Natasha Hong

There's a time for dining with big groups and a time for eating on a budget, but when you're planning for an anniversary or a romantic date with your special someone, it's best to take it up a notch with a proper sit-down dinner with all the trimmings. Here are our picks of the best romantically lit, value-for-money restaurants to wine and dine in Singapore. Let's get into the mood for love.  RECOMMENDED: The most romantic bars in Singapore and The 50 best restaurants in Singapore you must try

Drinking in Singapore is definitely not cheap. An average price of a pint here is $12 and a cocktail runs between $22 to $30. But that doesn't mean that you can't score a good deal at some of Singapore's top drinking holes. We scour the island for the best happy hour deals so you don't burn a hole in your pocket. What are you waiting for? Finish that project, grab your friends, and get ready for a little day drinking.  RECCOMENDED: Cheap eats under $20 in Singapore and the best affordable lunch sets in the CBD

Can you ever sip your way into someone's heart? We can't say for sure, but these romantic bars around town might just do their bit to frame you in a totally-would-date vibe. Plus, the alcohol won't hurt, either... Whether you're looking for intimate spots where the whole world seems to fade into the background or buzzy pads where you can soak in the lively atmosphere, these bars are there to prevent any date night disasters. RECOMMENDED: The most romantic restaurants in Singapore and the best sustainable dining restaurants in Singapore

Peranakan cuisine is getting increasingly hard to find. Thankfully, there are a handful of restaurants that are keeping the culinary tradition alive – from comforting, traditional dishes to Nonya-inspired modern creations. In some cases, you'll actually be dining at someone's home – it doesn't get more authentic than that.  RECOMMENDED The best Malay restaurants in Singapore and the best private home dining experiences in Singapore  

With food as rich as ours, it's hard not to wing the most important meal of the day right here in Singapore. There's something for everyone's palette, and the best part? They're all wallet-friendly. Think kaya toast, prata, good coffee, nasi lemak and more. Here are some local breakfasts you've got to try if you ever find yourself in our city. RECOMMENDED: The best prata shops in Singapore and the best hawker centres in Singapore

Craft beer has definitely come a long way since POTUS Jimmy Carter legalised US Homebrewing but it wasn’t really till 1980 when Sierra Nevada perfected the Pale Ale. Fast forward to recent years, the US now has over 7,000 craft breweries in operation with no sign of slowing down. Now, this global phenomenon has gained real traction in Singapore over the decade with plenty of local microbreweries brewing up a storm while dedicated purveyors of craft beers import an excitable range of craft beers from around the globe to cater to all hopheads alike. So for all y'all hop-lovin' folks out there, here is a comprehensive list of where to go for the craft beers and get yourself acquainted with the freshest hop juice on the island.  RECOMMENDED: The best new bars in Singapore to have a drink at in the city and the 50 best bars in Singapore

It's high (tea) time that Singapore's new breed of tea brands are stepping up. Coffee drinkers may be rampant, but we'll always love the calm and class that comes with tea drinking. Dropping a touch of modernity into this afternoon delight, here is a list of local tea brands and blends to try. RECOMMENDED: The best coffee roasters in Singapore and the 50 best cafés in Singapore

While we could pop some pills for our daily dose of Vitamin A through to Zinc, we'd much rather sip on freshly squeezed juice. These juice bars in Singapore offer individual bottles for when you're craving something sugary after a carb-heavy lunch or juice cleanses if you want to go on a full-on detox. Even if you're not on a mega healthy diet or a vegan phase, there's something life-affirming about sucking down a cold cup of nature's sweet nectar, especially to cool off from Singapore's scorching heat. RECOMMENDED: The best vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Singapore and the best vegetarian local food in Singapore

For far too long, rum has been living under the shadows of gin, whisky, and its other spirit sisters. It is now ready to take the spotlight, fuelled in part by a handful of bars who are stocking their shelves with bottles of rum from around the world.  It’s easy to see why: distilled from sugarcane, the versatile spirit can be enjoyed neat as it is, with ice, or shaken into cocktails to create a greater range of flavours. The spirit is slowly getting the spotlight it deserves – with these specialised bars and their rum-focused creations.  RECOMMENDED: The best specialist bars in Singapore and the best wine bars in Singapore

We're thankful for the K-wave, not just for its catchy tunes and idol heart-throbs, but also for the influx of Korean restaurants that have considerably brightened our international dining scene. While we love bibimbap, bulgogi and soondubu as much as the next person, however, it's nigh impossible to beat the addictive, flavourful crunch of Korean fried chicken. Here, we pick out the places that do it best.  RECOMMENDED: Where to get the best fried chicken in Singapore and the best burgers in Singapore

