously kept clean, making Singapore one of the safest countries to eat at. Win Win!
You can read more about Singapore Hawker Centres in my post coming soon.
11 Popular Hawker Dishes to try in Singapore
Char Kway Teow
Flat rice noodles stir-fried with fishcake, beans shoots, Chinese sausage, garlic, and chives. The dark colour comes from the combination of soy and sweet dark soy as well as chilli paste.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Day Night Fried Kway Teow – Located in Bukit Merah Central Food Centre
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 4.50 per serve
Hokkien Mee
A delicious combination of yellow noodles and vermicelli, stir-fried in a pork and prawn stock as well as whole prawns. Served with sambal and lime for an extra kick.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Nam Sing Hokkien Fried Mee – Located in Old Airport Road
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 5 per serve
Satays
Satays are one of the most popular hawker dishes to try in Singapore and you will see it across many food centres. The meat (commonly chicken, beef & mutton) is first marinated in soy, lemongrass and other spices and then skewered in small pieces and charred. Seafood skewers can also be found in satay options like prawns and squid.
A thick satay sauce accompanies the sticks for dipping as well as compressed rice (cut into cubes), cucumbers, and onion.
This warming, coconut-based noodle soup made with shrimp and seafood is one of the classic Hawker dishes you will find in Singapore.
The traditional version of Laksa in Singapore is called Katong Laksa, originating in the precinct of Katong, in Singapore. The main difference between normal laksa and Katong Laksa is said to mainly be in the noodles. Katong Laksa will have the noodles already cut so there is no need for chopsticks.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
328 Katong Laksa – Several locations across Singapore
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 6.50 per small serve
Chilli Crab
Another dish that is one of the best-known dishes in Singapore is Singapore is Chilli Crab. The crabs usually used for this dish are mud crabs and they are stir-fried in a thick, spicy (but not as much as you may think from the name), savoury, and slightly sweet sauce. A popular alternative is also the Black Pepper Crab.
Crack open the shells and dig in. Fried Mantou (fried bread) are generally served with the Chilli Crab to help mop up the tasty sauce.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Available at most Hawker Centres in stalls that specialize in seafood.
For a more refined Chilli Crab experience, head to Long Beach or Jumbo Seafood – several locations throughout Singapore, but expect to pay a lot more!
Average Hawker Dish Price
At Hawker Centres SGD 50-60 per crab and varies on size. Fried Mantou Buns 0.50c each
Chicken Rice
A classic hawker dish that is perhaps the most popular of Singaporean dishes has to be without a doubt Chicken Rice. The dish is simple, steamed chicken with rice. It’s comfort at its best.
If made properly, this tasty sliced chicken is super tender! The rice is also cooked in chicken stock which gives it loads of additional flavour. Generous sides of chilli and soy accompany the chicken and are perfect for dipping.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice – Located in Maxwell Food Centre and awarded Michelin Bib Gourmand
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 5 per serve
Oyster Omelette
One of the most underrated hawker dishes and a first favourite in Singapore is the Oyster Omelette. The name says it all. For this dish, small Pacific oysters are stir-fried with eggs and potato starch for extra crispiness. Chilli Sauce is served to the side for dipping.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Song Kee Fried Oyster – Located at East Coast Lagoon Food Village
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 5 per small serve
Carrot Cake
An interesting dish that can be found all across Singapore is Carrot cake. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s not a dessert and there is no carrot in this dish!
It’s steamed white radish, that’s cubed and stir-fried. You can have either a white version with fried egg or black when it’s stir-fried with dark soy.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Carrot Cake @ Chomp Chomp – Located in Chomp Chomp Food Centre
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 5 per small serve
Rojak
It’s a salad, but a bizarre one! If you enjoy a combination of sweet and savoury flavours, Rojak is a mix of fruit, vegetables and fritters covered in a prawn paste, chilli and lime sauce, topped with peanuts.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Lau Hong Ser Rojak – Located in Dunman Food Centre
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 4 per small serve
Dumplings
These tasty dumplings can be found in many hawker centres in Singapore. Some popular varieties include soup dumplings Xiao Long Bao, Fried Pork Buns & silky wontons with chilli oil.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
Zhong Guo La Mian Xiao Long Bao – Located in Chinatown Complex Hawker Centre
Average Hawker Dish Price
SGD 5 per serve of each dumpling type
Ice Cream Sandwich
A refreshing treat that can be picked up on your way to shopping, street carts selling ice cream sandwiches are usually found all over Singapore in popular shopping precincts.
