Introducing Ania
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Ania from Living Veggie with Ania. Ania is a Polish cooking instructor and health coach based in Singapore for the last ten years. She specializes in Georgian and Persian cuisine and conducts cooking class parties all over the world. She is going to share Singapore with you all with the hope that you will consider stopping over in Singapore next time you are doing a long-haul flight over the region.
In this episode we discuss
- How she ended up in Singapore and the work she does
- Why she adores Singapore
- How the vegan scene in Singapore is changing
- How Singapore attracts visitors
- Singapore: expectation vs reality
- The different cuisines
- Singapore is a cultural melting pot
- Special dishes and drinks are next levels in Singapore
- Fun areas of Singapore to check out
- Attractions you must see
- Getting around Singapore
- Recommended hotels for different budgets
- The weather and climate and traffic
- Vegan food tours in Singapore
- Exploring nature in Singapore
Learn more about what we talk about
- Hotel G Singapore
- Raffles Singapore
- Gardens by the Bay
- VegThisCity Singapore
- Marina Bay Sands. Singapore
- Violet Oon Singapore
- Empress
- Shahi Maharani North Indian Restaurant
- Shabestan Fine Persian Cuisine
- Beirut Grill
- Zazz Pizza
- Afterglow by Anglow
- Changi Airport
- Lau Pa Sat Festival Market
- National Parks: Kranji Marshes Singapore
- Bollywood Farms Pte Ltd
- MacRitchie Nature Trail & Reservoir Par
Connect with Ania
Transcript
Brighde: Hello, Ania, thank you for joining me on The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Anna: Hello. Thank you very much for the invite. It’s so great to be here. It’s so great to talk about travel again, after all the COVID restrictions. It’s amazing.
Brighde: You are right. Now, listeners, I must tell you that, I originally recorded an episode with Anna. Right, as the pandemic was starting. My listeners know that I took a bit of a break from the podcast. A lot of the things that we talked about were sort of pandemic-sensitive stuff. Anna very kindly agreed to come back on the podcast and to discuss Singapore our topic again.
So thank you, Anna. Thank you so much for doing this again.
Anna: I think so many things have changed that also it’ll be far more useful for anyone who would like to visit Singapore to hear about Singapore in 2022.
Brighde: Fantastic. Anna. So why don’t we start by hearing a little bit about what it is that you do in the vegan space? Because our paths have crossed a few times in the past couple of years or so.
Anna: Yes, it’s a small world. Isn’t it? I am a plant-based nutritionist in Singapore. And what COVID, what pandemic changed for me. It’s the virtual work, which I don’t know why, I never, ever thought about it before COVID with, Zoom or with any other virtual opportunities. I could reach people out of Singapore.
So, I conduct cooking classes and nutritional workshops. Now I can proudly say everywhere, not only in Singapore. My favorite food is always Persian, with Georgian, and that’s where I put the most focus, but I’m passionate about the health aspect of a vegan diet, whole food plant-based diet.
Hence, I always try to make it a bit more educational and help people to make the right vegan choices.
Brighde: Yes, And listeners who joined our traveling in a New Vegan World Summit in January. Anna did a Georgian cooking demonstration for our participants there. And hopefully, you’ll be able to join us again at the next summit we’re just starting to get into the planning stages for Anna.
Anna: I would love to.
Brighde: Yes. Were you originally from Poland, but you’ve been living in Singapore for a very long time now? What brought you to Singapore and what do you like about it? You’ve been there for a long time, so you must like it. So tell us a little bit about this Singapore connection.
Anna: It has been 10 years already. This year, it’s 10 years in Singapore. So it’s a decade, that sounds very serious. I fell in love first with the weather and, I spent 11 years of my life in Denmark. And for those who’d never been to Denmark, it’s the weather. It’s rather rainy, it’s grey. Summer, it doesn’t exist because in summer it’s 22, 24 degrees. When I came first to Singapore, on a business trip, I fell in love with this place. Um, it was, It was warm, uh, sunny all year around. There is no rainy season. It’s, It’s a bit different than for example, Thailand with the rainy season.
