The best of City Plaza

Getting to Whitefiction is slightly tricky – it's quite a distance away from its #04-36 neighbour, but it's well worth the effort. Its $10 clothing racks feature handpicked pieces from Thailand and Hong Kong, including chiffon tops, structured button-down shirts and choker tops that'll easily cost twice as much elsewhere.

And make a stop at PEONY Collection. The tiny space boasts a range of strappy tops, wide-legged pants and off-shoulder tops – our favourite rack is, naturally, the $10 one. Like most shops in City Plaza, clothes are refreshed as soon as the one-off pieces are sold, so you won’t have to worry about looking like your next fast fashion-clad individual.

No trip to City Plaza is complete without a limb from this fried chicken shack. In fact, make it your priority to crush a half spring chicken meal ($7.50, with fries and coleslaw). The folks at this homegrown fast food restaurant have been at it for three decades, and it shows: once you get past the gently spicy, golden-brown blanket of skin that glides off your chicken, you’ll tear into juicy, fall-off-the-bone meat. Mediocre fries and crunchy, sweet coleslaw ensure your chicken remains the bright, shining star on your plastic plate. This beats KFC, hands-down.

It’s got seven outlets islandwide, and fans of the smashed fried chicken dish aren’t abating. Skip the ayam bakar solo ($7.50) and go straight for the ayam penyet plate ($7.50). A crowd favourite, the chicken is boiled in turmeric and other spices for two hours to give it its heady flavours, then dunked in hot oil and served with fried tofu and some seriously potent sambal that’s sweet, tangy and fiery good.

There’s something undeniably addictive about the ban mian from this stall. Choose from eight options – we recommend mee hoon kueh – and your soup base. We tried the wildly raved-about abalone clam handmade noodles (from $4) with its moreish flat flour noodles cooked the way we like it: chewy and with bite. The soup is comparably lighter than your typical bowl, but it’s fragrant with onion oil, and easy to slurp when paired with clams and coarse wolfberry leaves.