Blue Chillies

Wearing its 14 years lightly, Blue Chillies' fitout of tightly packed tables, concrete floors and dark timber shelves bearing artfully arranged lychee cans and incense still seems crisp. It's dimly lit and buzzy, with a mellow jazz-soul soundtrack. Faithful hawker-style dishes dominate, among them sausage-like lohbak made with chicken mince and chopped water chestnuts, unctuous (and pungent) belachan eggplant, and fried kwai teow, the rice noodles entangling fishcake, prawns and beancurd. But you'll also spot things you wouldn't see on every street stall. Duck could turn up in a sparky salad with cucumber, green mango, red onion and fennel, or replace beef in a coconut-rich rendang, and whitebait might team up with sweet potato in fritters, to dunk in chilli-mint sauce. Service is obliging and staff will arrange for the kitchen to tweak the heat as chilli tolerance demands. Desserts deploy tapioca, pandan and palm sugar to soothing effect.