It was quite easy to settle into, to work. It’s one thing to go on holiday, but in Singapore, it’s also very easy to settle in to, to find a job, to find friends, to settle your life here.
Brighde: Yes. And if I understand like Singapore, It’s quite strict in terms of labor laws and things like that. But I believe it’s quite business-friendly. Is that fair to say, or maybe some aspects of its business-friendly?
Anna: Things have changed recently. And obviously, I think that COVID has a lot to do. Also, Singaporeans when losing a job. It’s a bit more difficult for foreigners, but I still think when you compare it with other Asian countries, Singapore it’s great to start your business here.
It’s a financial center obviously, and that’s where most people come to work. But, I’m working here, within my vegan sphere, in my little Vegan bubble. And It’s also possible, that there are a lot of English teachers for native speakers. Singapore, the education here’s highly regarded. So I know that if you decide to take this path within the education system, it’s another great industry, to find a job in Singapore.
Brighde: I will say that’s true. One of my dearest friends works at an international school in Singapore and it’s just so funny. She has got lots of friends and some of them are my friends too, but lots of other friends from various schools that she used to work at, when she worked in Hanoi and when she worked in Brussels and when she worked in New York and when she worked in Thailand. She has about 20 of those friends now living in Singapore and working at different schools.
So yes, there are lots of educational opportunities, but we are not so much talking about moving to Singapore and living in Singapore today. We are talking about like Singapore as a holiday destination, maybe for a business trip, a short business trip, because most tourists don’t usually choose to spend two weeks in Singapore unless maybe they’re there for work or they are, visiting friends or family members. Most people go there for a couple of days as a transit stop. Is that fair to say?
Anna: Yes, that’s true. Singapore, it’s a very popular, stop-over destination on the way to Australia, New Zealand to, to China now, maybe not so much to China. Many people travel to China, but also to Hong Kong a lot of airlines, Qantas, for example, I know used to offer a free 48-hour stopover.
On the way to Australia the same Singapore airlines, if you flew, then it was a complimentary 48 hours stopover. You had to book your hotel, but you didn’t pay any extra for staying here. That was the way Singapore tried to attract tourists. Most tourists spend only a few days other after the other fly onwards or people from Malaysia coming just for a few days, cuz you have to remember Malaysia and Singapore are connected just with a one-kilometer bridge so it’s really like a 10 minutes drive.
Brighde: Yeah, it’s very smart of the Singaporean Tourism Board or government, to incentivize people by giving them this free opportunity to just add a stopover. If, if You want to, cuz that flight from Europe to Australia is so long and here you can basically add Singapore to your itinerary and not pay anything extra apart from the hotel and the money that you would spend there, because there are so many amazing things to do in Singapore.
I often like to tell the story about, when I was tour leading. I got a job tour leading for Intrepid, my first sort of dabbling in the tourism industry. I would do a two-week trip from Bangkok down to Singapore, and I would say goodbye to that group. Then I would pick up another set of travelers and travel up the Malay peninsula as well.
And I would have about two or three days in Singapore between the trips. And I loved it so much. I cannot tell you, it just, this was 20 years ago. So things were very different, I had a nice hotel room compared with my other places and I could speak to my parents because phone calls were quite cheap, compared with how they were in Thailand and I would go and eat Laksa so I wasn’t Vegan at this point and just eat the most incredible food. We should talk a little bit about the food, because it’s such an interesting melting pot of cultures, in Singapore. So what makes Singapore a foodie paradise for vegans?
Anna: First good news for you Brighde. You can have a Vegan Laksa in Singapore. Singapore, it’s a country of three cultures, Indian, Chinese, and Malay, that has an impact on three different languages, on different architecture. But that also has a huge impact on cuisine. Hence, you can find those three different cuisines, but there’s also a lot of fusion or mixture.
There is something unique for this part of the world, Malaysian and Singapore. This is a Peranakan Cuisine. This started when in about the 19th century, the Chinese workers were coming to, Singapore, they married, Malay women and a new cuisine were born. That’s a Peranakan Cuisine with Chinese cooking techniques, but a lot of traditionally Malay ingredients.
