Little India Singapore Food Guide: What to Eat and Where

Little India is where Singapore eats with its hands. Biryani pots are lifted open at Tekka by 8am, thosai batter hisses on the griddle along Serangoon Road, and the fish head curry on Race Course Road has been drawing queues for decades. This guide is organised by craving: what each dish is, where to eat it in Little India, and how to order it.

If you have never eaten at a hawker centre before, read our first-timers guide first. Then come hungry.

Almost everything here sits within a ten-minute walk of Little India MRT on the North East and Downtown lines. Tekka Centre at 665 Buffalo Road is the anchor: a hawker centre on the ground floor, a wet market beside it, and textile and sari shops upstairs. Serangoon Road runs north from it, with Race Course Road a block to the west.

This is a "what to eat and where" guide. For a walking route that strings these stops together with temples, sweet shops and Kampong Glam, follow our Little India and Kampong Glam trail.

Biryani

Long-grain basmati rice layered with spiced meat and cooked slowly, usually in the dum style with the pot sealed so the steam does the work. In Singapore it comes with a bowl of dalcha or curry, a boiled egg and a little pickle. Here is the story of the dish.

• Allauddin's Briyani, Tekka Centre, #01-229/232. Listed in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026, with the family selling biryani since the 1950s. Opens at 8am daily. Order the mutton biryani set.
• Bismillah Biryani, 50 Dunlop Street. A Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026, and a North Indian kitchen at heart. The Michelin inspectors single out the lamb shank biryani. Open daily from 11.30am to 8.30pm.

Tip: one biryani set is generous. If you are eating your way around Little India, share a plate between two.

Roti Prata and Murtabak

Roti prata is dough slapped thin, folded and griddled until it is crisp outside and soft within, then torn and dipped in curry. Murtabak is its heavyweight cousin: prata stuffed with spiced minced mutton, egg and onion, folded into a thick parcel.

• Ar-Rahman Cafe and Royal Prata, Tekka Centre, #01-247. Open from 7am and closed on Mondays. Plain prata comes as a minimum of two pieces, and the mutton murtabak is sold in small, medium and large.

Tip: order plain first, then decide whether you need egg. Our prata decoder explains kosong, telur, plaster and the rest, and here is how to order roti prata without hesitating at the counter.

Thosai, Appam and Idli

The South Indian breakfast table. Masala thosai is a thin, crisp crêpe of fermented rice and lentil batter wrapped around spiced potato, served with sambar and coconut chutney. Appam is the bowl-shaped pancake with a lacy edge and a soft, spongy centre.

• Ananda Bhavan, 58 Serangoon Road. Vegetarian, and trading since 1924. Thosai is one of its bestsellers. It has several outlets in Little India, including one on Syed Alwi Road.
• Sri Aachi Aappakadai, Tekka Centre, #01-219. A two-unit stall for appam, idli and dosa, with plain, egg, cheese and even chocolate appam. Listed as halal-certified.
• Neha Tiffin Centre, Tekka Centre, #01-274. Thosai, putu mayam, vadai and samosas. Listed as halal-certified.

Tip: thosai is a morning food. Go before 11am, when the griddles are busiest and the batter is freshest.

Fish Head Curry and Banana Leaf Meals

Fish head curry is a whole red snapper head simmered in a sour, spicy, tamarind-sharp curry with okra and aubergine. It is a Singapore creation, a South Indian curry cooked for a Chinese love of fish heads. It is usually eaten as part of a banana leaf meal: rice and vegetables served on a leaf, with curries ladled over the top.

• Muthu's Curry, #01-01, 138 Race Course Road. Serving South and North Indian food since 1982 and a Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026. Open daily from 10.30am to 10.30pm. The menu labels vegan dishes and spice levels clearly.
• The Banana Leaf Apolo, Race Course Road. A long-running Little India name for fish head curry and banana leaf rice, still drawing recent reviews in 2025 and 2026.

Tip: a fish head curry is sized for sharing. Come with three or four people, order one fish head plus a few vegetable sides, and eat with your right hand if you want the full experience. Fold the leaf towards you when you finish to say the meal was good.

Naan, Tandoori and North Indian Plates

Little India is not only South Indian. Punjabi and Pakistani cooks bring the clay tandoor: blistered naan, smoky chicken tikka, seekh kebab and rich butter chicken.

• Delhi Lahori, Tekka Centre, #01-266. A Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026. The guide praises the tandoor master's naan, seekh kebab and chicken tikka masala. Cash only. Muslim-owned.
• Poona Punjabi Dhaba, Tekka Centre, #01-302. Tandoori chicken, paneer tikka, mutton keema and cheese naan.

