NUS Eats

Singapore is a very tiny nation state, but it is known for its big taste in food! Singapore’s migrant history dates back to the 1800s, when Indians and Chinese were entering and leaving Singapore to work on tea plantations. With the mass Asian diaspora during the 1850s to early 1900s, culture remained within the area while people came and went. The most prominent aspect of culture is not only language and traditions, but also food.

Singapore is home to a wide variety of cuisines, ranging from: Indonesia, Malay, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indian, and more! At my school, NUS, the food is delicious and incredibly cheap! I can find endless amounts of satisfying entrees, snacks, and juices for around $0.50 – $5.00 SGD. Most students eat at the canteens that are within the different areas on campus. Each faculty (department) has its own building area and those sets of buildings have eateries for students, faculty, and staff. In a way, canteens serve as on-campus hawker centres, but not as good. Haha.

NUS canteen.

Lucky for me, I live a flight of stairs away from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences department, which conveniently has its canteen at the top of the steps! I tend to eat the canteen 2 or 3 times a week, mainly because I have a meal plan where my dorm provides me breakfast and dinner. I actually started buying loaves of bread for the market and using the spreads (kaya, peanut butter, Nutella, jam, etc.) they have in my dining hall to make sandwiches for breakfast. Then, I give the dining hall woman my reusable container which she fills up with noodles, rice, and wontons, fried fish cakes, or hash browns. This is then my lunch later in the day. I figured that if I don’t have to pay extra to eat every day, why do so? I’m not rich by any means and I can always use the money I save from eating around campus for trips to other countries!

However, when I do eat at the canteens around campus, I cannot decide what to get–everything is SO good! The food is fresh, delicious, and cheap! Life really can’t get much better than that! What I really like about NUS is that there are drink stalls. At the stalls they serve fresh-pressed juices and smoothies! You can get dragon fruit, orange, carrot, apple, you name it for about $2.00 SGD or less! They even have avocado smoothies. They sound really weird, but are actually super yummy.

Here are some of the things I eat around campus:

Waffles: I don’t know why the waffles here are green, but I really don’t care because they’re sweet and hot off the waffle iron. For only $0.80 I can get a fresh waffle! Add another $0.20-0.50, and I can get chocolate, peanut, or kaya added to the waffle. A sweet deal, indeed.

green waffle!

Laksa- you can barely see the noodles under all of the add-ons!

Laksa: A Singaporean favorite! Spicy noodles with your choice of fresh veggies, fish cake, eggs, and more! You get in line, grab a bowl, fill it with add-ons (about $0.30 – 0.50 each piece), and choose from four different types of noodles. The cook then adds hot, spicy, flavorful broth to your bowl and serves it to you for around $3.00! The line (known as a “queue”) gets SO long for laksa, but it’s totally worth it.

Vegetarian food: I personally love the vegetarian stall! The woman is always so nice and remembers that I order brown rice and broccoli every time. So far, this is the only stall I have found that offers brown rice and where most of the veggies are steamed rather than sauteed in oil. Also, there are fake meats that are really tasty as well as different tofu dishes. She also makes noodles and has a different special choice every day, which she always offers and lets me try. My meal from the veggie stall ranges between $2.00-3.20 each time, depending on how much food I get.

Noodles, veggies, rice, and imitation meat. Yum!

Indonesian-style curry chicken and rice!

Indonesian: One of the best stalls at the Engineering canteen is the Indonesian stall. They serve up some really good chicken entrees and always have curry on the side. For such a large serving, it’s only about $3.00 or less. If you get fried fish or two types of meat, it’s more expensive. Personally, the meal pictured above is just the right amount for me! Best of all, if I’m still hungry after eating all of that, I can go get a smoothie or fresh-pressed juice.

There are even more types of food to get that I haven’t tried. I’m on a mission to eat at every stall in every canteen before I leave! Hopefully, I can accomplish that and still fit on the airplane seat when I fly home in May. I guess we’ll see about that, though…