Just as I’ve come to believe that in the heart of every great chef is a Chinese cook, I also believe that all great cuisines emanate from conditions of poverty, scarcity and difficulty. The best cooks, whether in Brazil or Thailand or France, for that matter, seem to come from those countries’ poorest regions, where cooks free of “the crippling handicap of affluence” (as A.J. Liebling put it) are compelled to make the most of things. Seetoh, unsurprisingly, shares this worldview. The next day, he took me out to a hawker center near the airport for a Chinese-based comfort-food classic: char kway teow (fried flat rice noodles). Originally a poor-man’s lunch thrown together by fishermen, the dish has become a guilty pleasure for Singaporeans unafraid of its high-cholesterol charms. Hill Street Fried Kway Teow, Seetoh insisted, offered the best char kway teow in Singapore. A superior frying technique was of paramount importance — one must not burn the noodles. “Watch the master!” Seetoh urged, as an old gentleman tossed Chinese sausage, cockles, flat noodles and crispy pork cracklings into a sizzling wok and then poured in some dark soy. A minute or so before being unceremoniously dumped onto plates, a beaten egg was added, and it was still cooking when the steaming orders hit our table. It was an unlovely-looking brown heap, but I felt myself slowly seduced as I spooned on some chili sauce, my hangover from the previous evening’s festivities fading quickly. As with so much of the best of Asian cooking, this gooey mess was in fact a complex combination of distinct flavors and textures: sweet and savory, spicy and rich, gluey and crunchy. I needed a nap immediately after, but I went for tofu instead.

“Every time Michelle Yeoh comes to Singapore, she makes me take her here,” my friend the photographer Russel Wong said over a bowl of tofu fa, a hot bean-curd custard with sugar syrup that is chased with a glass of soy milk. It was late at night, and we were sitting at Rochor Original Bean Curd, a busy storefront. Frankly, I didn’t get it. Soy milk and tofu (unless it’s fried in animal fat) just don’t do it for me. But Wong, like a typical Singaporean, knows everything about food, and though I was not loving my tofu, I trusted that he could serve as my culinary Sherpa for tomorrow’s breakfast.

The next morning we went to Thasevi, an Indian spot featuring halal food located in a row of colonial-era “shop houses.” I sampled roti prata kosong (plain Indian flatbread) and roti prata telur (stuffed with egg). Wong also insisted that I try some chicken and mutton curries, which we washed down with teh tarik, or “pulled” tea, since alcohol is forbidden here. This Indian tea is brewed from leaves, dosed with condensed milk and then pulled, meaning poured back and forth between pitchers from increasing heights until it is frothy. After, Wong suggested that we meet the next day for the single dish most beloved in Singapore.

Ask any group of strangers here where to get the best chicken rice, and you will surely start an argument. If there is a national dish, it is this. An adaptation of a Chinese version from the island of Hainan, it’s deceptively simple looking, but locals passionately discuss the virtues and deficiencies of a particular rendition. Wong says the best version is at Tian Tian, in the Maxwell Road Food Centre. “It has to be a good chicken,” he explained as we sit down. “These come from Malaysia,” he continued, digging into a platter of plain-looking boiled chicken atop a heap of white rice. “The chicken must never be served hot.” It is boiled whole, on the bone, then (this is very important) dunked into ice water to separate the skin slightly from the meat. The chicken is then hacked into pieces and served on boiled rice. Chicken broth, chili sauce, pounded ginger purée and dark soy sauce are served in separate bowls on the side. You eat the dish with a fork and a spoon. To an aficionado, chicken rice is a dish with infinite possibilities. Drizzle the soy in a thin stream over it, or not. Dip each bite in broth, then brush lightly with chili sauce or soy, or dip in garlic, or all of the above. Or simply add all the condiments at once and mash the whole business together. As we were eating from the same platter, Wong and I dipped in sequence. It is a light and beautiful thing, chicken rice. Part comfort food, part Zen ritual, yet finally just a darned good lunch. And as I sat there, gazing at stalls with signs promising Big Scissors Curry Rice, Foo Zhou Oyster Cakes, Kway Chap Seafood Soup, Zhen Zhen Porridge, Fresh Prawn Won Ton and Fish Ball Noodle, I felt as if I were inside an edible pinball machine, one in which I could happily career forever. But not today. I had one more meal in Singapore.

Chicken rice may serve as the national dish, but bak kut teh, literally pork-rib tea, was a dish about which I was constantly nagged. That I had yet to try it had long since become an embarrassment to my friends, who were well aware of my predilection for all things porcine. This time, I was not leaving without putting this important notch on my gastronomic belt. I consulted Seetoh’s guide and headed out to Rong Chen. The stand is made up of a few tables on a concrete porch on the Sin Ming Road. I had just sat down when a group of businessmen invited me to join them at a nearby table. I had intended to eat my last meal in Singapore alone, but the sight of a lone ang moh, struggling to understand the handwritten signs, and the possibility that I might fail to fully appreciate what I was about to eat, was apparently too much for them.

Bak kut teh is essentially a heap of pork, usually ribs, cooked in broth. Said to have been created as food for Chinese laborers in early-20th-century Malaysia, it has become a beloved ritual for Chinese businessmen, a weekly or even daily combination of working lunch, social gathering and lengthy discussion of its many versions. “I don’t play golf,” one man announced proudly. “I eat bak kut teh. Every day. Sometimes twice a day.” He and his friends meet at a revolving number of places serving the dish and spend hours doing pretty much what they were doing at that moment: eating, drinking tea, talking business, welcoming friends and pausing now and then to chatter into cellphones. After introductions, my new friend explained that Rong Chen serves a “white version” of bak kut — basic pork ribs and broth, flavored with pepper (as opposed to herbs) and whole cloves of garlic, the pork free of the darkening effects of soy. The herbal (darker, usually soy-infused) dish tends to be more tender, he said. After a few cups of tea, some salted vegetables and fried bread came the main event: huge, steaming bowls of meaty pork ribs in a translucent broth. Chili dipping sauce was served on the side. As we gnawed on bones, tearing off peppery strips and drinking spoonfuls of the cooking liquid, our waiter continued to replenish our broth.