Where will your tastebuds take you first - to the Michelin-starred hawker stalls of Singapore or to the sizzling street-side woks of Kuala Lumpur? Our duelling experts make the case for both.
SINGAPORE
By Amy Cooper
They call Singapore "the little red dot", thanks to its microscopic footprint on the map - and that, dear diners, is its secret sauce. Like the smallest drop of the spiciest sambal, the bite-sized city-state packs maximum flavour into minimum mass.
While Kuala Lumpur is merely an amuse bouche for the main course five hours northwards in Malaysia's true food capitals, Penang and Ipoh, Singapore compresses the Malay Peninsula's entire culinary kaleidoscope - Hokkien, Malay, Teochew, Nyonya, Javanese, north and south Indian, Eurasian, Peranakan - into a space traversable in less than 45 minutes.
It starts in that most implausible of places: an airport recognised for great food. I kid you not. Changi just scored World's Best Airport Dining (along with Best Airport) at the World Airport Awards. Before you've shown your passport, you're tempted by 80-plus eateries so good that locals go.
Singapore took street food into the culinary stratosphere. Hawker Chan and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle were the world's first Michelin-starred hawker stalls, and several more have earned the big M's Bib Gourmand status. In mega markets like the 42-year-old Newton Centre, Chinatown's Maxwell Centre, Little India's Tekka Centre and Old Airport Road Food Centre you need only follow your nose or the longest queue to find exceptional culinary craft for just a few dollars a plate - from painstakingly prepared sambal belacan to the throw-it-around theatre of fresh roti prata bread to the silky fresh noodles in char kway teow and prawn mee.
Dive into an intoxicating charcoal smoke cloud for a succulent skewer at Lau Pa Sat's "satay street", forage the Arab Quarter's laneways for babaganoush and kebabs, Chinatown's passageways for Hainanese chicken rice, or curries on banana leaves amid Little India's temples.
Forage the Arab Quarter's laneways for babaganoush and kebabs, and Chinatown's passageways for Hainanese chicken rice.
Hawker food is such a national treasure that Singaporean author Kevin Kwan was only half joking in Crazy Rich Asians when he wrote about locals having fistfights over the supremacy of their favourite stalls, and Singapore hawker culture is on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
If you prefer your fine-dining with a comfy seat and air-con, a stellar line-up includes Candlenut, the world's first Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant, and Labyrinth's epic degustation with 80 per cent sourced from the city's farms.
Of course, this epicurean city has an eponymous cocktail, and you can still sip a superb Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel's famous Long Bar, or discover why Jigger & Pony, Manhattan and Atlas bars are frequent flyers on the World's 50 Best Bars List. No wonder the UN just named Singapore Asia's happiest country. As Kwan also said: "There is nothing in the world that good food cannot fix."
KUALA LUMPUR
By Mal Chenu
Possibly the world's worst-named capital city (it means "muddy river confluence" in Malay), Kuala Lumpur more than makes up for this riparian PR fail with some of the best tucker available anywhere.
As a major trading hub, Malaysia has been exposed to Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Filipino, Arab, Thai, Portuguese, Dutch and British culinary influences. Malays have been blending these with their own ethnic expertise for centuries, and the result is a modern-day mouth-watering cornucopia of sensory delights.
One of the great joys of travel is sampling exotic street food, and KL is the street food capital of the world. But you mustn't stop at the first hawker's stall or market you find, no matter how delicious it looks.
The best way to build an appetite is to wander among the crowds, past the sizzling woks, taking in the spicy aromas and admiring the mesmerising skills. See the knives spin and the machetes fall. Check out the juggling, mixing, rolling and kneading. Watch kilos of noodles perform aerial ballet over huge, hot woks. It's dinner and a show.
Choose from traditional Malay favourites, such as satay everything, beef rendang, ayam percik (barbecued chicken), ikan bakar (char-grilled fish) and gulai (curried stew), perhaps served with mee siam (fried noodles) and/or rice variants, such as nasi lemak and nasi kandar.
And these are just a few of the dependable, safe options. No foodie experience in KL is complete without a kari kepala ikan (curried fish head) staring back up at you from the plate. Bubur ayam (chicken congee) is so popular you can even get it at Maccas.
While many of these dishes are also available in Singapore, KL is far cheaper so you won't rapidly run out of ringgits by repeatedly reordering rendang and roti.
You'll find street vendors throughout KL but for a full visual, auditory and olfactory overload, head to Alor Street Night Market, Petaling Street Market, Taman Connaught or Hutong Lot 10. Wholesome Nyonya cooking is also readily available at restaurants all over the city.
Fine-dining in KL is flourishing, too. Enak offers refined masakan kampung (village cooking) with a twist. You can dine al fresco on upmarket trad Malay at Bijan, sample innovative Malay at Beta KL, or sit down at Dewakan or DC, both of which earned a star in the 2023 Michelin Guide. A buffet with a view is on offer at Atmosphere 360, a revolving restaurant 282 metres above the ground in the Menara tower.
If you want a fully sumptuous, Insta-worthy Asian foodie travel experience, Kuala Lumpur is the place to go for fun, authenticity, variety and curried fish head to die for.