It’s spicy it uses a lot of local root vegetables, galangal, ginger, fresh turmeric, and lemongrass, which just are highlights of Peranakan Cuisine. And you can find vegan versions of Rendang. If you’ve ever been to Singapore. I strongly recommend you Rendang. I saw some ranking on CNN when Rendang was the most exciting dish in the world because it’s such a complex mixture of flavors.
It’s the sweetness of coconut. It’s the spiciness of chili, but it’s the freshness of kaffir lime leaf, lemon grass, and citrusy flavor of galangal. If you have never tried galangal, it’s a root vegetable from the same family as ginger. So Rendang that’s my recommendation. And you can find it vegan now with tempeh or some plant-based meat.
Brighde: I remember when we would go through Malaysia, we would do a homestay and my travelers would have non-vegan Rendang, but they would always make a vegetarian one for me. And the flavor of that, it’s like curry, I guess you could say curry sauce.
Anna: It’s a dry curry yes, it’s supposed to cover, originally it’s a beef cube, but I’m doing this with tempeh and it almost covers the tempeh it’s not like a Thai curry it’s very thick very heavy.
Brighde: Ya, really, really delicious. What other kinds of cuisines, can we enjoy in, in Singapore?
Anna: Singaporeans love their food. That you can find restaurants from different parts of the world. When you go to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok, it’s not so common because in Singapore you can go to European restaurants, not only Italian and French but there will be Russians and Belgians.
Now I saw Belarusse restaurant. There are Latino restaurants, actually last night, I just been to vegan, Peruvian food, it’s not so common here in Singapore. There is an Ethiopian restaurant, so you can go through all flavors of the world, and what is a good thing is that all these new restaurants have a vegan offering. Not a strictly vegan restaurant, but they do have some vegan options. And then you go for the, when I say local cuisine, again, this is half of the world. This is a Chinese, Indian, and Malay. So there are, exciting flavors of the local cuisine. Nowadays, you can find a lot of plant-based vegan equivalents to traditional dishes.
Brighde: Yes, I’m remembering going to Little India. Whenever I would have my three or four-day stop in Singapore, I would always head out to Little India. I was very pleased because my hotel was not far from Little India, so I would walk there, and eating out in Singapore can be very expensive, but it was not expensive at all in little India.
It’s an incredible place to go visit. Could you paint a picture in our listener’s mind of how is Little India? What is it like there, cuz it’s not like that in, in many other places that I’ve been to?
Anna: Little India is probably the most colorful part of Singapore. I know it’s called Little India refers to that, but what’s Singapore government does, and I think it’s very clever. They try to mix all those races. So you can still see a lot of Chinese people, and Malay people. And over there, there are a lot of Indian restaurants, and the most common Indian food in Singapore, it’s south Indian food. That means that naturally, there are a lot of vegan options because when you look, into dairy, paneer, into cream this rather small presence in the north. North Indian food in rich Punjabi curries.
When you see south Indian food, which is at Little India, there would be naturally a lot of vegan dishes, very spicy, south Indian food. I didn’t adjust to this level of spiciness. Over there, you can also see the temples and most of them are open, during the day.
So you can pay your respects and see when you compare it to the Christian churches. Temples are so colorful. They’re so full of life. It’s worth seeing it. It’s just visiting them. It’s a cultural experience itself. And then you can see any food near the temples. It’s always vegetarian, so not always vegan, but it’s always at least vegetarian.
Brighde: If I remember two memories come to mind. First of all, how you can get a Thali, like a plate of food with like about six or seven different options. And I’m sure they’d be happy to swap out also on Sunday, it’s very interesting to go there because in, Singapore, please tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but in Singapore, they have a lot of migrant workers.
And a lot of these migrant workers are from India, Sri Lanka, and places like that. And Sunday is their day off, mainly men. But a lot of them go and hang out in Little India on a Sunday. And it’s quite an interesting atmosphere.
Anna: When my friends are here, I advise them strongly not to go on Sunday because it’s packed. And yes, then migrants are from India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. And Sunday’s the only day off. So everything it’s super crowded. It’s very difficult to get into a restaurant. It’s very difficult to see any shops.