Put back that six-pack of watery beers or the cheap Argentinian wine you were about to pick up at the supermarket. At your next BYO barbecue or house party, up your drinks game with a handsome bottle or two of these pre-made cocktails. Sunday Punch, set up by men’s magazine editor Mark Tay and his partner Yap Hwee Jen – she has more than ten years’ experience working for drinks companies – put together bar-worthy cocktails that you can take home and sip. The wax-sealed 500ml bottles, with their hand-sketched labels, pack about eight to ten good servings of cocktails tinkered and tailored at one of the city’s cocktail bars. Plus, they’ve been road-tested with un-fancy barware and ice – just like how you might drink it at a house party. The cocktails on offer alternate between spirit-forward mixes like All Night ($72) – Rouge French Vermouth infused with allspice, earl grey tea leaves, cinnamon and coffee beans, neatly balanced with Cynar and elderflower – and refreshing gin-based #88 ($68), with pineapples, lemongrass and French vermouth. It’s all good fun tilting your head to pour out that exacting jigger of tequila, and hearing ice rattle about in your shaker. But unless you have a well-stocked bar to mix drinks, you’ll probably find yourself falling back on a bottle of Sunday Punch to help you and your friends drink better cocktails at home.  Order online at drinksundaypunch.com.

Alongside the rush of brave independent concepts opening over the last few years, it seems as though local diners have munched full circle back to franchise restaurants. If the ’90s and early naughts were marked by long waits around Swensen’s, Jack's Place and Seoul Garden, 2015 and 2016 are seeing hot holiday pilgrimages set up church in Singapore.  Driving a part of this resurgence is Vatos Urban Tacos, the first international outpost of the Seoul Ko-Mex chain, brought to Singapore via club kids Massive Collective. The brainchild of Korean-Americans Sid Kim, Jonathan Juweon Kim and Kenny Park brings together tasty ganjang- and ssamjang-marinated meats with messy Mexican fare – it even served as a diplomatic stop on John Kerry’s tour to the South Korean capital. And that Kim has decamped here to align this outlet with his seven back home is surely an encouraging sign. A quick glance through Vatos' menu and you begin to see where some Seoul-emulating restaurants in Singapore borrow their kimchi-bending inspirations. It's hardly groundbreaking alchemy: tacos are usually a simple balance of inexpensive cuts, veg and citrus. But even then, Vatos excels. The shells here are less rugged cornmeal circles and more smooth, springy wraps that resemble gujeolpan or popiah skins. Any quibble on their merits is quashed at first bite. Clean-chewing beef galbi short rib is an exploding flavour piñata of heat, sharp onion pickles and garlicky meat. Baja-style battered fish tacos are a compl

Since its opening in 2015, Odette has been awarded three Michelin stars, ranked highly on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and even snagged first place on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2019 and 2020 – and for good reason. Led by chef Julien Royer, Odette serves up French cuisine infused with a unique sense of place through his time in Asia. One dining experience here can set you back $348 (five course lunch, or a seven course dinner), but don’t think the lofty price deters others from coming to Odette as you may have to make your reservation at least two weeks in advance to secure a seat in the main dining room. Review by Natasha Hong – 16 November 2015 With the fluid pace at which chefs in this town flutter between restaurants, few manage to snag headlines when they find a new job. Yet Julien Royer's departure from JAAN for his own joint venture with The Lo and Behold Group has been followed at every turn. Needless to say, of the nine F&B establishments opening with the National Gallery Singapore, Odette has psyched local diners up the most. Those willing to wait up to two weeks for one of the 32 seats here won't find themselves disappointed. (Pro tip: gather at least six diners and you can book a private dining room in less the time.) Taking the registration room of the former Supreme Court is an ethereally austere space where the marvel is in the details. Artist Dawn Ng's cut-out motifs float like butterflies over the centre of the dining room, and glass slid

There’s no shortage of Japanese dining in Tanjong Pagar, and the yoko chou – 'eating district' in Japanese – now has a new sake-drinking spot.  The sake menu is lean, and the busy kitchen hands don’t do justice for the exclusive bottles like the Dassai Junmaidaigin Jyo 50 ($17.80/shot, $22.80/160ml, $94.80/720ml) that Keisuke 'Ramen King' Takeda sometimes hand-carries into town. We're told how to order with the help of the 'sake meter' next to each bottle on the menu – negative numbers tell you how sweet, and positive digits how dry – then arbitrarily pointed to the Kamoshibito Kuhei Ji Jumaidaigin Jyo ($19.80/shot, $26.80/160ml, $108/720ml), because the 'zero' rating straddles dry and sweet. The sake-unacquainted will have better luck sticking to familiar stuff. Japanese beers such as Asahi ($9.80-$11.80) and Sapporo ($9.80) are available by the bottle, alongside cheap Tokyo-style sour shochu cocktails ($8.80) in flavours like Calpis and green tea. Japanese whisky ($6.80-$34.80/shot, $138-$188/ bottle) here includes familiar labels like Hibiki 12, Taketsuru 21 and the hyped-up Yamazaki 18.  The snacks at Takeda Shoten easily double up as meals. The chef’s signature creativity shows up in unique oden options like tender beef cheek ($4) and pork belly ($4), molten ramen eggs ($3) and melting nubs of beef tendon ($4). The broth itself is reminiscent of a homely Chinese pork bone soup.  His other spins include misoflavoured grilled cream cheese ($9.80), which harks of Takeda’s F

