Dining out in seventh heaven

With crabs like this fellow, you could almost forgo the soup that goes with them.

When two Singaporeans meet, instead of saying "Hello" or "How are you?", they ask "Have you eaten?", explained a manager in the My Humble Home restaurant. "That's because food - good food - is very important to us."

I should perhaps explain, although it may be more information than you really want, that she offered this observation while showing the way to the cunningly concealed toilets.

I did get there, eventually, but only after providing evidence that I really was enjoying the food, did know what I was eating, and had appreciated the artfully poetic menu.

"That's right," said Leong See Kay, our host from the Singapore Tourism Board, when I repeated the manager's comment. "That is what we say.

"And then we go on to ask 'What did you have?' and 'Was it good?' and 'Where did you go?' I always collect cards from anywhere good so I can pass them on to my friends.

"Most Singaporeans eat out at least three times a week - not counting lunches - so it's important to know the best places to go."

She promptly gave us a card for the V Tea Room, which produces the most amazing drinks and cakes, including an alcoholic milkshake using Bailey's Irish Cream, and a beer cake which is left to mature for 30 days. Mmm.

But it turns out that See Kay's dining agenda is fairly modest. Leon Nonis, sales manager for the Raffles Hotel, reckons he would eat at home only once a week. "I enjoy cooking, I love to experiment, but my life is so busy there's no time."

The combination of all these eager eaters and so many different cooking cultures makes Singapore a foodie paradise. Take breakfast. You can certainly get a very good Continental, American or English breakfast. But there's so much more on offer. And I've always thought half the point of travelling is to discover new food experiences.

Daniel Tan, director of sales for RMG Tours - who appointed himself our eating guide as soon as he discovered our liking for local food - was tremendously excited when he learned a new outlet for Ya Kun Kaya Toast had opened in a basement near his office and our hotel.

Nothing would do but that he must take us there to sample this amazing Singaporean breakfast.

The focal point is coconut-egg jam, made to a special recipe the founder of this chain developed when he opened a single food stall in 1944, which basically involves boiling coconut milk and egg for five hours.

Spread between two slices of toast, it tastes a bit like a condensed milk sandwich.

But the real idea is to eat the toast with a mix of two softboiled eggs, into which you've stirred black soy sauce and a little pepper, accompanied by strong coffee with condensed milk.

Sounds a bit weird - looks a bit weird - but it's a delicious combination. And only S$3.70 ($3.25).

At the other extreme is breakfast at the Raffles Hotel which, needless to say, is served with old-world elegance.

I had another traditional Singaporean dish, rice porridge (or congee) flavoured with chicken and served with all sorts of spices, including chilli paste, pickled eggs and pork dumplings.

After breakfast, of course, comes lunch.

Once upon a time most Singaporeans bought their midday meal from roadside stalls but these have largely been replaced by food courts in the basements of the big malls.

If you really want to buy from the stalls, a good place to go is Airport Rd. There are also the Soup restaurants, dedicated to reproducing the food once sold by the Samsui women of Chinatown. We just adored the the piquant ginseng chicken soup and succulent samsui ginger chicken.

On our first day in Singapore we went to one of the food courts for lunch but didn't get past the first stall, where an aged woman was chopping vegetables and cooking up noodles with a passion.

"Wonton noodle soup. Very good," said an equally old man standing out the front. "You try." And he handed us a couple of delicious friend wontons.

We were sold, and got one bowl of wonton noodle soup and another of shredded duck noodle soup - both with plenty of vegetables - which for S$5 apiece was as much as we could eat.

The next day's lunch was again at the other end of the food scale at the Hua Ting Restaurant - Singapore's ethnic restaurant of the year - which is in the Orchard Hotel.

There we had a seven-course gourmet meal, with delicacies in the Cantonese culinary tradition such as melon soup, prawn dumplings, braised yin-yang rice vermicelli and baked silver cod with honey. It was stunning.

During the meal there was another take on the Singaporean attitude to food when I asked Louis Cheng, the hotel's assistant director of sales, what were the most popular local sports. "Eating and shopping," he said. "In that order."

Shopping is certainly important.

The lead story in that day's Straits Times was the finding by global research firm Euromonitor that Singapore came first overall in a survey of the best cities in the world to shop.