There will be a lot of traditional Indian sweets stores. Some of them will be vegan. But on Sunday it’s it might seem a bit challenging and although Singapore is a safe country, there is always a safety concern to go there, on Sunday.
Brighde: Sure. I was going there, 20 years ago. So maybe it’s become a lot busier, but, or maybe I’m just remembering the nice bits about it, but yes, it was quite a sight to see just all of these people just hanging out in the street. It was a real sort of carnival party-like atmosphere.
Yeah. I love, Little India. I have a question for you. The hawker stalls, because in Singapore, there are a lot of hawker stalls, basically street food. A lot of it is not particularly vegan friendly, but are there ways, that vegans can enjoy the street hawker experience?
Anna: So, nowadays you do see vegan options when there is understanding to not use ghee when it comes to Indian foods. There is an understanding to not use chicken stock when it comes to Chinese cuisine. Unfortunately, You have to do your research before because there are a lot of hawker centers.
I don’t know the number actually, but they are everywhere. And some of them don’t offer any vegan options, and due to their language barrier, the elderly, for example, Chinese people, would not be so fluent in English. There might be some miscommunication, especially about hidden stuff like shrimp paste, and the chicken stock.
I would say make your research before because there are vegan options in Hawker centers, but you cannot expect it in everyone. Those few, in a central, if you be like in, if you visit Lau Pa Sat which is the most central that for example, do have vegan options that have tourists. They are ready to cater.
Brighde: So we talked about like the more budget food, but that doesn’t mean, Singapore only has budget food. There are some amazing, fine dining experiences. Could you give us a bit of orientation as to how all of that works?
Anna: So imagine you have all this traditional food at Little India, the same in Chinatown when you can now buy an entire dinner for 5 to $8. But there are also places where the entire dinner will be $500. And that’s a new part of Singapore. It’s my favorite part, which is, the marina close to the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel.
I think that’s now what Singapore is the most famous for as the biggest infinity pool in the world. And I read somewhere that this is the most used view on Instagram, in the world. It’s Marina Bay Sands infinity pool people book the hotel, just for that. And over there, you can go from, fine dining options starting from Italian through Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant. So fine dining Chinese, Indian. That’s Marina Bay Sands where you could spend probably just three days eating in different places without leaving the hotel. If you wanna try a bit of the fine dining, it’s still the same area and you can find a lot of new Indian, especially I can see more and more Indian restaurants with, more fusion Indian, it’s maybe not traditional one, but fine dining in Indian, when the Indian cuisine is not just curried and rice, but they trying to implement some of the French techniques.
Maybe when the presentation looks a bit different than your traditional Indian food. That’s worth seeing, for example,???? , they call themselves contemporary Indian, but it’s a fusion of Indian using quinoa, avocado, and ingredients that are not maybe so common for traditional Indian cooking. And there are a lot of international chains, including Marco Pierre White, which here will have also a vegan tasting menu. So you can eat for $5 and $500.
Brighde: I’ve been lucky enough, to stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel for one or two nights, a few years ago. And for listeners who don’t know what we are referring to, it’s this very famous hotel and shopping mall because in Asia shopping malls can be very fancy and have a lot of fancy brands and names and restaurants in them, which seems strange to North Americans, cuz malls are not necessarily so fancy, but the Marina Bay Sands is three huge towers. That’s built on this huge area of reclaimed land. It looks like a boat, stuck on top. And then, of course, that top of that boat, so to speak is where this infinity pool is and the mall inside and the area around it, particularly Gardens by the Bay is just, I would say that’s a must-see.
Anna: Yes. I agree with you. If you wanna see the Singapore view, now on the top of Marina Bay Sands, I think twice a week, there are yoga classes, conducted by Virgin active, anyone can pay for one session. I go there at least, once a month and I take some friends because once you start here, there is yoga at 7:00 AM.
So you can see the sunrise, it’s breathtaking. It’s an amazing view. I think, that might be the best yoga, you can ever have, on the top of Marina Bay Sands. So I strongly recommend it’s not only for people staying in the hotel, anyone can sign up.
