Sin Huat Eating House

Sin Huat sits in a stretch of Geylang known more for its red-light reputation than its restaurants, which is exactly the kind of contrast Anthony Bourdain built a career pointing a camera at. He featured it in the Singapore episode of No Reservations, drawn in by a dish that barely exists outside this kitchen: crab bee hoon, thick garlic-and-broth rice vermicelli built around whole Sri Lankan crab.

There's no real menu to speak of and no pretence about the setting — plastic chairs, fluorescent light, a kitchen visible from the street. What holds is the crab: bought whole, cooked to order, priced by weight rather than fixed. It's not a cheap meal, but it's not a staged one either.

Order the bee hoon and let the kitchen tell you what else is worth having that day — the fixed menu on the wall is a starting point, not the whole story.