Finally.....SG is the real #1

[Beeroclock]

For me eating outside seems to be burning the biggest hole in my pocket especially if you don't like the hawker food. Theres a choice of fine dine in restaurants or bad hawker food, there are no normal places, Something as basic as a taco or a burrito or a shawarma roll is treated like Gods gift to mankind here.

There is a food court in my office building. My colleague grab a burrito, a salad and a soft drink and it cost $25. That's a lot of money given the amount of food and it is takeaway food from a food court.

As these examples show it really is a tiered market in Singapore. Many businesses can set-up to target the price insensitive/uninformed customer where they can inflate their margins as much as possible, "whats your budget?" etc etc. I believe there still are options you can seek out and choices you can make to get by here and cope with the ever-inflating cost of living, but admittedly it gets tougher all the time. However for the tourist or new arrival, you won't know the ins and outs, and may not have the time/inclination to work it out, so no choice really but pay up.

[Wd40]

As a tourist to a new place, it really pays to do a lot of homework. Before going to Sydney, I had made a note of the locations of all the subways restaurants in the city area and their timings too. Many of the Subway restaurants close at like 5:30 or 7:30 PM. But a few remain open until 10:30. Subway was a great saviour for us. Its Veggie Patty Foot long costs like $10 which is real value for money in place like Sydney. We also tried the Veggie Burger meal at Oporto in Bondi beach and it costs $10. There are very very few Indian restaurants in Sydney CBD area and most are very expensive. The suburbs though have good choices especially for take away, the cost is almost same as hawker centre prices here.

[Wd40]

I don't think 30$ can get you anything even for Indian food, maybe 2 entrees at most.
Try say Maharajah's on cuppage or Kashmir on Racecourse Road for eg. a typical dinner there runs into approx 60-80$ for 2 incl. 2 glasses of wine.

another aspect is BYOB places are almost non existent here. what irks me most about all the dining options here are they all cater to some level of exclusivity which is needless even in something as basic as Pizza...!

Places like Maharaja on Cuppage road, Song of India in Scott road and Go India in Vivocity are expatty restaurants. Like top end. I see less Indians in them and more Ang Mohs. Muthus Curry is one of the Indian restaurant with decent prices and yet frequented by Ang Mohs.

[Barnsley]

I don't think 30$ can get you anything even for Indian food, maybe 2 entrees at most.
Try say Maharajah's on cuppage or Kashmir on Racecourse Road for eg. a typical dinner there runs into approx 60-80$ for 2 incl. 2 glasses of wine.

another aspect is BYOB places are almost non existent here. what irks me most about all the dining options here are they all cater to some level of exclusivity which is needless even in something as basic as Pizza...!

Places like Maharaja on Cuppage road, Song of India in Scott road and Go India in Vivocity are expatty restaurants. Like top end. I see less Indians in them and more Ang Mohs. Muthus Curry is one of the Indian restaurant with decent prices and yet frequented by Ang Mohs.

I dont want to speak for fellow Ang Mohs but I try to find Indian food similar to what I would get in UK as thats what I like

Amber on Racecourse road is not bad food and prices I think

The Al Ameen place opposite Beauty World Plaza is also OK although halal so serves no booze.

Went to one place on Cuppage Terrace it was pretty good but rather expensive.

[Barnsley]

For me eating outside seems to be burning the biggest hole in my pocket especially if you don't like the hawker food. Theres a choice of fine dine in restaurants or bad hawker food, there are no normal places, Something as basic as a taco or a burrito or a shawarma roll is treated like Gods gift to mankind here.

There is a food court in my office building. My colleague grab a burrito, a salad and a soft drink and it cost $25. That's a lot of money given the amount of food and it is takeaway food from a food court.

One advantage of working in Ubi , subsidised dining for the masses

Cheapest Yong Tau foo I have seen at the JTC food court

Lots of places still have decent stuff for $3

[pisceangirl]

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[Primrose Hill]

What about the outlet stores in JB? Is it any cheaper?
In UK, I love Marks - for their "intimates" as they calls it here. Their GBP10 meal deals are quite good too.
Clothes wise in UK tend to be Zara (sales), H&M, Primark and sometimes new Look.
Here - Zara, Mango, H&M and New Look, ASOS too

[ScoobyDoes]

The funny thing watching the news last night was them trying to say, repeatedly, this report was more for foreign companies and HR guys to work out how much to pay guys locating here.