There’s a new chef in the kitchens of Yan, but the same comforting flavours of Cantonese cuisine remains. The seafood-focused menu reflects the head chef Ng Sen Tio’s love for the ingredient. It starts with the fried minced duck meat and cuttlefish paste in egg pancake ($14) – a rare, heritage dish that he first learned in the 1970s. As you move on to the mains, seafood takes center stage, or pot, in Yan’s case. Lobsters and clams are used to flavour porridge ($18/ 100g) in one of Yan’s signature dishes, while scallops and prawns are mixed into a paste with chicken and beancurd to go with a nourishing golden pumpkin broth ($18).  – Original review by Natasha Hong on November 16 2015 Plush Chinese you won’t write home about The onslaught of modern restaurants with their mashed-up cuisines means it’s tough for a traditional Chinese joint to stand out. So Yan is counting on its National Gallery location and a Cantonese chef veteran with 20 years of experience, Chan Kung Lai, as its draws.  This Park Hotel Group venture is part of a duplex below rooftop bar Smoke and Mirrors. Vibrant orange, pink and red threads string some privacy between intimate booths, red tassels hang off sleek grey dining chairs, and cherry blossoms texture plates on white-clothed tables. The decor still evokes connotations of a plush Chinese restaurant, as do the dishes, which are firmly rooted in Cantonese flavour.  Like most establishments of its genre, the book-like menu can be intimidating to navigate.

It’s shaping up to be the year of The International Franchise® for the local dining scene. New York’s simply named Burger Joint is another one in the convoy rolling in from overseas, and it’s here to try its luck with Singaporeans’ love for patty and bun. On the back alley of Gemmill Lane, shift through the metal doors next to the neon burger sign, run your fingers down the red velvet curtained passageway, and enter the joint. Split into burger kitchen and craft beer bar, the space feels like an underground bunker, clad in graffiti-covered swirly timber. ‘It’s almost creepy how much this one looks like the original in New York,’ an expat friend tells us in shock horror. The menu of hamburgers ($17.10), cheeseburgers ($17.80), bacon burgers ($19.10) and bacon cheeseburgers ($19.80) is scrawled on torn-off sheets of packing cardboard tacked to the wall, as are instructions on how to order right – 'or else you go to the end of the line!' it menaces in bubble calligraphy. (Another scribble below de-claws the threat: ‘I’ve never seen anyone return to the back of the line, so chill!’) Choose a burger, its doneness and trimmings like lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, ketchup, mayo and mustard. We’re never fans of paying extra for fries, but the crispy shoestrings ($5.50), salted just so, are a must. Local franchisees Nicholas and Benedicte Heaney have piled on the effort to replicate the NYC experience here, hiring a staff butcher to break down and grind Nebraska-raised beef daily

Start hunting for jobs in the near-West. Live music behemoth Timbre tunes into the food court game, and its new spot in close proximity to the '-polises' in Buona Vista gathers some of the city's hottest F&B names to set up shop between artfully stacked containers and in imported trailers. Here are the spreads we surveyed at this food joint.    The World is Flat (#01-04/05) Mon-Sat 11am-9.30pm It's hard to believe that the Tanuki Raw crew managed to hide a pizza oven in their offshoot in a cat bus – swoon, Totoro fans – but they have. And damn, does it churn out some good pie. The Fat Samurai ($9/slice, $49/pie) pays homage to Chicago deep dish with plenty of sturdy charcoal-black dough holding up a satisfying mess of confit duck, beef, cabbage, prawns, bacon, burnt onions, generous lashings of balsamic okonomiyaki sauce, and flutters of bonito flakes. Kush (#01-36)Mon-Sat 11.30am-10.30pm Get your head out of that 4/20 haze. The Quarters' chef Chung Deming's second effort serves skewer bowls ($8.80-$12) filled with coal-fired kushiyaki sticks with South-East Asian flavours, served in dons of Japanese rice with sambal kangkong and an oozing yolk. The familiar flavours in the chicken and pork ball sticks could be more pronounced, but the cook time on them is spot on.  Also on the menu at Kush: Angus ($42/250g) and wagyu rib-eyes ($58/250g) to ball out when boss drops the news on your annual bonus. Served to us on a grey slate, each slice of wagyu beef (marble score 6) wears a t