You can choose a wafer or a slice of soft, sweet rainbow bread and choose the flavour of ice cream. Popular flavours include taro, sweetcorn, coconut, and if you like the taste, durian.
Top Rated Hawker to try this
You can find street carts along Orchard Road and Chinatown selling these!
Average Hawker Dish Price
From SGD 1.50 per ice cream
Want to read more?
I hope you enjoyed reading this post on 11 Classic Hawker Dishes to try in Singapore. You can read about more about Hawker food in my post 11 Unique Hawker dishes to try in Singapore.
You can also read more about the Best Hawker Centres to try in Singapore coming soon HERE.
On a recent family trip to Singapore we stayed on Sentosa island at the Village Hotel Sentosa, a stunning family friendly resort complex, located right next to Resorts World Sentosa and all it’s attractions. Worth the long flight? Absolutely! This is my Village Hotel Sentosa Review.
This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a booking, I make a small commission. This is at absolutely NO additional cost to you and helps me keep the site running!
What you are going to love about Village Hotel Sentosa
The amazing 4 pools and gardens at the pool deck. Heaps of space and a real relaxed vibe.
Perfect for families with young children. Clever room design with interconnecting rooms and shallow pools.
In a great location in Sentosa. Close to the beach, as well as to Resorts World attractions and a short monorail ride into Singapore to connect with the Metro (MRT) .
Village Hotel Sentosa is located on the island of Sentosa, a man made island just off the coast of the south of Singapore. Within a short walk from the hotel you can reach the beach, as well as the many attractions within Resorts World Sentosa like Universal Studios & S.E.A Aquarium.
The closest monorail station is 5 minutes away, Imbiah station, which can take you directly into VivoCity shopping centre in Singapore. From there you can take the Metro (MRT – HarbourFront) into anywhere you need to get to in Singapore!
Getting to Village Hotel Sentosa from Singapore Changi Airport
Taxi / Grab
The easiest and quickest way to reach Sentosa is with a taxi from Changi Airport. The trip is around 20 minutes and it costs around 25-35 SGD depending on the time of day. Taxis are available at the airport, and if travelling with children, they can travel on the parents lap on the back seat.
Ridesharing company Grab (think Uber for South East Asia) also widely operates in Singapore and can be more cost efficient than taxis.
If travelling with young children, you must book a Grab Family. Grab Family generally has car seats and boosters installed for young children.
Entry charge when arriving in Sentosa
If arriving by taxi and visiting Sentosa for the day, an Entry Fee to the island is added to the taxi fare.
If you are staying on Sentosa, you will just need to show your accommodation confirmation letter or QR code provided by the accommodation to enter Sentosa and you/the taxi driver won’t be required to pay the Entry Fee.
The fee is between $2-$6 SGD to enter the island, depending on time of day that you enter.
You can read more on this on my other post coming soon about Getting Around in Sentosa.
Facilities & Rooms at Village Hotel Sentosa
Village Hotel Sentosa is a large resort complex with onsite restaurant, a stunning pool deck on the 3rd floor with 4 pools, including it’s own lazy river, swim up bar and gym.
Dining
Dining Options – within the hotel
Native Kitchen, Ground Floor, open 7am-11am, 12pm-3pm, 6pm-10pm
This is where breakfast for Village Hotel Sentosa is served. We did not have breakfast included in our room price so I cannot comment on the food.
It is although a buffet style breakfast serving Western and Asian dishes. It’s also open for lunch and dinner with an extensive a-la-carte menu.
Supply Depot, Ground Floor, open 8am to 6pm
Located at reception and is available for snacks and light refreshments.
