Singapore is a city of vibrant jungle greens, crisp colonial pastels, and gleaming silvery consumerism. It is the cleanest, most diverse, most expensive, and most international-feeling place we've been on this trip. It's also the only major city I've ever been to that didn't smell occasionally of garbage, and I found myself thinking "can we send someone from the New York sanitation dept over here to figure this magic out?"

Singapore reminded me exactly of New York in its food culture, however, because Singapore is a place where the best laksa, roti, or chili crab can be found in a little shop just across from a remote subway stop, or at stall 41 in a suburban hawker center, or at a cart that parks on a specific corner in Little India on alternate Tuesdays. There are always rumors to chase down and discoveries to be made, and the best of anything is always just around the corner. That means it is a fantastic foodie city to live in, but a culinary tour in a day and a half is just not possible, even if you could shell out a fortune for cabs and didn't mind missing the fantastic museums. (One of the fantastic museums, by the way, is the National Museum of Singapore, with its Food Gallery, which has to be one of the highlights of the entire trip for me.) The tourist office includes large culinary sections in all its materials and walking tours, and Makansutra prints guides and pamphlets of street vendors, but even with all the information, devotion, and money in the world, it would take months to explore the food scene in Singapore, and I am sure one could spend years and never tire of it. In fact, I think there are more food bloggers in Singapore than pretty much anywhere else. (Sorry I don't have a good round-up, if anyone can suggest one, please do!)

And it is no wonder, because Singapore has been a center of cultural, and therefore culinary, interchange for hundreds of years. As early as the 15th century, Chinese immigrants to the area were creating the foundations of Peranakan culture, a blend of Chinese traditions and Malay influences. Since the founding of the British trading port there in 1824, this interchange has been accelerated and broadened by the powerful draw of commerce, bringing together Malay, Chinese, Indian, Arab, Indonesian and Western influences. The result is a catalog of dishes so long you could spend an afternoon just browsing the Wikipedia listing.

Nevertheless, we made our best try at sampling it, and managed to taste a few Singapore favorites:

At the Maxwell Food Center, which was mostly closed when we visited, we tried some rather fair versions of Laksa, a sour noodle soup of Peranakan descent, and Kway Teow, flat rice noodles in a sweet soy-based sauce with cockles and Chinese sausage.

At the Makansutra food court, charmingly called Gluttons Bay, we sampled Nasi Lemak, a comfort-food dish of coconut rice served with a variety of toppings and accompaniments - this version had fried and stewed chicken, dried anchovies, roasted nuts,egg, sambal and vegetables. Here we also had mee goreng, which simply means fried noodles, and roti prata kaya. Kaya is a coconut-egg jam, and roti prata is a fried pancake of Indian heritage - imagine a thick, tender crepe swaddling a buttery coconut custard.

Half-lost in one of Singapore's many malls, we practically tripped over Din Tai Fung, world-famous dumpling house - I try to find the time to make it out to their Arcadia branch every time I'm in CA, but I haven't yet managed it, so we had to stop in. The soup dumplings were a very solid performance, with an expertly-gauged skin thickness, but simply not the best I've had - they lacked a certain umph. I think I like a more tender skin, even it is prone to breaking, and a thicker, richer broth.

We also tried a couple Singaporean beverages. No, I'm not talking about the Singapore Sling (although Greg did have one of the cough-syrupy concoctions), but teh tarik and teh halia. Tarik means pulled, and the teh, or tea, is poured from one container to another to create a frothy head on the hot, sweet, milky beverage. In teh halia, the tea is strongly flavored with ginger as well as milk and sugar. Another favorite was a green apple and aloe smoothie. Fresh fruit juices are available everywhere in Southeast Asia, but this has been my favorite by far - absolutely refreshing. Sometimes you can get chunks of whole aloe in your beverage, which I actually prefer because of the crisp, clean aloe texture, but this was in the blender before I could say so, and after tasting it, I couldn't complain, because the aloe added such a nice body to the drink.