Little India & Tekka

Serangoon Road was cattle country in the 1840s and Tamil country soon after — Tekka, 竹脚, "foot of the bamboos," is the Hokkien name the Indian market district kept. It is still the most complete Indian streetscape between Chennai and anywhere.

The kitchen here runs on ghee, curry leaves, mustard seed, and the tandoor-less genius of the flat iron griddle: prata slapped and flipped paper-thin, murtabak folded around spiced meat, dosai laced at the edges. Fish head curry — invented in Singapore by a Malayali cook who understood what Chinese diners wanted from a fish — is the neighbourhood's own fusion monument.

Dinner is a banana leaf, eaten with the right hand, refilled until you fold the leaf toward yourself in surrender. Or it is a 2 a.m. prata, which answers a different and equally serious need.