Beyond the shining surface, a place like home

Sri Thendayuthapani Temple. [Photo provided to China Daily]

If the design companies and fashion boutiques are any indicator, this area is fast gentrifying. However, walking for no more than 15 minutes, past antique shops selling jadeware and traditional Chinese doctors' clinics, you arrive at the heart of the old Chinatown, marked by the three-story Chinatown Complex.

The basement of the complex is filled with little stalls selling vegetables and sea produce, including a type of hard-shelled crab－so hard that when it came in red curry the night before I left Singapore, I had to use a pair of pincers.

The second and top floor is reserved for hawkers of street food who are not allowed to spill out onto the country's pristine streets. (That's why Singapore has many hawker centers.) The fish balls, hand-pounded, tight and spongy, are not to be missed.