Hence cost of 'Public Housing' was not included and neither was 'Hawker Food' pricing. Forget the discussion that HDB prices are as high as private property etc.

THEN, immediately after that, there was a report on the budget and how concerned local businesses were worried about higher operating costs and being uncompetitive in the region as a result. Sorry, typical force fed media saying one thing, then immediately saying something different as if the two stories were not related. I love the way the news treats each story as a story that has little or no relation to anything before or after.

Their first report tried to emphasis the 'World's Most Expensive City' had little or no relevance to the local population, then followed it up with major complaints about the cost of doing business, from locals.......

[rajagainstthemachine]

For me eating outside seems to be burning the biggest hole in my pocket especially if you don't like the hawker food. Theres a choice of fine dine in restaurants or bad hawker food, there are no normal places, Something as basic as a taco or a burrito or a shawarma roll is treated like Gods gift to mankind here.

There is a food court in my office building. My colleague grab a burrito, a salad and a soft drink and it cost $25. That's a lot of money given the amount of food and it is takeaway food from a food court.

I'm in Sydney for 2 weeks at the moment and it was 5th on that List I believe.. and the last 3 days my lunch money has been between 8$ - 15$
all of them included a drink like coffee/softdrink and a wrap/sandwich/huge burger thingy which I sat and ate at a diner sort of place with picnic tables, umbrellas and all that jazz.
This lunch would have definitely cost 20+ in Singapore and the quantity would be much lesser.

[rajagainstthemachine]

I don't think 30$ can get you anything even for Indian food, maybe 2 entrees at most.
Try say Maharajah's on cuppage or Kashmir on Racecourse Road for eg. a typical dinner there runs into approx 60-80$ for 2 incl. 2 glasses of wine.

another aspect is BYOB places are almost non existent here. what irks me most about all the dining options here are they all cater to some level of exclusivity which is needless even in something as basic as Pizza...!

Places like Maharaja on Cuppage road, Song of India in Scott road and Go India in Vivocity are expatty restaurants. Like top end. I see less Indians in them and more Ang Mohs. Muthus Curry is one of the Indian restaurant with decent prices and yet frequented by Ang Mohs.

facepalm! we're discussing prices of foods in restaurants not what kind of people frequent them.
who cares if Indians or Ang Mohs go to such places, the prices hurt everybody equally.

[ScoobyDoes]

What about the outlet stores in JB? Is it any cheaper?

No.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Wd40's orbit has been out of whack for a while now....

[ScoobyDoes]

The Al Ameen place opposite Beauty World Plaza is also OK although halal so serves no booze.

I'm in there most weekends at ~lunchtime......perfectly fine with $15-20 for the three of us all in.

[Wd40]

I don't think 30$ can get you anything even for Indian food, maybe 2 entrees at most.
Try say Maharajah's on cuppage or Kashmir on Racecourse Road for eg. a typical dinner there runs into approx 60-80$ for 2 incl. 2 glasses of wine.

another aspect is BYOB places are almost non existent here. what irks me most about all the dining options here are they all cater to some level of exclusivity which is needless even in something as basic as Pizza...!

Places like Maharaja on Cuppage road, Song of India in Scott road and Go India in Vivocity are expatty restaurants. Like top end. I see less Indians in them and more Ang Mohs. Muthus Curry is one of the Indian restaurant with decent prices and yet frequented by Ang Mohs.

facepalm! we're discussing prices of foods in restaurants not what kind of people frequent them.
who cares if Indians or Ang Mohs go to such places, the prices hurt everybody equally.

You take top end examples of Indian restaurants and then say that food in restaurants is expensive. I say, Indian restaurants which Indians frequent are not as expensive. Simple, no?

Those kind of restaurants in your example are expensive everywhere. Look at Zafraan in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

http://www.zaaffran.com/uploads/51611/u ... u_2014.pdf

[rajagainstthemachine]