Poor Bar, Pool Deck, Level 3, Open 12pm to 5pm
Located by the Pamukkale pool on the Pool Deck, you can get drinks, cocktails, Pizzas and light snacks.
Dining Options – At Mess Hall complex, located directly across from the Hotel
The gorgeous white colonial building was once a Military outpost, now hosts stylish restaurants and a convenience store. It’s located right across Village Hotel Sentosa, as well as being very easily accessible from nearby Hotels The Barracks & the Outpost Hotel.
7/11 Convenience Store: Proved to be extremely convenient to pick up some snacks for the room and ice creams when it got too hot. Located just outside reception on the ground floor.
Want to explore other dining options in Sentosa? Check out my other post coming soon on Where to Eat in Sentosa.
Swimming Pools
The Pool Deck on level 3 is the jewel in the crown of this resort. Lush greenery and coy ponds surround the pool deck and there is plenty of space to have a lounge or curl up on the many round pods to read a book. All the pools are located on Level 3 via lift or escalator from reception. From Level 3 you can get a great view over the sea.
Adventure Pool: the largest pool in the centre of the resort with a shallow end and terraced higher end.
Pamukkale Pool: A stunning infinity pool that looks over the sea, with terraced shallow pools to resemble Pamukkale in Turkey. It’s the perfect place to relax and enjoy the views over the water (and the monorail depot, the highlight for the kids!)
Children Play Pool: shallow and with 2 small water slides and water sprays, this pool is a real hit with the little ones.
Lazy River: so refreshing and surrounded by lush greenery and mangroves. You can grab one of the bright yellow pool floats from the resort and be carried along the river for a float.
Gym: located on level 3 on the pool deck. Well equipped with modern equipment such as treadmills, stationary bikes, bench press and weights. Open 8am to 10pm.
Complementary Resort shuttle to Beach Station & VivoCity running every half hour from 8am to 21.30pm
Tour desk
24 hour reception
Rooms at Village Sentosa
This hotel is a large complex with 606 guestrooms. The resort is largely catered to families with lots of rooms set up as interconnecting family rooms.
Room types
There are just 3 room types at the resort. Deluxe Rooms (for 2 people), Family Rooms and Deluxe Family Rooms (both family room types are 2 rooms interconnecting). Deluxe family rooms are slightly larger than the family rooms and have a bathtub in one of the rooms. We stayed in a standard Family room.
Family Rooms
Many of the rooms at Village Hotel Sentosa are Family Rooms. The Family Rooms are essentially 2 rooms interconnecting with 2 doors, which you can keep open or closed for privacy.
Each room has it’s own 49 inch TV, bathroom, shower and storage. There is also a safe to store valuables. The bed configuration can be set up as 2 doubles or one double and 2 singles.
We opted for 2 doubles and had a bedrail on one side of the kids bed (3 and 5 yrs old).
Room amenities
The rooms are compact, of minimalistic design and with neutral colours. There are large windows facing either the pool, island or sea. The windows have curtains and some great blackout blinds which made it easy for the kids to get to sleep.
The rooms are very well designed with smart use of space, but keep in mind, they are very compact. There is no wardrobe, just a shelf to store a suitcase and a few drawers and hangers to store belongings.
A kettle, mugs, glasses and a jug for ice/water in the room as well an a small fridge (provided empty).
No tea or coffee is provided in the room. Instead, on each floor, there is a vending machine for snacks and drinks, as well as a communal Tea / Coffee station.
Here, you can take what you need for your room and there is also a water / ice machine, which proved to be extremely handy to fill up water bottles with ice on our way out for the day or in the evening to have a cold drink.
They have the same set up at every lift and floor and everything was always well stocked.
Rooms are serviced daily and we found it to be very good with the rooms thoroughly cleaned each day.
In Room Dining is available across day and night and the menu can be seen on the hotel TV.
Bathroom
A clever feature in these rooms is that instead of plastic water bottles, each room is fittet with a Hyflux filtered water tap so it was great to refill our own water bottles. The water in Singapore is perfectly safe to drink anyway but this was a nice extra touch!
The wash basin is located at the hallway, next to the luggage storage as you enter the room. The rain shower & Japanese Toto Washlet are in a separate cubicle.