If 19th-century banker John Gemmill were alive today, you’d surely find him unwinding on his namesake street. The short side road off Club Street has become the more legit bar-and-restaurant quarter in the area – and now, Gemmills, by the same folks behind Moosehead and Maggie Joan’s, is boosting the buzz. Gemmills is the kind of bar – it also serves breakfast and lunch – you’d imagine deepconversation types to hit up. Wine is its poison of choice. You won’t have to spend too much, either: handwritten price tags ranging from $50 to $110 hang off bottles of Australian, Italian and New Zealand red and whites – pretty reasonable fees. At the food counter, a wooden platter of cheeses tame as Comte ($6) and stinky as Spanish Cabralde de Romain ($8), as well as charcuterie ($7-$10) can be ordered by weight.  In the day, noshing in the mellow room is kept just as simple. A pegboard advertises a legume salad of lentils, chickpeas and Parmesan shavings ($10), and a glass display case makes pointing for a tart of the day ($10) easy-peasy.  Gemmills’ choice to do away with the frills in favour of giving the ’hood a no-nonsense watering hole with good-value food and drinks is a breath of fresh air we’re sure John would approve of.  But if you’re in a hurry, there’s a grab-and-go coffee corner near its entrance where you can order a latte ($4), toasted croissants ($4.50) and housemade granola with fruits and yogurt ($8) to go. 

Perhaps a signal of flagging café food standards of late, this hot Neil Road joint appoints itself a 'gastro-café' to highlight its flavour-forward leanings. And The Populus definitely lives up to its tag. The rice and grain bowls ($18.50-$24) – they’re topped with all manner of vegetables and meats like pulled pork, teriyaki salmon and truffle-scented seared wagyu – are Instagram favourites that taste as hearty as they photograph. As is the server-recommended seafood linguine ($24), with al dente spools of bisque-coated pasta next to nubs of crabmeat and scallops. Fork out another ten bucks to add a tail of butter-poached lobster. Given that co-owners Andrew Lek and Kang Yi Yang borrow references from Down Under, smashed avocado shows up smeared on robust multi-grain bread along with vinaigrette-slicked musses of kale, broccoli, spinach and other greens on the Superfood Platter ($20).  One tip to getting a balanced meal here is to have a tall swirl of ice cream on waffles – like the raspberry- and passionfruit-soured Dark Chocolate Sundae ($14) – with a cup of coffee to kill the sugar. Because the other part of the owner equation here, local roasting outfit 2Degrees North Coffee Co, trains its barista team well enough to offer suggestions on the ideal milk-to-espresso ratio for the three signature blends of coffee ($4.50-$5.50) and single-origins ($6-$6.50). At times, the café’s house rules can come across as churlish: it discourages doggie bags by implementing a $2 surcharg

Angela May Food Chapters is the kick-off of Deliciae Hospitality Management's attempt at breaking into the Orchard Road market after a heyday in Duxton. To do this, the group has tipped American-Thai TV host and Le Cordon Bleu Sydney alum Angela May to breathe her green and herby vision into a perch above the sidewalks of Robinsons at The Heeren.  In this corner spot sectioned off from high street fashion, the space never quite harnesses the breezy, sun-washed urban farm potential of its wide windows. Instead, Deliciae’s chosen to pack tables close together in an echoey room, next to macaron-shaped coffee tables, mini-armchairs for bags too dainty to touch the ground, and two futuristic hydroponic pods that wear vibrant stalks of kale, sage and rosemary. Interestingly, the restaurant switches on a special set of lights to ensure they continue to thrive overnight.  The all-day à la carte menu is flash fiction with a cagey plot – not to mention confusing. Do we order apps-mains-dessert, or will we be full just getting a salad? The answer to the latter is no. The bowl of cold green scallion noodles ($18) is a pantry-raid dish with limp shiitake slices and pickled cucumbers – the flavours never once meet in a happy place. The recommended sugar snap pea salad ($22) is a grassy and bland forkful, while the smoky Josper-fired prawns ($26) don’t match a mouth-drying bowl of jicama, sesame dressing and baby radishes. The green revolution in restaurants has taken us to new levels of ap