Brighde: Well, maybe that’s something we can talk about now. What are some must-sees in Singapore? If people are there for a couple of days, two, or three days, they’re doing a little stopover. We’ve talked about Marina Bay mall and the area around that maybe Gardens by the Bay would be one too.
That would be on my list. What would do you think?
Anna: Definitely. That’s a walking distance from Marina Bay Sands with two conservatories, Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. Flower Dome is the largest greenhouse in the world. When they try to replicate a Mediterranean climate, which is dry. They have plants, and flowers, which are native to Europe, especially in the Mediterranean region. Very often, if you go to Flower Dome I think every quarter they change some of the parts of exhibitions. Sometimes, I saw there was like a Dutch season. When it was, thousands of tulips were everywhere. There was an Italian season at Christmas. The Christmas display it’s almost like a Disney fairy tale. It’s always very impressive. Yes, definitely Gardens by the Bay. I prefer them, in the evening than in day time. Maybe also because it’s so hot and there is not much shade, over there.
So I prefer the evening walk over there. Or if you ever will be in Singapore around Christmas, that’s where all the Christmas activities are. It’s spectacular to see all the Christmas decoration display, which is nicely built-in with the Gardens by the Bay. A traditional part of Singapore to see that will be what we mentioned before, Little India, Chinatown. But also the third part, of this culture part that will be Arab street, which is the Malay part, where the best Middle Eastern restaurants are. There is a mosque where you can buy Persian carpets and Arabic essential oils that will be all over the street, which will be dedicated to that.
It looks nice in the evening. I would say Orchard Road it’s worth seeing. Ion, which is just at the beginning of Orchard. It’s worth seeing just for the architecture itself, even if you’re not planning shopping it’s worth seeing, Singaporian shopping center Ion.
I think it’s worth seeing Botanical Gardens. I think this is the largest park like that in, in Asia. It’s beautiful. It’s so romantic during the late afternoon. You can come there and have a picnic, come with the food, with the blanket. Sometimes there are concerts over there, free concerts. Outdoor beautiful, just to relax and it’s difficult to believe that you’re just 15 minutes from the busy Central Business District of Singapore with all the stunning plants, trees, and green surroundings. So that would be my sort of top few things, to see if you have only in Singapore.
Brighde: And how do you get around
Anna: Singaporeans are very proud of the MRT, which would be their underground. And it is very efficient. It’s so efficient I mean, I’m here 10 years and I think it happened three times it broke, it reached the news. It’s the major news. If public transport stops because it does not happen.
So it’s very affordable. It’s very clean. They’re running every two to four minutes, that will be the easiest way. A lot of places you can walk. I mean, I love to walk. Like I mentioned, even walk from Marina Bay Sands to Gardens by the Bay. You can easily walk, from little India to Arab Streets.
Singapore is not very big. It’s just 10 minutes walk, which, I think might be awesome.
Brighde: Yeah. I, I always used to like to walk around um, even in the middle of it’s. close to the equator, but it’s not as hot as, Thailand in my opinion, it doesn’t have such extremes Correct me if I’m wrong. You’re looking at about 30 degrees Celsius, pretty much every single but Bangkok You can be looking at 34 to 40 walk around, but you wanna do your exercise probably outside, early morning and the early evening.
Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s, um, not as hot as, you know, Kuala Lumpur, or
Anna: Kuala Lumpur I think the traffic, I think Kuala Lumpur traffic plays a big difference in the Singapore Government regulating ownership of the cars. So, before you buy a car, you need to buy sort of permission from the government, to possess the car which you get every 10 years. So there are far fewer cars on the street, than will be in Kuala Lumpur. And I’m sure that translates to the temperature, it’s not so
Brighde: mm-hmm Absolutely. Okay. Do you have other recommendations?
Anna: Certain cuisines are not native to this part of the world, but if you ever will be in Singapore my favorite restaurant, I love Persian food and I conduct Persian cooking classes. So it’s always great for me to visit one of my favorite restaurants where I got married.
My wedding was there at Shabestan that’s a Persian restaurant, with a dedicated vegan menu. If you will ever wanna try the local cuisine. Local cuisine may be with a bit of a Western twist. There is Violet Oon, which is the Peranakan, again with a quite extensive vegan menu with the tempeh I would say it’s a star of the entire selection.