It seemed to be a cause for national celebration.

But walking round Singapore in the evening, when the pavements are awash with tables full of happy people enthusiastically scoffing their food, underlines the fact that eating is No 1.

"You can probably see Singapore in seven days," said our food guide Daniel. "But you need 30 days to try all the food."

The variety is amazing. At My Humble House, for instance, there was an anything but humble banquet of progressive Chinese cuisine, including fried prawns with wasabi mayo, double-boiled seafood consomme served in a young coconut, and an extraordinary cream of pumpkin dessert with purple rice and coconut icecream.

To cleanse the palate at the end we had their signature iced green tea with peppermint. Fantastic.

But, as an enthusiast for local food, the cuisine I particularly enjoyed was the spicy Peranakan food special to Singapore, which combines Chinese and Malay influences.

We discovered this by accident while trying to find somewhere to eat on Mother's Day, and managed to squeeze into the Peranakan restaurant underneath the Meritus Nagaga Hotel.

Its signature dish is fish-head curry but the maitre d', evidently fearing that would be too much for a couple of tourists, suggested instead that we have fish cooked in chilli and prawns with tamarind sauce.

To follow he suggested crab soup soup - "We have the soup later," he explained, "because it takes longer to prepare" - with a whole crab in each bowl, then sago in a mango sauce for dessert. The spicy combinations were a revelation.

We went on about Peranakan food so much that the next night, at the Swissotel Merchant Court, they changed the restaurant we were to eat at.

"We were going to the Blue Potato, which is our newly opened restaurant for western cuisine, because many Australians and New Zealanders are not very ... adventurous with food," said assistant sales director Amy Chan.

"But when we heard you liked local food we thought our Ellenborough Market Cafe would be better." It was.

The buffet has a wonderful array of delicious spicy foods.

But, just to prove that enthusiasm gets you everything, they also brought out a dish of what according to Amy is the classic Singapore food - Hainan chicken.

And executive chef Paul Then produced a plate of incredible jumbo prawns - 10cm long, maybe more, I kid you not - which were delicious.

But the highlight was the durian mousse for desert.

I first struck durian, a large fruit with an unusual knobbly skin, some years ago in Myanmar (Burma) when I saw signs on the guesthouses saying, "No durian allowed inside."

That's because they say of durian, "Smells like hell, tastes like heaven," and I have to admit that the smell, reminiscent of a malfunctioning septic tank, was so bad I couldn't bring myself to eat it.

Ever since I've regretted that I didn't have a taste and so the market cafe's speciality dessert was greeted with enthusiasm and - to the surprise of some fellow diners - I loaded up a big bowl.

And what's it like? Hard to describe. Both sweet and savoury. On the one hand hints of pineapple and mango, on the other coffee and curry. Delicious.

Rather like Singapore itself in a way.

* Jim Eagles ate his way round Singapore with the help of House of Travel, Air New Zealand and Singapore Tourism Board

Checklist: Singapore

How to get there

Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand fly direct to Singapore daily from Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch

Accommodation

Singapore offers a fantastic range of accommodation from 3 to 5 star-plus, across the city. The Singapore River is a popular choice, as excellent dining and entertainment is in walking distance. The newest MRT station, Clarke Quay, offers the ease of getting to all of the main shopping and entertainment areas on the super-efficient train system.

Eating out

For a local experience try the fantastic range of restaurants at Clarke Quay or the famous Apollo Banana Leaf restaurant in Little India. Moving up a notch or two, is the Equinox complex atop the Swissotel.The Stamford is outstanding, as is High Tea at the legendary Raffles Hotel. You may

find the wines expensive as will be drinking in hotel bars and most night spots. If you want a night out, a useful tip is to get to nightclubs before 9pm as many offer 2 for 1 promotions and no cover charge. Brix at the Grand Hyatt is excellent and has a live covers band.

Packages

House of Travel has four-night Winter Escape packages to Singapore from $1369 each, share twin. The package includes return airfares, four nights at the Albert Court Hotel, return airport transfers, a half-day city tour and a two-hour Cheng Ho Imperial Cruise.This deal excludes taxes and surcharges and is subject to restrictions on timing. Further information See House of Travel.