Katong and Joo Chiat are the Peranakan heartland of Singapore, and the shophouses along Joo Chiat Road are among the most decorated in the city: turquoise and yellow and terracotta facades with hand-painted tiles and carved wooden shutters. The Peranakan community, the Straits-born Chinese who developed a hybrid culture across colonial Malaya and Singapore, built this neighbourhood and the food they developed here is among the most distinctive in Southeast Asia.
The laksa here is different from the laksa sold everywhere else in the city. It is shorter and richer, the noodles cut small enough to eat with a spoon rather than chopsticks. There are two establishments that claim the original, both on the same stretch of road, and the disagreement between their supporters has been running for decades. The correct resolution is to eat at both.
The East Coast Park, stretching along the seafront south of Katong, is where Singaporeans go to cycle, run, and eat at the seafood restaurants that have anchored the waterfront for fifty years. It is not a tourist beach. The water is murky and the swimming is not the point. The point is the chilli crab and the black pepper crab at the restaurants that have been cooking them since before the Marina Bay towers existed.
Food travellers who want to eat Peranakan food where it was developed: laksa, kueh, bak chang, ayam buah keluak. Architecture enthusiasts who want to see shophouse decoration at its most elaborate, largely intact because this neighbourhood was not prioritised for redevelopment. Visitors on a longer trip who have covered the central districts and want a different register. Anyone who wants to eat chilli crab at a table with a sea view rather than in a hotel restaurant.
Not the right base for a short trip or anyone who needs to be near the centre. East Coast and Katong are best reached by taxi or bus; the MRT connection is indirect. Worth the effort for the food and the architecture, but it requires planning.
The Original Katong Laksa debate: 328 Katong Laksa and Janggut Laksa are the two establishments, both on East Coast Road. Eat one first, then the other, with a gap of an hour. Joo Chiat Road from end to end on foot for the shophouse facades. Kim Choo Kueh Chang on East Coast Road for the Peranakan kueh (rice cakes and sweets) that are specific to this community and hard to find well-made elsewhere. The East Coast Park seafood restaurants for chilli crab or black pepper crab at dinner, eaten outdoors with the occasional mosquito and a cold Tiger beer. Geylang Serai Market at the northern end of Joo Chiat for the Malay market that runs parallel to the Peranakan neighbourhood and is equally worth the walk.