©Wendy Gan 2026

Memorable Meals

Wendy Gan

We’ve been snacking our way through a number of Asian cities in recent years. This is a list of our favourite eateries. A few are acclaimed, but I’d like to think a number are familiar to those only in the know.

SINGAPORE: Bibik Violet

Violet Oon is the doyenne of Peranakan cooking in Singapore. She is chef-owner of an expensive range of elegant restaurants, but the latest addition to her portfolio is a cheerful mid-range bistro that delivers both on price and old-school flavour. Go for the laksa lemak (noodles in a coconut gravy), the chicken satay, the ladies’ finger sambal salad, and the crispy and light prata with a curry of your choice. Make sure to leave room for desserts too. Bibik Violet has been a huge hit since it opened in 2025, so go early or expect to wait at least 45 minutes for a table.

SINGAPORE: Le Bon Funk (Club Street and Holland Village)

This is a stylish, smart-casual eatery that serves up food that is anything but casual. The focus is on small plates drawing on a variety of European cuisines utilising the very best of ingredients and infused with the occasional Asian touch. The prices will make you weep, but after the first bite you will break into a smile and realise that every penny will be well spent. This is extraordinarily delicious food! The menu looks deceptively simple, the dishes unprepossessing, but enormous skill and attention has been deployed to deliver the utmost of flavour. A globe artichoke comes with an aioli dip that has been shot to the umami stratosphere by the addition of kombu. Beef tongue has been cured with the skill of someone who might have apprenticed at Katz’s in New York. The roast chicken is tender and savoury, accompanied by seasonal greens that have been enhanced with herbs. A seemingly straightforward chocolate tart is served with a finely judged sherry-infused cream. The filling is a marvel of contrasts: the chocolate chosen is satisfyingly dark and intense, but the treatment of it has yielded a spectrum of textures from a velvety molten centre to a light mousse nearer the crust. Your mouth delights in the play of textures, the levels of flavour. Coupled with some of the best service in Singapore—friendly, attentive, pro-active, knowledgeable—you leave scheming, thinking about how soon can you plot a return. Eating there is such a dopamine hit that addiction is the only outcome.

TOKYO: Loup de Mer

Having grown up in S.E. Asia, Japanese curry has always seemed to me to be a travesty. Why is it sweet and where is the coconut milk? I have in recent years though come to appreciate it more and Loup de Mer has played a large part in changing my mind. This isn’t the coconut-based curry I know and love; it’s the product of a chef trained in French cooking techniques who decided to make the best Japanese curry on earth. The gravy has the depth and colour of a demi-glacé. The beef falls apart and melts in your mouth. The spices are evident but politely restrained. It’s rich and delicious and the fluffy omelette you order as an add-on is unimaginable as an accompaniment to a typical curry, but a perfect textural companion here. This is the kind of meal you crave on a cool, grey day when life has been a touch unkind and you need some solace.

KYOTO: Kappo Kyo Shogo-in

This is a one-man operation tucked away amidst residences in a Kyoto suburb. The young chef focuses mainly on soba sets for lunch, though he has a wide-ranging menu. We were very impressed with the food presented to us. The tempura had a light, glassy finish; the soba was perfectly al dente; and the broths were flavourful, clean, and balanced. His approach was delicate and refined—just what you want from a Kyoto restaurant. We thought he was quite a find! Bookings are essential. We saw him turn away customers because he could only manage a limited number of customers for lunch, being on his own. Service is a little slow, but this just means you can let yourself relax and enjoy his wonderful cooking.

OSAKA: Fukutaro

It’s perhaps a cliched choice, but when in Osaka, one must eat okonomiyaki. We have been to Osaka a number of times now and each time we cannot resist revisiting Fukutaro at its main Namba store. It’s smoky and busy, but as you sit along the counter waiting for your pancake to be delivered via a handheld metal shovel, you happily soak in the vibes of bustling eatery skilled in serving deliciousness on a teppan. Okonomiyaki has no right to be this good. It looks like a brown mess, but it tastes like an umami bomb. Each bite is a little journey, sometimes crisp, sometimes warm and gloopy; sometimes sweet, sometimes savoury. I’m convinced that there is some sort of alchemy involved, because how did a combination of batter, cabbage, egg, and pork transform into something so sublime?

SEOUL: Wu Lae Oak

This cold noodle and bulgogi restaurant is so famous that you have to be prepared to wait a minimum of an hour (often longer) to be seated. It’s madness, but I would do it all over again, and again, and again, because the meal you will eat here is Korean perfection itself. Let’s start with the kimchi: it’s a lightly fermented, still-crisp cabbage, made with pickling mix that is so refined that you realise whatever kimchi you have eaten outside of Korea is a complete sham. This whets your appetite in time for the bulgogi that will be expertly grilled before you by the staff. The meat is garlicky, faintly sweet, and very moreish. To end the meal, you wash everything down with a bowl of refreshing cold noodles, the iced tangy broth revitalising and reinvigorating you from within. You leave having shed all the stresses of your day. The crowds, the agonisingly long wait, the sometimes sullen service… all forgotten. You are new born.

SEOUL: Insaeng Hanwoo

Forget wagyu; Hanwoo beef is the future. It has the marbling of wagyu, but with a beefiness that wagyu often (perhaps too inundated with fat) lacks. If you love your meat, then you need to have at least one Hanwoo meal in Korea and Insaeng Hanwoo near the Majang Meat Market is the place to go. You select the cuts you want at the counter and then take your seat at your table to grill them. The meat has great flavour and melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. It might just be the best beef you’ve ever had in your life.

HONG KONG: Lai’s Kitchen

Word has already gotten out about this place and you can expect a long wait to get a table. Run by the same people who started Flower Drum (an elegant private kitchen focused on reworking Hong Kong classics with the finest ingredients, which is also worth a visit), Lai’s Kitchen is an upmarket cha chaan teng (local cafe) specialising in claypot rice dishes. It’s designed to invoke some nostalgia and it delivers on all the classic features of a Hong Kong cafe: noise, tables packed quite tightly together, patchy service that can swing from brusque to unexpectedly kind, and dishes landing at your table at warp speed. I must confess that I arrived here with my appetite a touch jaded, so I was more focused on vegetable dishes. While they were excellent, glances at the tables around us revealed that we should have been ordering very differently. The menu is deep here, and judging from our rather less conventional choices, the kitchen turns out delicious food no matter what you order. Be warned that this will not be a relaxing dining experience. It’s a touch frenetic; don’t be surprised if the servers rush you a little. They have a massive queue of customers to seat after you. Just concentrate on the food; forget about having a deep conversation; don’t get cross about the rudeness of the service; then exit deeply sated.

KUALA LUMPUR: Adu Sugar

From its interiors to its food, this modern Malay restaurant is an expression of Chef Adu’s passions in life. His paintings decorate the space; the furniture reflects his eclectic vintage tastes; his dishes are a fusion of the Malay cuisine he has grown up with and the flavours he has encountered in his years abroad and on his travels. He is through and through a creative person, and one who cares deeply about the integrity of his creations. You can sense it in each dish. The rendang (made from a family recipe) is served with finely shredded turmeric leaves that have been fried to a crisp on top, giving it a delightful textural contrast and another layer of flavour. The Johor Laksa is a labour of love because the fish he uses needs to be carefully deboned. It goes without saying that the food is excellent—inventive, balanced, and delicious—but this is a special place because Chef Adu is himself a special person and he has poured himself into his food.