Singapore: First Impressions

East Coast Seafood Centre: Jumbo Seafood

In my previous life, I used to handle the PR for the various departments of the Singapore government. It was always slightly ironic because I had never actually been to Singapore. I’m happy to report that I’m finally visiting this great city-state! I’m in Singapore this week for work and wanted to share some highlights from the past couple of days.

CHILI CRAB!

Of course, the first stop was chili crab. That’s all I wanted to eat so it seemed proper to visit Jumbo Seafood— arguable the most famous seafood restaurant in Singapore. While there are multiple locations, I would recommend going to the East Coast Seafood Centre because you can sit outside and enjoy a view of the sea.

How did Jumbo Seafood stack up to Fatty Crab? Truthfully, I liked the chili sauce better at Fatty Crab. Jumbo Seafood’s chili crab sauce was too sweet and wasn’t spicy enough. However, I was loving the deep-fried buns (炸馒头) at Jumbo Seafood and their crab definitely tasted fresher (the crab meat was sweet with a hearty texture).

Top left & bottom right: Views from ESSEC Singapore’s campus. Top right & bottom left: Model for the new campus, which will be built by December 2014.

This week is also great because my classmates and I are working from ESSEC’s Singapore campus. I appreciate seeing my soon-to-be alma mater’s campus on the other side of the world from Paris. ESSEC is also building a brand-new campus, which will be unveiled at the end of 2014.

Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre

Fresh Roti

I don’t think any trip to Singapore would have been complete without visiting one of the famous street food hawker centres. Major thanks to Edna who had blogged about Lau Pa Sat! The girl used to live in Singapore and I trust her taste in food.

Mang Kiko’s Lechon

Lau Pa Sat literally has any type of cuisine your heart could possibly desire. I walked around all the stalls twice to get a complete lay of the land and you could find Filipino, Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Italian food. I felt too greedy to have chili crab two nights in a row so my friend and I settled on garlic naan and lechon manok and liempo (roasted chicken and pork). We were two very happy campers. The naan was piping hot, slightly flaky and served with a delicious curry-based sauce. The roasted chicken at Mang Kiko’s Lechon was literally one of the best roasted chicken I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was juicy, tender and flavorful. I could tell it had been brined for a long time. Once I added the sweet gravy sauce, it was truly a euphoric moment.

As I sat there eating, I worried that I would never have chicken quite that good again. I highly recommend you go to Mang Kiko’s Lechon but don’t order the pork. That was dry and relatively tasteless. Chinese suckling pig is way better.

It’s been a fantastic couple of days and I can’t wait to see what is in store for the rest of the week!