Tip: order naan the moment you sit down and eat it straight out of the tandoor. Naan that has waited ten minutes is a different, lesser thing.

Indian Rojak

Not the fruit salad you might know from Chinese stalls. Indian rojak is a spread of battered and fried items, from tempeh and fish cake to prawn fritters and boiled egg, which you pick yourself and which are cut up and drowned in a thick, sweet and spicy sauce.

• Temasek Indian Rojak, Tekka Centre, #01-254. Pick at least four pieces from the display. Closed on Mondays. Listed as halal-certified.

Tip: ask for the sauce on the side if you are taking it away, or it will go soft before you sit down.

Indian Sweets

North Indian mithai is sold by the piece, which means you can build a small box of four or five things without committing to any of them. Gulab jamun, jalebi, ladoo and burfi are the place to start.

• Moghul Sweet Shop, 48 Serangoon Road, #01-16, Little India Arcade. A North Indian sweet shop inside the 1920s Little India Arcade. Pieces are priced individually.

Tip: one gulab jamun is enough to understand it. Then buy something drier, like a piece of burfi, for later.

Teh Tarik, Masala Tea and Chendol

Teh tarik is strong black tea with condensed milk, poured back and forth between two vessels from a height until it froths. Masala tea adds cardamom, ginger and spices. On a hot afternoon, chendol, with shaved ice, coconut milk, gula melaka and green rice-flour jelly, does the cooling.

• Most Indian Muslim stalls at Tekka Centre pull teh tarik to order. Ar-Rahman Cafe and Royal Prata (#01-247) is also known for its chendol, including a durian version.
• For a modern cup, Generation Coffee at Tekka Centre roasts its own beans and serves kopi and teh alongside espresso drinks.

Tip: teh tarik comes sweet. Ask for "teh tarik siew dai" for less sugar. Our kopi decoder covers the rest of the drinks vocabulary.

Vegetarian Meals

Little India is one of the easiest places in Singapore to eat vegetarian, because South Indian cooking was built around it. A vegetarian rice meal, a thali or a banana leaf set gives you rice with several vegetable curries, dal, rasam, pickle and papadum.

• Ananda Bhavan, 58 Serangoon Road. Fully vegetarian, so you can order anything on the menu.
• Muthu's Curry, 138 Race Course Road. Not a vegetarian restaurant, but its menu labels vegan dishes clearly.

Tip: at Tekka, vegetarian stalls and meat stalls sit side by side. If you are strict, ask at the counter whether a dish is vegetarian, and whether egg or ghee is used.

Tekka Centre, 665 Buffalo Road, is the one that matters. It is roughly a three-minute walk from Little India MRT, and the food centre opens early, from about 6am, with individual stall hours varying. The Indian Muslim and South Indian stalls cluster together, but the centre is mixed: you will also find prawn noodles, duck rice and Chinese breakfast stalls, so a mixed group can split up and still sit together. See our Tekka Centre page for more.

The rest of Little India's best eating is in shophouse restaurants along Serangoon Road, Race Course Road and Dunlop Street rather than in other hawker centres. Use our near me map to see what is open around you.

• Go early. Little India eats breakfast seriously. Prata, thosai and biryani are at their best between 7am and 11am, and Tekka is quieter before the lunch rush.
• Mind Mondays. Several Tekka stalls, including Ar-Rahman and Temasek Indian Rojak, close on Mondays.
• Bring cash. Delhi Lahori is cash only, and many stalls prefer small notes. Most hawker plates here cost around S$4 to S$8; restaurant meals and fish head curry cost more.
• Eat with your right hand if you want to try it. Wash at the sinks most stalls and restaurants provide. Your left hand stays off the food.
• Halal and vegetarian are different things. Muslim-owned does not always mean MUIS-certified. If certification matters to you, look for the certificate at the stall. Our halal hawker food guide has more.
• Sundays are crowded. Little India is busiest on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Weekday mornings are calmer.
• Return your tray and follow the rest of the hawker etiquette.

If you would rather have someone explain what you are eating, a guided walk adds the stories behind the dishes and handles the ordering for you, which suits first-time visitors and anyone short on time. The tour below runs for about 3 hours with 8 food and drink tastings, meets at Little India MRT Exit C, and starts from about US$86 per person, though prices change (affiliate link: we may earn a small commission).

For other options across Singapore, see our guide to the best Singapore food tours.