It sounds easy enough: you get a good piece of beef, cover it with breadcrumbs, and deep fry it ’til the crust reaches a golden brown. Yup, the Japanese invention sounds pretty unusual, but Ginza Kushi Katsu proudly stands by its first-in-Singapore claim of bringing the crisp-jacketed, red-in-the-middle cuts made popular by restaurants like Gyukatsu Motomura and Gyukatsu Okada in Tokyo to a spot here with basic pine-toned interiors.  The main reason for stepping into the fast-casual restaurant, unfortunately, leaves us feeling a little moo-dy. The featureless, un-mottled Australian beef fillet ($24.80/90g set, $34.80/180g set) fails to punch through the pong of vegetable oil cooked into the crumbly crust, and we're forced to plonk the grey half of the steak on a sizzling grill to keep things appetising. Having a steak with chopsticks calls for a tender-to-the-teeth cut, but we're left unglamorously pulling at sinewy meat here – maybe plan your dates somewhere else. The rest of the menu covers the whole gamut of Japanese fare, with three types of ramen broths and seasonings ($18.80 with a side dish), fragrant hamburg steaks ($18.80/set), baked salmon ($18.80) and pork sukiyaki ($18.80) cooked in a foil wrapper, and a healthy option of pork and vegetables served in dim sum baskets ($16.80/set). If you do find yourself ducking in after ditching the Din Tai Fung queue, aim your fingers instead at the breaded kushiyaki sticks on the iPad ordering system. Skewered and not-too-oily

Three years ago, Saint Pierre took the pomp of its brand of fine dining down to maxi dress levels of chill by making the move to Quayside Isle. It seemed fitting at the time, when young upstarts were flourishing plates with foraged herbs in approachable dining rooms and egalitarian prices.  Fast-forward to the present, and Saint Pierre is in the news again for swimming against the tide and ditching the island life for a narrow room facing the glitter of the Marina Basin. The restaurant brands this as an 'evolution of a soul' – chef-owner Emmanuel Stroobant's soul, to be exact. The man has returned to his haute cuisine grooming bred from his Belgian beginnings, Australian adventures and move to Malaysia, before sashaying to Singapore in 1999.  Fancy eating Saint Pierre-style is played out in a long room on the second floor of One Fullerton, where tables of twos and threes get shimmery vistas of the Bay. Bigger groups of six can book a private room, or settle into one of the nooks carved out at the back of the echoey space.  Meals are served in seasonal tasting menus: the six-course omnivorous Earth ($158) and vegetarian Nature ($148), and the ten-course Grand Earth ($188) and Grand Nature ($178). Lunch with the full works is priced between $85 (four courses) and $100 (four courses with cheese), and a tasting menu ($85/four courses) for kids – each dish highlights one of the four tastes – has also been carved out by Stroobant, a father of two.  Amuse bouche is a quartet of appe

Finally, a reason for us aurally un-lightened types to breach the mental sound barrier into LongPlay. After a year of listening parties and music legend-themed cocktails, The Unlisted Collection's cocktail bar with a sweet vinyl rig takes on a chef to churn out ambitious meals from the tiny open kitchen bar on the Haji Lane end of the long room.  Taking the honour is Chilean expat Jorge Valderrama, whose passages through kitchens in the Southern Hemisphere brings him city-side. Over a two-burner stove, he works in quick-step tandem with a sous chef to turn out seasonal starters, mains, drinking snacks and desserts, applying a deft hand to balancing chiles imported from his home continent, and other times referencing the Thais and Italians.  The tuna carpaccio ($22) is memorable with its ceviche-like punch but another starter of chunky chorizo- and onion-stuffed baby squids ($18) is more one-dimensional. For a warming bowl of Neruda's Caldillo seafood stew ($30) – a Chilean sister to the French's bouillabaise – meaty ling cod fillets bask in a mild, light orange broth built on amarillo and panca peppers, brought here by a Peruvian importer. Bargain-hunting carnivore types will also appreciate the medium-rare hanger ($33) that comes dressed with a spirited parsley-rich chimichurri relish.  With the relative success of the new food items on the menu, we wish the drinks caught up in execution. LongPlay’s homage to Lucille Ball ($22) is too smouldering, pitting too-strong coffee f

Make a kick-ass eggs Benny at home as Cheek By Jowl's head chef Rishi Naleendra shows you his localised take on the classic (hint: it's got char siew) Pickled mushroom salad  A zingy side salad to lift the rich flavours of molten eggs and killer char siew on the plate. You'll need 100g shredded mushrooms 50g soya sauce 30g black Chinese vinegar or Chinese rice vinegar 20g sugar 10g sesame oil Fresh mint, shredded Black and white sesame seeds Freshly sliced apples Method 1 One day before you serving, combine liquids and sugar in a bowl and whisk.  2 Pour liquid over the mushrooms, wrap with cling film and place it in a warm place until the mushrooms get softer. After a few hours, store in a pickling jar in the fridge.  3 Before serving, toss pickled mushrooms and its juice, fresh mint, sesame seeds and apples to create the salad. Set aside.  Chive hollandaise This is a hollandaise version of a chive butter sauce that Rishi uses at Cheek by Jowl.  You'll need 125g unsalted butter 2 large egg yolks 1 tsp Dijon mustard 1 tbsp white wine vinegar 25g chopped chives 15g chopped green spring onions Method 1 Melt butter. Incorporate chives and spring onions into the butter using a hand blender.  2 Whisk egg yolks over a bain marie, add mustard and keep whisking. Slowly pour in spring onion and chive butter. Whisk until sauce thickens and is smooth and creamy. Set aside.  Rishi's char siew Rishi's killer char siew recipe, which uses Korean gochujang paste for a kick.   You'll need

