OTBP restaurants in Sin
 

Been grounded for the past year, so its been this little red dot day in and day out. As the population of this place has grown, so has the crowding in reputed restaurants to the centre of town. Places like Boat Quay were always a tourist haunt, but locals hardly venture there, I am told. So I am hoping residents can share their picks - places frequented largely by locals.

One north has some very good restaurants and its positively deserted after sundown and on weekends. Couple of indian restaurants, Spice Peranakan - its all good, uncrowded and not that far off from Orchard road, for example.

What do you mean by "locals". Something like 25% of the resident population of Singapore are expats. Do you mean residents or Singaporean citizens? Plenty of residents go to Boat Quay.

I know for example that the one of local (as in Singapore-based) telecoms networking groups (the industry I was in until recently) meets there regularly, for example, although this is quite an expat-heavy group. And whenever I visit Singapore-based (expat) friends there it's one of the places they suggest as a regular hangout for them.

i stand corrected then. perhaps the result of drawing big conclusions from a small dataset of citizen colleagues.

Good to hear of the un-grounding. Not a resident - I see you are but it seems to me that the locals and office workers eat more from hawker stalls than from restaurants so I'm more enthusiastic about those.

A favourite of mine is Lau Pa Sat Food Center near Raffles Place. The best tip would be to go at lunch time when it is heaving with office people and look for the stalls with the longest queues and try something you haven't tried before. At other times look at what's being eaten at the tables as people at non-peak times tend to only walk a few feet from stall to table. I like the idea of simply trying what others are eating. I only dislike around 5% of what I try doing this.

To me - as a visitor - I guess it's different for you - Singapore is about street food rather than restaurants.

It's not hard to get off the beaten path in Singapore foodwise, just buy a Makansutra guide or peruse Wikitravel for any listings that are not on Orchard Road or Clarke Quay. When I first came to Singapore 7 years ago, I bought a copy of Makansutra and worked my way through every single dish listed, which was a pretty good starting point for local cuisine. :cool:

Here's a grab bag of the places I've recently been to or am planning to go to, not a single one of which will show up in any travel guide:

http://wikitravel.org/en/User:Jpatok...#Places_to_eat

Christep has a point about 25% of the residents as being of foreign origin - so you'll have foreigners at just about any restaurant. But I'd take your meaning of resident as being mostly people who are born Singaporean (we can include their close cousins any Malaysians who are living here). There's even a local name for them, which is they're called heartlanders - folks who live in the Housing Development Board (public housing) districts mostly away from the city center. With due respect to UK1, there are restaurants to go to, however note that most of the ones I mention below are local style restaurants that operate in the kopitiam (coffee shop) type restaurants - no aircon, quite sultry.

I have always had a soft spot for chicken rice. I like Loy Kee on Balestier Road, also Boon Tong Kee - they're on Balestier, also a branch on River Valley Road. A few doors down on River Valley is Five Star - haven't tried it but the reputation is good. Oh yes, the Chatterbox restaurant at the Meritus Mandarin hotel (Orchard Road) is well known for their chicken rice; odd but sort of neat that a hotel coffee shop actually has good food.

You can also try out the various coffee shops along East Coast Road near Katong Shopping Centre that serve laksa - there's something like three of them close by in cutthroat competition with each other but you can sample and decide for yourself what's good.

Last - Samy's on Dempsey Road (Indian food) - excellent curry! (But not for those who are tender of tongue!)

PS Jpatokal - looked up your list. What happened to those places that you crossed out?

At ever-increasing prices: the last time I visited, the restaurant has been shifted up to the top of Meritus Mandarin, done up in scarlet red "Beijing Boudoir" style, and the price of the chicken rice hiked up to nearly $30/head after taxes. The original chef has also left and set up a new stall called Mr Chicken Rice at the badly misnamed Downtown East, aka the semi-deserted shopping mall at the foot of the Singapore Flyer -- never been there though, and apparently not all that spectacular.

I visited them already :cool:

Spent several days in SIN, returned today (AF257 in J was the best Air France experience I've had in years). Since the demise, or relocation, of Hometown Sichuan I've searched for a replacement. This trip I found one. If you like it hot and spicy try Chuan Garden on Pagoda Street. Not cheap, but absolutely worth it. My dinner there was off the charts.

Wih the opening of the mandarin gallery, the chatterbox restaurant has shifted, again, to the top of mandarin gallery, just above lawry's the prime ribs in mandarin gallery. I think it is on the fifth floor.

Oh yeah lawry's has moved to its new premises at mandarin gallery(fourth floor) from paragon shopping centre(second floor).

I shall give a list of imo my top 10 restaurants in singapore.

These restaurants are mostly chinese restaurant which i have personally tried.

1. Crystal Jade Palace (Ngee Ann City)
2. Wah Lok Restaurant (Carlton Hotel)
3. Jade Palace (Forum Shopping Centre)
4. Imperial Treasure (Great World City)
5. Crystal Jade Golden Palace (Paragon Shopping Centre)
6. The Cathay Restaurant (The Cathay)
7. Thai Village Restaurant (Goodwood Park Hotel/ Jurong)
8. Nam Wah Chang Fish Head Steamboat
9. Huat Kee Restaurant (Telok Ayer Street)
10. Beng Ting Hiang Kee (on top of the OCBC building carpark)

These are some of the non chinese cuisine that are very good

-Grandma's[malaysian](Paragon)
(if you had ever gone to KL you would know Madam Kwan's, this Grandma's is the madam kwan's of singapore.)
-Tambuah Mas[indonesian](Paragon)
-Jim Thompson[thai](Dempsey hill)
-Patara[thai](Tanglin Mall)
-Tajimaya/Shabuya[japanese](Vivocity)
-Ichiban Boshi + fish market[japanese](Great World City)
(you can order sashimi from the fish market for dining in the main hall, beats all japanese restaurants for the freshness and the price.)
-Waraku[japanese](Starhub Centre)
-Les Amis[french](Shaw Centre)
-Fish & Co[western](Paragon)
-Aoba[japanese](Ion Shopping Centre)

If you are on a tight budget and want great food,these may come in handy
-Adam Road Nasi Lemak(Adam road food centre)
-Zhen Jie Desserts (Telok Ayer food market)

You will also not go wrong with our wide variety of food courts in singapore.
-Food Junction
-Kopitiam
-Food Republic
-...the list goes on...

p.s. if you have a hard time deciding where to eat or you have a budget please dont hesitate to pm me:)