Vegetarian Food in Singapore and Southeast Asia

By Micha Raja, Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore

Coming to Singapore, I was initially nervous about the options for vegetarians and whether I would have enough variety of food to choose from. After having lived here for 3 months now, I can confirm, the variety of vegetarian options is incredible! Not only are there pure vegetarian restaurants but even some of the Hawker Centres have pure vegetarian food stalls. There has not been a single day I have struggled with food.

One of my favourite go-to foods in the Hawker centres here is a Masala Dosa. There are lots of other Indian food options as well but also Southeast Asian cuisine can be made vegetarian if you ask. I have had so many vegetable fried rice or noodles and tofu is very popular here as well so there is always meat alternative options if you just ask.

One of the best places I have been to was Fortune Centre, specifically Red Apple Veggie Cafe. This pure vegetarian cafe had so many options and from so many cuisines as well. Since arriving, I had been craving a veggie burger and this cafe did not let me down.

Having travelled to several countries in Southeast Asia now, I have hardly struggled for vegetarian food. Whilst travelling, my main source of finding vegetarian food was actually TikTok. There are so many recommendations I saw through TikTok and I was not let down. I have noticed there are several pure vegetarian options for the majority of cuisines, especially in the popular tourist areas.

Overall, my advice is for all veggies out there is… DO NOT PANIC! There are so many options all over this side of the world. The one place I had an issue was in the Philippines on some of the islands but I wasn’t staying there too long and they always had a Maccies for some chips and sides!