'I'm excited about eating mouse, but I'm not excited about eating mousse,' declares nine-year-old Goh Zhi Yi, one of our food critics for the day. We’re at chef Emmanuel Stroobant’s restaurant Saint Pierre, where big foodie words like ‘quinoa’, ‘bubbles’ and ‘kelp’ fill the special Flora and Fauna menu ($85/child), designed to educate kids aged seven to 12 about the five tastes: sour, umami, sweet, salty and bitter. So we got Zhi Yi – and a shy, but expressive seven-year-old, Wang Ling Xuan – to lend us their taste buds to sample the meal.  First course: SourA bowl of momotaro tomatoes, white balsamic sorbet, tomato foam and cashew nut papadum. Zhi Yi: Is it tomato sor-bett? So we're just eating tomato? [Eats some, scrunches face] It's sour and sweet. Ling Xuan: The tomato is sour. ZY: I think they put pepper on the top. Can I don't finish it? I don't want to eat the foam. [Service team removes the cutlery and plates and returns with a new set.] ZY: [Rolls eyes] A new fork and spoon?!   Second course: UmamiStacks of turnip, coconut and quinoa, avocado cream and hair-like squirts of kelp draw the shape of a face on the plate. LX: I like the hair. The hair is salty. [Stabs at the eyes] The eyes are spicy. ZY: It has coconut in it. [Chef brings a special Susu soft roll, made with extra milk just for kids.] ZY: [Grabs bread and spreads kelp on it] The bread is nice with the hair. Better than peanut butter. LX: [Abandons dish for bread. Crams all the bread in her mouth, smiles.]

After a ten-year wait (Bukit Timah folks, you can stop complaining now), the north-western flank of the Downtown Line finally whirs into life come December 27. So in celebration of that, we’ve devised a pub crawl along the MRT line that’ll take you to heartland bars, pubs and kopitiams you never thought to visit. The rules are simple: gather a troop of your craziest friends and hit the tracks. At every stop, visit a nearby pub, coffee shop or supermarket and down a drink. We don’t recommend hard liquor neat, because it’s bad luck to puke on a train on its first day of operations. Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to finish your booze before the next stop. And may no train faults delay your alcoholic odyssey. Stop 1: Bukit Panjang (DT1)  Gather the gang at the cowboy-themed Buckaroo BBQ and Grill behind the Sri Murugan Hill Temple along Upper Bukit Timah Road, and order a couple of bottled Desperados and a tower of battered onion rings. Take the ring as a symbolic commitment that you'll stick by the group through EZ-Link gantries. Stop 2: Cashew (DT2) Hup Choon Eating House at 794 Bukit Timah Road is famous for its zi char and sweet and sour pork, but you're not there to eat. You're there for the Tiger twa kee (tall boys at 750ml).  BLooiE's BBQ Beer Butt Chicken Stop 3: Hillview (DT3) Walk down Upper Bukit Timah Road towards Rail Mall. American diner BLooiE's Roadhouse pours Tiger, Heineken, Guinness and Erdinger White on tap (from $8).  Stop 4: Beauty World (DT5)  If t

Bangkok started the ball rolling in Asia two years ago, before Seoul and Tokyo did a me-too. And now, Singapore will join the club of cities to get a Mikkeller Bar – ours will be at Deck, that gorgeous stack of containers on Prinsep Street. Photo: Ahmad Iskandar Photography Shush, beer geeks, we know it's a pretty big deal. For the average drinker, though, here's what you should know: the gypsy brewer – it borrows facilities from other breweries, but gets them to breathe life into its own recipes – from Copenhagen started as a wildly experimental cult brand in 2006. It has since grown into a global empire that has annexed draft rooms, bottle shops and beer-and-bites concepts around the world, and puts together the kick-ass annual Copenhagen Beer Celebration festival, where head honcho Mikkel Borg Bjergsø taps on his black book to showcase some of the world's best breweries. And of course, there's a portfolio of coveted, still-wildly-experimental brews with plenty of character that has earned this Danish brand a firm following.  Mikkel Borg Bjergsø outside the Mikkeller at DECK     Now, after three years of negotiations, Corrine Chia and Lincoln Goh – they’re the folks behind local distribution outfit The Drinking Partners and tap bar Druggists – are setting up the city’s first licensed Mikkeller spot. Between two 40-foot containers, a total of 20 taps pour brews exclusively from the mothership. Three house brews – the Bugis Brown, Prinsep Pilsner and Waterloo Wit – are th

