Singapore Restaurants

Singapore is a fantastic place to get a bite to eat. The city-state is extremely cosmopolitan, with cultural influences that come from China, India, and Malay cultures. Its history as a port town also means that there is a long tradition of hospitality here, and they know how to treat their guests. There is a wide array of restaurants here, with the cultural influences already listed, making up some of the most heady combinations of taste sensations in the world. There are also plenty of other international influences here that combine to the culinary culture, making Singapore restaurants some of the best in the world.

One of the innovations of the 20th century that speaks to the place is the invention of the Singapore Sling. This famous drink is usually a mixture of equal portions of gin, cherry brandy, and benedictine poured into sparkling water, with some variations according to place and their custom. It is one of the trademarks of Singapore. It was created in the early 1900s, by Ngiam Tong Boom, at the Raffles Hotel. The recipe was never written down, but re-created by the bartenders here based on memories of previous bartenders, along with a few notes on scratch paper. It is almost as famous outside of Singapore as it is locally.

It is an interesting metaphor for the place, in many ways. The drink itself is a variation on international recipes, then, as it is thrown into the international community, it has made itself into a kind of icon. The way this local recipe integrates world customs, then contributes back to pop culture, is almost a trademark of Singapore. This demonstrates the local capacity to take in and remix in a wonderfully post-modern way. Singapore Sling is also the name of an avant-garde goth band in Iceland, and a fairly disturbing cult film, directed by the Greek visionary Nikos Nikolaidus. The film is fairly shocking, and has very little to do with the drink, and the same could be said for the band. They are quoting an iconic status of the drink, and making statements about how art is made from pieces of what came before. These artistic re-creations of the name also speak to the way things move into iconic status in Singapore. While you’re here, enjoying the fantastic world-class cuisine, have a Singapore Sling and drink it with irony, and you’ll almost feel like a local.