Everything on this site is written for people who live here, so a word like chope or tapao turns up without a footnote. This is the footnote. If you're on your first visit, First time in Singapore covers the rest of the basics.
- Alamak
- Oh no, from Malay. Said on finding the stall closed, the car park full or the queue already round the corner.
- Atas
- Posh, high-end, slightly above itself. A compliment about a restaurant and a dig about a person, depending on the eyebrows.
- Auntie
- See uncle. Any woman old enough to be your mother who is serving you food, and the person you want on your side in a hawker centre.
- Bak kut teh
- Pork ribs in soup, eaten for breakfast or late supper with rice and you tiao. The Singapore (Teochew) version is clear and peppery; the darker, herbal one is the Klang style from across the Causeway, and people have strong views about which is correct.
- Bee hoon
- Thin rice vermicelli. Fried for breakfast, in soup for lunch, and the thing under your economy rice when you have had enough rice.
- Bib Gourmand
- The Michelin guide’s category for good food at moderate prices, which in Singapore means a long list of hawker stalls. Here it is shorthand for cheap and correct, not for fancy.
- Bojio
- Hokkien for “you didn’t invite me”. The standard reply when a friend posts a photo of a meal you were not at.
- Cai png
- Economy rice, also called mixed rice: a counter of 20 or 30 cooked dishes, you point at two or three, they go on rice, and the auntie names a price that nobody has ever been able to predict. Lunch for most of the working island.
- Can / cannot
- Yes and no, as complete sentences. “Can” means it is possible, allowed and will be done; “cannot” closes the matter. We don’t write this way in the narrative voice, but you will hear it 40 times a day.
- Carrot cake
- Not a cake and no carrot. Chai tow kway: steamed radish cake chopped and fried with egg, white (plain) or black (with sweet dark soy). A breakfast and supper dish from a hawker wok, and nothing to do with cream cheese frosting.
- The Causeway
- The road and rail link from Woodlands to Johor Bahru in Malaysia. The weekend jam, the cheaper petrol and the Malaysian chains that opened here all come back to it.
- CBD
- The central business district: Raffles Place, Shenton Way, Tanjong Pagar and the Marina Bay towers. Dead on a Sunday, which is when the hawker centres in it are at their most pleasant.
- Cendol
- A dessert of shaved ice, coconut milk, palm sugar syrup and green pandan jelly strands, with red beans if you want them. Eaten at 3pm as a medical necessity.
- Char kway teow
- Flat rice noodles fried over high heat with dark soy, egg, cockles, Chinese sausage and lard. The lard is the point; the stall that offers to leave it out is being kind, not correct.
- Chilli crab
- Whole crab in a sweet, tomato-and-chilli gravy thickened with egg, eaten with the hands and with fried buns for the sauce. The national dish by tourist-board decree; residents order it for birthdays and visiting relatives, and often pick black pepper crab instead.
- Chope
- To reserve a seat, usually by leaving a packet of tissues, an umbrella or a staff pass on the table while you queue. Universally honoured and, for some reason, universally argued about.
- Coffee shop
- Not a café. A kopitiam: an open-fronted shop in a housing block or shophouse with a drinks stall and a handful of food stalls, cheaper and smaller than a hawker centre. See hawker centre for the difference.
- “Die die must try”
- A phrase you will hear and read, meaning something is not to be missed. We don’t use it; if a thing is worth it, we say why.
- Durian
- The spiky, custard-fleshed fruit with the smell. Banned on the MRT, in taxis and in most hotels, sold from roadside stalls in season by men who will open one for you with a cleaver. Mao Shan Wang is the one people pay for.
- Economy rice
- See cai png.
- Food court
- The air-conditioned, mall version of a hawker centre, run by one company with stalls on contract. Cleaner, cooler, dearer and usually blander; useful at 2pm.
- Hawker centre
- An open-sided, government-built food hall of independent stalls with shared tables. The hawker centre, the coffee shop and the food court are three different things: the first is public and the biggest, the second is a shophouse or void-deck version with a few stalls, the third is the mall version with air-con and a ten per cent premium.
- HDB
- The Housing and Development Board, and by extension the public flats it builds, where about four in five Singaporeans live. An “HDB estate” is a neighbourhood of them; “HDB” on this site means the flats, not the ministry.
- Heartland
- The housing estates outside the centre, where most of the island lives, eats and queues. Said with affection, and the opposite of atas.
- Hor fun
- Wide, flat rice noodles, usually served in a thick egg gravy with beef or seafood, or dry-fried with the wok’s char. Zi char stalls do it best.
- Ice kacang
- A mound of shaved ice over red beans, sweetcorn, jelly and attap seeds, drenched in coloured syrups and condensed milk. Looks like a child designed it and tastes like they were right.
- Kaya
- A jam of coconut milk, eggs and sugar, sometimes green with pandan. On toast with a slab of cold butter and two soft-boiled eggs it is the national breakfast, and still the cheapest good one on the island.
- Kiasu
- Hokkien for “afraid to lose out”. The queue that forms 40 minutes before opening, the second plate at the buffet, the tuition class on a Sunday. Singaporeans use it about themselves, cheerfully.
- Kopi
- Coffee, the kopitiam way: beans roasted with margarine and sugar, brewed through a cloth sock, served with condensed milk and sugar unless told otherwise. See the variants under kopi and teh.