Demochoco’s chocolatier-owner Lim Jialiang shows how you can make all-purpose salted egg yolk sauce to slather over treats at home. You'll need Ÿ 150g (or 12) salted egg yolks 30g unsalted butter 75ml full cream Salt and sugar to taste Optional: chilli padi and curry leaves Method 1. Steam salted egg yolks over medium heat for 20 minutes – if you’re using fresh salted egg yolks, they’ll cook in 15.     2. Mash salted egg yolks with a fork – resist all urges to start snacking on them immediately. For a smoother sauce, use a food processor. 3. In a frying pan over low heat, melt the butter, but don’t let it brown. Add the mashed-up yolks and cook ’til they start frothing in the pan. This is a necessary step to make the sauce richer and to remove the funk from the eggs. 4. Add room temperature full cream and mix vigorously to incorporate. For a runnier sauce, go for a 1:2 ratio of full cream to egg yolks; for a thicker sauce, try a 1:3 ratio. Season with salt and sugar to taste. 5. For a spicy kick, add three chopped fingers of chilli padi after your cream. Fry curry leaves with a small amount of butter over low heat in a separate pan, and garnish the completed sauce with curry leaves when you're ready to serve.     6. Pour on everything. We love having the chunky sauce on a scoop of salted vanilla ice cream and as a dip for fries, but you do you. Lim sells salted egg and cereal chocolate truffles at www.demochoco.com. Read our review of hyped-up salted egg dishes in Si

After the high of this year's Singapore Cocktail Week, the local drinks scene gets another dose of happy juice: the city's picked up nine spots on the Asia's 50 Best Bars list, including number one on the list. Manhattan   That honour went to 28HKS, who beat out bars in Hong Kong, Tokyo (including Hidetsugu Ueno’s Bar High Five) and Shanghai to pick up first place. Manhattan and Operation Dagger also cosied up to the top ten, while the Jigger and Pony Group saw three of its establishments – Jigger and Pony, Gibson and Sugarhall – make the cut, too.  Gibson's bar programme director, Aki Eguchi   Across the Causeway, the guys from Omakase + Appreciate picked up Malaysia's only honours, coming in at a respectable tenth place. Elsewhere on the list, Hong Kong picked up nine notches, Japan trails behind with eight, Bangkok with six and Taipei with five bars on the list. That’s your holiday drinking itinerary, sorted.  Announced on social media last night, this is the first regional edition of the World's 50 Best Bars list, put together by international trade mag, Drinks International. The bars were selected by a panel of bartenders, consultants, brand ambassadors and journalists, each of whom were tasked to pick their top five bars – including two outside their country of work.  Here are Singapore's rankings, at a glance:  #1: 28HKS #5: Manhattan #7: Operation Dagger #8: Jigger & Pony #12: Tippling Club #13 D.Bespoke #22: Gibson #43: Anti:dote #48: Sugarhall 

*According to this year’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Awards season is upon us again, and if you've noticed your favourite chefs Instagramming from Bangkok over the last few days (we're looking at you, Willin!), they were probably there for the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2016 awards ceremony, the results of which were announced last night at the W Bangkok.  André Chiang of Restaurant AndréPhoto: Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2016, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna         Like last year's rankings, Gaggan (Bangkok) and Narisawa (Tokyo) kept their firm grip on the top two spots on the list, respectively. Our restaurant-frenzied city continued to hold on to 20 percent of the list of 50, with André Chiang's eponymous Bukit Pasoh restaurant ascending to third place. While there have been industry murmurs of the ‘accuracy’ of the voting system, and this very public calling-out of the awards, the 2016 rankings of Singaporean restaurants should be garnering far more public interest, especially with our very first Michelin Guide slated to be published later this year.  Jason Tan of Corner HousePhoto: Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2016, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna           Still, we've got to give mega props for born-and-bred talents Jason Tan and Willin Low for breaking the celebrity chef ceiling of the Singaporean entries on the list. Tan's Corner House leapt into the impressive 17th position, and Low's Wild Rocket entered at a respectable 38th. Tarte and Les A