Family Friendly facilities at Village Resort Sentosa
Despite being a hotel that is very geared around families – there is no kids club at this resort. That said, the hotel is very comfortable for families travelling. These are some of the family friendly facilities at Village Hotel Sentosa:
Convenient interconnecting room layouts, which was hard to find for a similar price point in Sentosa. While researching we found that most of the other larger resorts in Sentosa offered family rooms with all the beds in the one room, one bathroom and one tv, rather than in interconnecting but separate rooms.
Blackout blinds in the rooms
Bed rails and cots available upon request for smaller babies and infants (up to 9 kg only)
We found that the Swimming Pools were fantastic for kids, especially young ones. The Children’s Play Pool and part of the Adventure Pool are very shallow, between 30-50 cm.
The restaurant Native Kitchen has plenty of high-chairs, as well as a kids menu
Family Movie Nights on Friday and Saturday nights by the Adventure Pool was a highlight and a great family activity organized by the hotel. They set up bean bags and provide you with mosquito patches and overall had a really great atmosphere.
At our time of stay there were no other kids activities running so it would be best to contact the hotel ahead of time as some activities may only run seasonally during the holidays.
What is nearby Village Hotel Sentosa
Attractions nearby Village Hotel Sentosa
Village Resort Sentosa is conveniently located a short walk away from Resort World Sentosa (10 minute walk or 1 stop on the Sentosa Express Monorail). At Resorts World Sentosa you can find Universal Studios, S.E.A Aquarium as well as many eateries, shopping outlets and the Casino.
There is so much more to the above though and so many attractions to suit all ages. Some popular ones include Adventure Cove Waterpark, Madame Tussauds as well as go karting at Hyperdrive, Indoor Skydiving at Ifly, ziplining at Mega Adventure Park and the night show at Wings of Time.
For a lazy day by the beach, walk at the back of the hotel to reach Palawan beach and stroll along to cross over the Big Bridge. There are many beach clubs along the beach to relax and have something to eat too.
Catching theSingapore Cable Caracross Sentosa and at the top of Mt Faber across to Singapore is also a must do attractions and a great way to see the island from a high viewpoint.
VivoCity Shopping Mallis a huge shopping centre (the largest is Singapore) only 2 stops away on the monorail. From there you can catch the MRT (metro) into anywhere in Singapore.
Hotels nearby Village Hotel Sentosa
Sharing the same complex and pool as Village Hotel Sentosa (and part of the same hotel chain) is the Outpost Hotel. This hotel is more geared for couples / friends and has its own stunning Adults only Sky Pool and Bar with cool beats playing throughout the evening, called 1- Altitude Coast.
All in all, we really enjoyed our stay at Village Resort Sentosa! Would I come again to Village Hotel Sentosa? Absolutely YES! Would I recommend it for families? YES.
I highlighted the things that I loved about the Hotel and some things that I didn’t love so much about our stay below.
The standout feature for this resort is without a doubt the Pool Area. It is the most impressive pool set up that I have ever seen in a hotel. I loved that there were so many areas that you can go to, always sunbeds, you can move across to the 4 pools and they are all so different.
The design with immaculate gardens, coy ponds to the side and greenery that is on top over the roofs of the pool too, make this the highlight of the stay.
Location we found to be really great. It was so easy to get around in Sentosa or into Singapore with the the Sentosa Express Monorail directly into Vivocity Shopping Centre and from there hop on the MRT.
What I didn’t like so much about Village Resort Sentosa
The main thing that we found a bit challenging during the stay was the size of the rooms. The rooms are quite compact and as we stayed just over a week – we had quite a bit of luggage and the lack of storage just meant we had things lying around everywhere.
We also had quite a bit of laundry to do (always the case with young kids) and there was little or no space to dry it. There was a laundry service at the hotel but it was quite pricey (charged per item) so we did not use it and arranged our own washing.
I think perhaps the room set up for this hotel is more geared towards guests staying for a short stay, rather than longer stays hence the smaller rooms.
Want to read Read More on How to Save Money when Travelling to Singapore? Article coming soon.