Halfway through my fifth plate — at the charming but deeply unfortunately named Chew N Chat food court — it struck me why laksa Siglap remains less celebrated. The dish doesn’t quite conform to our contemporary conceptions of noodle comfort. Whereas Katong laksa delivers lush, immediate gratification, nothing about laksa Siglap feels readily accessible or streamlined for consumption: an exercise in textural convolution, its gravy is pulpy, its garnish crisp, and its noodles so defiantly chewy they stage a small rebellion in your mouth. The thick, tangled strands all but guarantee gravy splashes across shirts and table surfaces. 

And yet, that complexity and glorious messiness feels like precisely what makes Singaporean cuisine — and Singapore — so fascinating today.

For years, I had been trained to articulate Singapore through export-friendly narratives: efficient, innovative, Deliciousness For Dummies. These stories weren’t just invented, to be sure, but they were largely acronymic; they marketed Singapore as neat and winningly legible to the world. Like the spoon-friendly Katong laksa, they are universally appealing, if only because they’re necessarily uncomplicated versions of the Singaporean condition today. 

Since returning home, though, my most illuminating encounters with Singapore have been through less packaged experiences. I can’t say I’ve felt particularly inclined to visit any of the world-famous attractions, and God forbid I step foot in an Orchard Road shopping mall. All those are wonderful, yes, but my real re-education — in what makes Singapore fascinating today — has happened instead at dawn at Geylang Serai Market, watching Malay aunties and Michelin-starred chefs politely duelling over rare produce. At 4am frog leg porridge suppers beside sleepy Vietnamese karaoke hostesses, I’ve learnt how Singapore eats. In grungy indie galleries housed in restored Modernist shophouse lofts, I’ve watched how Singapore designs. At elaborate dinner parties inside botanical design studios hidden within industrial warehouses, I’ve experienced how Singapore hosts.

Like laksa Siglap, these versions of Singapore can be confounding, contradictory and occasionally chaotic. But they are, to me, where the real magnetism of Singapore today lies. In my homecoming journey, laksa Siglap has become an unlikely guide to understanding what it means to experience a city constantly deciding between movement and rootedness. 

Katong laksa will always have its place in my heart, and in the global imagination; it will always be our Miss Singapore Congeniality. Laksa Siglap happily gives us none of that spectacle, since it’s difficult to explain, it’s challenging in mouthfeel, and it splashes gravy on your shirt. It makes you work slightly harder for your dinner… and that’s precisely what makes it so ineffably delicious. 

Which, come to think of it, might be the most Singaporean experience of them all. 

Renjie Wong is a Singapore-based creative and founder of 52cc, a forthcoming private cultural space in the Joo Chiat-Geylang Serai neighbourhood, dedicated to presenting contemporary Singapore. He works across disciplines, showcasing Singapore via food, images, objects, and gatherings that celebrate wonder in the city’s everyday.

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