In the battle of food delivery services, will the kangaroo leapfrog the panda? We put Deliveroo and Foodpanda to the test   Deliveroo Variety: Deliveroo is all about making 'hyper-localised' deliveries of premium restaurants, which probably explains why our food arrived in about 30 minutes. We had 33 options to pick from at lunch, and an additional 21 to preorder for later – most restaurants on the list are within 1.3 kilometres from our office on Ann Siang Road. Fees: No minimum order, but for receipts below $25, delivery is charged at $5. Orders above $25 are billed a $3 Roo Charge. Cool offerings: Burgers from Potato Head Folk, The Butchers Club and MEATliquor, all-day breakfast food from Group Therapy, and lattes and cold-brewed coffee from Dapper Coffee. Service: We received an email right after placing our order to let us know it went through, but had to wait up to 20 minutes for confirmation from the restaurants we ordered from. Our pasta order from OCF was rejected after 10 minutes, and we found ourselves scrambling for a backup. Thankfully, our eggs benny from Group Therapy  arrived with poached eggs still wobbly, and pastas from Food for Thought came piping hot.   Foodpanda Variety: More than a hundred restaurants pop up for our location, with delivery times ranging from one to one and a half hours. It's mostly fast food and quck-service joints like Burger King, 4Fingers, The Soup Spoon and Swensens, most of which are quite a distance from our office. Good for whe

Dempsey's a pretty alright place to be if you're hankering after a fancy meal, but the district's about to get a serious boost in fashion cred. Come 2016, COMO Dempsey will debut at 17 and 18 Dempsey Road and features made-in-London retailer, Dover Street Market. The buildings, which came up for tender in August this year, were acquired by COMO Lifestyle, a brand part of the Club 21 and COMO Hotels group. Dover Street Market, opened by Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo and her husband Adrian Joffe, is much loved for its super sharp edit of brands that include Celine, Erdem, JW Anderson, Maison Margiela, Rick Owens and of course, Kawakubo's own label. The fab fashion multi-label store also frequently collaborates on limited edition collections with brands including UNDERCOVER, Stussy and Tiffany and Co. While details are still scant on the market's freshest outpost here, you can bet that DSMSG will be a much tinier, scaled-down version of the department stores in London, Ginza, New York and Beijing. After all, the Dempsey buildings are single-storey former British barracks. Plus, news releases on COMO's new store mention that it'll share the space with a restaurant and bar by Michelin-decorated Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Peranakan restaurant Candlenut by chef Malcolm Lee, and a flagship COMO Cuisine, which will serve signature dishes from the hotel group's properties from around the world. After a few relatively quiet years for the atas food district, this new super store might

While you're grubbing and glugging your way around town with your pals this festive season, you're bound to think to yourself, 'Damn, this is a good bar.' When that happens, make like a rum-starved pirate and register your nomination for 2016's return of The Bar Awards.  The annual accolades, run by bartender Tron Young and his partner Emily Seow, honour the city's best cocktail bars, new bars, grub, bartenders and service crew. And unlike previous iterations, the nominations and voting are now open to the public. You are, after all, the most integral part of the shake-strain-serve equation.  Until December 31, click the Awards' Google form to let them know your favourite establishments to hit up for creative cocktails, bartenders, service crew, bar grub, and even beer. A panel of bar professionals and owners, drinks connoisseurs, and food journalists will whittle down the nominees in ten categories, with the winners announced at The Bar Awards – Singapore 2016 party on March 13, 2016. The power (of next year's winners) is yours. 

  When was the last time you fabulously sipped coffee while balancing your bum on one of Chye Seng Huat Hardware's rusty stools? Now there's even more reason to return and be seen taking that overhead shot of your latte art. After a brief hiatus for a facelift at the end of January, the Jalan Besar hipster spot reopens its creaky gates with a more relaxed layout of outdoor seating and concrete planters, and minor visual tweaks to its three-year-old interiors.        On the coffee front, Synesso machines continue to jet out espressos ($3-$7) of CSHH’s house blends while a beer tap pours a creamy-bodied, highly potent nitro-draft coffee ($7). The café's geeky Coffee Bar also earns a sleek new Wilfa Precision maker to brew long blacks – the gorgeous device was made in collaboration with Norwegian roasting superstar Tim Wendelboe and is available for sale ($399) online and on CSHH's retail shelves.    For munching, old favourites like truffle popcorn ($7) and big Huat! breakfast ($18) with eggs, ham steak, chicken sausages, potato salad and butter croissant remain on the menu to pad the stomach from caffeine. Try the newly added open-faced Chicken Ramly ($16) if you're peckish – we relished our forkfuls of juicy thigh meat, eggs, piquant special sauce and bracing pickled veggies heaped on crisp bread. 

So, after years of industry murmuring, it's official: the Michelin Guide is finally coming to Singapore. The arbiter and kingmaker of good restaurants around the world – it's affiliated with French tyre company, Michelin – says its cabal of international inspectors have begun combing the city's many restaurants ahead of the red book's launch in the 'second half of 2016', according to The Straits Times. Hawker fare is also said to be getting its due in the guide, probably as Bib Gourmand (it refers to great food at affordable prices) recommendations. Singapore will join other food capitals in Asia like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Macau to have its own guide. Which means boasting that our locally based chefs are 'Michelin-starred' will finally have real value and meaning. What do you think about the vaunted guide coming to Singapore? And which restaurants do you hope to see get their stars?