And uh, there are quite impressive Chinese restaurants because Chinese food here there is mostly street food or there will be maybe dumplings, but there is Empress where you can find again, a dedicated vegan menu and it’s inside Asian Civilization Museum. So you can combine your visit to a restaurant with visiting a museum. And it’s a modern take on Chinese food. Very, very interesting.
Brighde: I’m pleased that he brought up The Asian Civilizations Museum, cuz that’s one of my favorite museums in the world It’s very well done as museums go, it’s up there as in my opinion, one of the best. And it talks about the Asian Civilizations civilizations and the growth of I mean, Singapore has a fascinating history from you know, the British came and you know, it went so rapidly from, uh, from a place you know, it wasn’t, particularly Um, there was a lot of pollution to one of the countries, small countries in the world.
And you can learn about all of that there. You can learn about the Khmer civilizations. I would say It’s probably one of the best museums in the whole of Asia for like an overall breadth of this amazing. It’s in a beautiful building in a cool
Anna: Singaporeans are very proud of their heritage and they are very proud of what Singapore achieved. It’s 57 years of Singaporean independence. And I know that 57 years doesn’t sound as much, but that means that, a lot of Singaporeans have seen those changes.
This is not history. They read in, in a book, or heard at school. They lived for these times. They’d seen what can be achieved with hard work because that was always here. They are very proud of that. . So yes, the museum it’s worth it together, with the national museum. It’s worth visiting, to learn, where the Singapore identity came and National Museum also had a whole exhibition about Singapore food, where certain dishes how it came, that are so popular here about laksa about Singapore tea and coffee, which is unfortunately not vegan friendly because it’s heavily sweetened and added with condensed milk.
But that’s what people like here, coffee, it’s very sticky and heavy, but if you go to a national museum, you will see the story of all those Singaporean dishes.
Brighde: You very kindly shared some resources, that people might like to check out, to make their stay even better. So, would you mind sharing some of those resources with us?
Anna: So, I would start with accommodation. Singapore has some of the most spectacular hotels in Asia. We talk about Marina Bay Sands, which is that’s quite affordable, for the basic one, because you have to remember that I forgot whether it’s 60 or 70% of the occupancy of Marina Bay Sands these are customers of Casino. These are VIP customers of the casino, which receive a complimentary stay in Marina Bay Sands. Marina Bay Sands doesn’t earn its money from tourists, but from people, who are going to the casino. There’re only two casinos in the entire Singapore and Marina Bay Sands is one of them. I think the most iconic place, which is also a bit pricey, but that’s a Raffles hotel. Which is a part of the Singapore heritage it’s since 1887. So it’s since 19 century, it’s in a sort of, very central area not far, from Singapore parliament. That’s the place where Queen Elizabeth stayed, Michael Jackson, and Bill Clinton. If you ever stay there, there is a complimentary historic tour around the hotel, they have an in-house historian. All he does is the preserve history of the hotel. That does tell you what a special place is that. And over there, you can see a bit of the old colonial Singapore, so that will be my recommendation. If you looking into a more budget-friendly hotel, I think that there is, it’s not a chain, it’s just one hotel, also quite central, close to Little India. It’s the Hotel G, with the affordable very modern funky rooms and it’s a part of the hotel restaurant, my favorite wine bar in Singapore, with the most affordable wine prices, great selection, and uh, also very interesting Vegan options. french style vegan options. So that would be my free recommendation, to stay. And obviously, most of the tourists will arrive here, by plane. And I know it might sound silly, but visit the entire airport. Because Singapore is Singapore, I think has to be the most spectacular, Changi airport. That’s the main and the only sort of commercial airport in Singapore, it’s spectacular. It has been rated in Sky Tracks, which is the tourist industry ranking as the best in the world. And it’s their best because it has amazing facilities. It has a playground. It has a cinema. It has a Butterfly Garden. A lot of shopping, a lot of eating, and spas within the airport, but what is quite new and that has been opened just before COVID, is the largest indoor waterfall in the world. It’s HSBC Rain Vortex. If you Google this, it’s breathtaking. They have a mini light show, I think at 8:00 and 9:00 PM. And it’s just attached to one of the terminals. So it’s a five-minute walk from the check-in area. So you don’t have to go far and you can see probably the most spectacular airport, in the world, if you are going to fly out from Singapore, arrive at least one or two hours before, just to see a bit of the airport because It’s amazing.
