It's embarassing to admit that when I first heard of "fried carrot cake", I imagined exactly that: a thick glob of cream-cheese icing made slick with oil, plump raisins rendered gooey and warm. Fortunately, the Singaporeans have a different vision for the dish, as I discovered on a recent visit to the world's neatest country. (We have tidy towns; Singapore has tidy everything.) Turns out "fried carrot cake" is a misnomer; the hawker-stand favourite is actually made from radishes fashioned into cubes with rice flour.

Illustration: Simon Letch. Credit:

In southern China's Chaoshan province, where it originates, the locals use the name "chao gao guo", which means "fried starch cake". Once sautéed with garlic and egg, "fried carrot cake" becomes one of the more delicious things on planet earth, no cream cheese necessary.

The street food in Singapore is a whole other universe for Western palates, and justly famous. More than 6000 food hawkers produce dishes at about 110 hawker centres set up by the government in the 1970s to bring stalls off the streets and into facilities with proper sanitation, refrigeration and running water. As with Shakespeare's sonnets, or any 12-bar blues classic, a set of rules – the imposition of structure – has allowed for creative genius to flourish.

The hawker centres are that rare thing in tourism: well-used by both locals and travellers. That's partly because the price is right: you'd be hard-pressed to spend more than $20 on lunch. But I wonder if it isn't also because these bustling havens of Chinese, Indian, Malaysian and Peranakan flavours are the best possible advertisement for multiculturalism in a world that has momentarily forgotten its value.