Where to eat and drink during a stopover

Despite the fact that my stomach has a low rumble that rivals the engines of my plane as it approaches Singapore’s Changi Airport, there is no airline breakfast for me. I land at 7am, with only 24 hours to get the best food in town before heading out on my cruise.

I plan to attack the Lion City like a sprawling open-air buffet, visiting the places I fell in love with when I lived here for two years, and ending with the new kid in town: the Australian chef’s first overseas venture -chef Josh Niland, Fysh.

Still carrying my luggage, I walk to the food court at Jewel at Changi Airport and find a long line at Toast box. Paying tribute to the corner coffee shops that were once the center of local life, this chain delivers Singapore’s salty-sweet breakfast champion, kaya toast. Sugary pandan jam and chunks of ice-cold butter are sandwiched between toast and dipped into soft-boiled eggs, covered in soy sauce and white pepper, but it’s the kopi art that I love. Like a pot-and-cup ballet, the coffee is strained through a long coffee sock, poured at a dizzying height and served with a dash of sweetened condensed milk.

Traveling with my youngest son, we have a very specific mission for the second breakfast: BreadTalk. As a toddler, he went after school to this ready-made bakery chain that tops its sandwiches with pork floss and ikan bilis (spicy anchovies). We jump in a taxi and drop our bags off at the Singapore editionjust off Orchard Road, and discover we are feet away from baked goods heaven. We are so early that the baking trays are still fresh from the oven and I grab a still warm curry chicken roll and share the garlic cheese toast with my son.

Full for the time being, we will limit ourselves to window shopping. We take a taxi to our old haunt on Balestier Road, where we used to snack on flaky tau sar piah (cookie dough filled with mung beans) and drink bak kut teh (pork bone soup). I find room for a plate at Miao Sin Popiah, a stall that has been producing popiah for forty years: boiled turnip, ground peanuts and a sweet-spicy sauce wrapped in a thin skin.

To pass the time we take public transport to the financial district and walk past Clarke and Boat Quay to our lunch in the ornate Lau Pa sat Hawker market. We join the queue for SG Dim Sum, packed with business people, and find gossamer-skinned prawn dumplings, coriander-filled fried dumplings and custard bao.