Brighde: You mentioned Any other tips? You VegThisCity Is this like Happy Cow?
Anna: No, that’s a vegan/vegetarian food tour around Singapore. It’s the lovely Singaporean lady, which will take you either through the Hawker centers or maybe just around little India just around Chinatown. When she will take you through a few places to eat chosen by her and she will tell you the story of the food.
She’s extremely knowledgeable. Being a vegetarian vegan herself. I know she’s a passionate foodie and she can probably tell you a bit more about Singapore food than I can. So yes, VegThisCity, it’s worth trying. She only offers a small eight to 10 people group.
Brighde: I did not know that Singapore had a vegan city food tour. This is exciting. And I recommend anybody that’s traveling, whether to Singapore or another city, just see if you can find if there’s a vegan food tour there, because very often the tour guide, the person that’s taking you around, they’ve made like special arrangements, with different restaurants, sometimes like nonvegan restaurants to create like vegan things and they’ll create little tasting plates.
So you go to four or five places in two, three hours. And this is just perfect.
Anna: Yes, that’s true. I know that Eiktha, is the founder of VegThisCity.com She has some special menus, cuz obviously if you go to five, six different restaurants, you probably don’t wanna have five main courses, from each of them.
Brighde: A lot of people must think that Singapore, is just a city full of skyscrapers and there’s no natural space, no parks, nothing like that. I’ve had. Experience with this, but can you sort of down the geography of Singapore a little bit and the different parks combined with more natural spaces?
Anna: We talk about botanical gardens, but that’s still very central. That’s a very well manicured, sort of park, but what was surprising for me to find farms in Singapore because you can buy here organically grown vegetables in Singapore. They are not many, but if you go to the part of Singapore towards Malaysia in Kranji there is one cafe over there. It’s a Bollywood cafe that has a lot of vegan options they use only vegetables from the gardens. You can go to this garden and purchase those vegetables, herbs, fruits, whatever that they have in season, and you can purchase them take home. I know that there are few other little farms. They don’t run a cafe or restaurants but you can go and see the vegetables grown here. Uh, There are a lot of, natural reserves it’s MacRitchie for example, when a lot of people go for uh, hiking, early in the morning, it’s difficult to believe that just a 20-minute drive from all those skyscrapers of the central business district, you have all those natural parks. Which Singapore tried to, keep there. I know that one of Singapore’s visions is to keep Singapore a green city. So a lot of natural reserves are preserved and Kranji is worth seeing. I know, that not many tourists will ever go.
Brighde: I love Singapore. I can’t wait to go back. Anna. It’s just been so lovely having you on The World, Vegan Travel Podcast. Thank you for sharing all of your tips and tricks. We’ll have all of the show notes for
the places mentioned, um, in the show notes for this episode. But before we go, would you mind telling us how people might be able to find you and follow along
with what you’re doing?
Anna: You can, uh, find me on Instagram and the livingveggiebyania, that’s the name of my company and the web. And the same is on Facebook www.livingveggiebyania.com Over there, you can book a private session with me it’s quite popular now, we do the cooking classes, um, with other friends or families members, which are in different parts of the world.
So I had recently a sister from Singapore, and another from London, and both of them cooked the same food. And after cooking, I removed myself from the picture. So both of them, although separated by thousand kilometers, share the same meal. So that unites people uh, that, um, with someone which, which you cannot be so close, but you can share the same, uh, the same dish.
Brighde: Amazing. Fantastic.
And you are gonna be saying goodbye to Singapore, in just a few weeks after living here for a long time. So I wanna wish you all the best for your next move. And, uh, thank you again for taking part in The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Anna: Thank you very much for the invite. I’m moving to Portugal. If any of you are planning to travel or live there, reach out to me. I would always love to catch up, so thank you very much.