- Kopi and teh variants
- The suffixes that make the order: O is black with sugar; C is with evaporated milk and sugar; kosong means no sugar; siew dai is less sugar; gah dai is more; gao is thick and strong; po is weak; peng is iced. They stack, so kopi C kosong peng is iced coffee with evaporated milk and no sugar, and the auntie will have it poured before you finish saying it.
- Kopitiam
- A coffee shop (kopi is coffee, tiam is Hokkien for shop). The old kind has marble tables and a man who has made the kaya toast since before you were born; the new kind is a chain in a mall. See coffee shop.
- Kueh
- The umbrella word for small Malay, Peranakan and Chinese sweets and snacks: steamed, layered, coconut-rich, mostly bright. Sold by the piece from trays; you point, they pack.
- Laksa
- Thick rice noodles in a coconut curry gravy with prawns, fishcake and cockles. The Katong version is cut short so you eat it with a spoon only, and the shops on East Coast Road have been arguing about who started it for decades.
- Lepak
- Malay for loafing: to hang about with no plan, usually somewhere with a fan and a drink. A verb, a mood and a way of spending Sunday.
- Makan
- Malay for eat, used by everyone for food, eating and the act of going to get some. “Makan already?” is a greeting, not an enquiry.
- Mee sua
- Very fine wheat noodles, usually served in a soup or with a thick, peppery pork broth. Birthday food in Hokkien families, because the long noodle means a long life.
- Milo dinosaur
- A tall glass of iced Milo with a heap of dry Milo powder on top. A prata-shop staple, ordered by adults who claim it is for the children.
- MRT
- Mass Rapid Transit, the train network. Six colour-coded lines, air-conditioned, mostly underground in the centre and on stilts outside it. Residents say the station name, never the line, unless you are new.
- Nasi lemak
- Rice cooked in coconut milk with sambal, fried anchovies, peanuts, cucumber and egg, plus fried chicken or fish if you are hungry, wrapped in banana leaf or on a plate. A Malay breakfast that has become everybody’s.
- Ngoh hiang
- Five-spice pork and prawn rolled in beancurd skin and deep-fried, sold at stalls that also fry prawn fritters, fishcake, century egg and anything else that will hold still. You pick with tongs; it comes chopped with a sweet pink sauce.
- Otah
- Spiced fish paste mixed with coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled over charcoal. Eaten on its own, with nasi lemak or on toast, and better from the east than almost anywhere.
- Paiseh
- Hokkien for embarrassed or sheepish. Said when you take the last piece, arrive late or have to ask the auntie to repeat the price.
- Popiah
- A soft, fresh spring roll filled with stewed turnip, egg, beansprouts, prawn and a sweet dark sauce, not fried. Made to order at the stall and eaten at once, because it does not keep.
- Rojak
- Two different dishes with one name. The Chinese one is a salad of pineapple, cucumber, you tiao and turnip in a thick prawn-paste dressing with crushed peanuts; the Indian one is a plate of fried things with a sweet red sauce. Both mean “mixture” in Malay, and both are better than they sound.
- Roti prata
- A flaky, griddled flatbread of Indian origin, served with a curry for dipping, plain or with egg, cheese or onion folded in. Prata for short. A late breakfast, a 2am supper and the reason the shops near Little India never close.
- Sambal
- Chilli paste, pounded with shallots, dried shrimp and whatever the cook’s mother used. It goes with nasi lemak, on stingray, into noodles and on the side of nearly everything; the heat varies by stall and by mood.
- Satay
- Skewers of marinated chicken, beef or mutton grilled over charcoal, served with peanut sauce, cucumber, onion and pressed rice cakes. Sold by the stick, ordered by the ten.
- Shiok
- The feeling of something being very, very good: the first spoon of laksa, the air-con after the car park, the shower after the run. The site is named after it, which is as much hype as we allow.
- Sian
- Hokkien for bored, fed up, over it. The Monday word.
- Tapao
- To take away. Say it at the stall and the food goes into a box, a bag or, for soup, a knotted plastic bag with a straw.
- Teh
- Tea, the kopitiam way: strong black tea with condensed milk and sugar. The variants are the same as kopi’s, so teh O kosong is plain black tea with nothing in it.
- Teh tarik
- Pulled tea: teh poured between two jugs at height until it froths, at Indian-Muslim stalls and prata shops. The pulling is for the texture and partly for the audience.
- Ulu
- Malay for far-flung, remote, the back of beyond. On an island you can cross in an hour, anywhere more than two MRT changes away.
- Uncle
- Any man old enough to be your father, especially a stallholder, taxi driver or the person who knows how the queue works. Polite, not familiar; everyone says it.
- Void deck
- The open ground floor of an HDB block, left empty for weddings, funerals, chess, a coffee shop and getting out of the rain. The heartland’s living room.
- Wet market
- The morning market for fresh fish, meat, vegetables and flowers, usually under the same roof as a hawker centre. The floor is hosed down as you shop, hence the name; go before 10am or there is nothing left but the smell.
- Yong tau foo
- Beancurd, chillies, bitter gourd and other vegetables stuffed with fish paste. You pick your pieces into a bowl, choose soup or dry, noodles or not, and pay by the piece. The healthy hawker lunch, which is why the queue is so long.
- You tiao
- Long fried dough sticks, Chinese crullers, cut up for dunking in bak kut teh, soy milk or kopi. Best within ten minutes of the fryer; after that, structural.
- Zi char
- Literally “cook and fry”: the cooked-to-order, home-style Chinese dishes served at coffee-shop stalls and open-air restaurants, ordered by the plate and shared. Cereal prawns, sambal kangkong, hor fun, a claypot of something. The best dinner out for a table of six.