Singapore's hawker food is the cheapest eating on earth and nobody knows what is in it. So I pulled the Health Promotion Board's own measurements for every hawker dish I could find and ranked them on one number: calories per gram of protein. Lower is better. 105 dishes made the cut across Chinese, zi char, Malay, Indian and Western stalls.

The result is not the one people expect. The meat is never the problem. The rice and the noodles are.

The top 12

One caveat on first place. HPB publishes 84 kcal for sliced fish soup with no milk, but its own fat, carb and protein figures add up to 154. Something is wrong with that record, so do not trust its top spot. Excluding it, the best verified dish is Fried pork chop at 6.68.

Worst offenders

By cuisine

The full ranking

All 105 dishes, best to worst

#	kcal/g	Cal	Protein	Cuisine	Dish
1	4.93	84	17.05g	Chinese	Sliced fish soup (no milk)
2	6.68	206	30.84g	Western	Fried pork chop
3	6.92	114	16.48g	Zi char	Black pepper crab
4	7.20	162	22.5g	Chinese	Pig organ soup
5	7.29	295	40.47g	Western	Grilled spiced chicken
6	8.83	336	38.05g	Western	Chicken chop with sauce
7	9.04	371	41.06g	Western	Beef steak
8	9.07	170	18.75g	Chinese	Sliced fish soup (with milk)
9	9.24	180	19.49g	Zi char	Fish head steamboat
10	9.35	115	12.3g	Zi char	Sambal sotong
11	9.36	110	11.75g	Zi char	Claypot chicken
12	10.15	424	41.78g	Zi char	Sambal stingray
13	10.66	68	6.38g	Zi char	Prawn paste chicken
14	10.74	347	32.32g	Malay	Kambing soup
15	10.75	329	30.6g	Chinese	Chinese mutton soup
16	11.06	217	19.62g	Chinese	Bak kut teh (soup)
17	11.16	216	19.35g	Malay	Soto ayam
18	11.40	69	6.05g	Chinese	Soft-boiled chicken egg, whole (per egg)
19	11.92	214	17.96g	Zi char	Sweet and sour pork cutlet
20	12.15	183	15.06g	Western	Fried chicken wing (per piece)
21	12.20	72	5.9g	Zi char	Hot plate tofu
22	12.78	631	49.36g	Chinese	Wanton noodles (soup)
23	12.87	581	45.14g	Chinese	Beef noodles (soup)
24	13.14	220	16.74g	Zi char	Kung po chicken
25	13.25	518	39.08g	Chinese	Bak chor mee (soup)
26	13.32	105	7.88g	Zi char	Sambal prawns
27	13.39	459	34.27g	Western	Pork chop spaghetti
28	13.91	544	39.1g	Western	Fried chicken cutlet
29	14.10	757	53.7g	Chinese	Economic rice (2 meats)
30	14.12	169	11.97g	Zi char	Ginger chicken
31	14.17	931	65.7g	Chinese	Claypot chicken rice
32	15.15	83	5.48g	Zi char	Mala chicken
33	15.24	511	33.52g	Chinese	Fishball noodles (soup)
34	15.33	368	24g	Western	Grilled pork chop
35	15.46	554	35.84g	Zi char	Claypot frog porridge
36	15.57	137	8.8g	Zi char	Hong shao tofu
37	16.03	1028	64.14g	Malay	Nasi padang (beef set)
38	17.01	114	6.7g	Zi char	Mapo tofu
39	17.04	667	39.15g	Chinese	Curry chicken noodles
40	17.36	850	48.97g	Western	Black pepper steak
41	17.42	849	48.75g	Malay	Murtabak (mutton)
42	17.47	318	18.2g	Chinese	Sliced fish porridge
43	17.71	866	48.9g	Malay	Ayam penyet with rice
44	17.74	653	36.81g	Western	Pork chop baked rice
45	18.06	130	7.2g	Zi char	Stir fried kailan with beef
46	18.44	310	16.81g	Zi char	Salted egg pork rib
47	18.53	625	33.72g	Chinese	Wanton noodles (dry)
48	18.54	152	8.2g	Zi char	Chilli crab
49	18.87	509	26.98g	Zi char	Sambal goreng
50	18.97	471	24.83g	Chinese	Soya sauce chicken rice
51	19.02	238	12.51g	Zi char	Butter crab
52	19.27	600	31.13g	Chinese	Char siew rice
53	19.39	471	24.29g	Chinese	Prawn noodles (soup)
54	19.96	411	20.59g	Malay	Mee soto
55	20.56	681	33.13g	Chinese	Roasted duck rice
56	20.57	645	31.36g	Chinese	Braised duck rice set (with egg and tau kwa)
57	20.80	1021	49.09g	Chinese	Kway chap
58	20.86	417	19.99g	Chinese	Laksa
59	20.97	156	7.44g	Zi char	Sweet and sour prawn
60	20.97	919	43.82g	Western	Fried chicken cutlet with fries
61	21.04	1065	50.62g	Indian	Nasi biryani (chicken)
62	21.13	142	6.72g	Chinese	Fish head curry
63	21.46	191	8.9g	Malay	Tahu goreng
64	21.67	643	29.67g	Chinese	Roasted chicken rice
65	22.34	235	10.52g	Zi char	Cereal prawn
66	23.04	455	19.75g	Chinese	Beef noodles (dry)
67	23.04	327	14.19g	Malay	Mee bandung
68	23.46	602	25.66g	Chinese	Ban mian (soup)
69	23.79	310	13.03g	Zi char	Sweet and sour pork
70	24.07	612	25.43g	Chinese	Thunder tea rice
71	24.25	693	28.58g	Malay	Nasi lemak (fish set)
72	24.33	317	13.03g	Indian	Prata (egg)
73	24.71	475	19.22g	Chinese	Steamed chicken rice
74	24.83	538	21.67g	Chinese	Bak chor mee (dry)
75	25.15	513	20.4g	Chinese	Fishball noodles (dry)
76	25.42	482	18.96g	Chinese	Economic beehoon with fishcake and egg
77	25.58	383	14.97g	Chinese	Prawn noodles (dry)
78	25.82	733	28.39g	Chinese	Roast pork rice
79	26.01	1015	39.02g	Zi char	Egg fuyong
80	26.50	666	25.13g	Chinese	Lor mee
81	26.57	698	26.27g	Malay	Mee rebus
82	26.74	750	28.05g	Chinese	Yang chow fried rice
83	27.09	1179	43.52g	Chinese	Yong tau foo (clear soup, 7 pc, fried)
84	27.61	814	29.48g	Chinese	Hokkien mee
85	29.21	208	7.12g	Chinese	Popiah
86	31.16	742	23.81g	Malay	Nasi goreng
87	31.24	658	21.06g	Zi char	Egg fried rice
88	31.29	828	26.46g	Malay	Mee goreng
89	33.19	900	27.12g	Western	Fish and chips
90	34.41	573	16.65g	Chinese	Seafood hor fun
91	34.60	799	23.09g	Chinese	Mee siam
92	34.83	379	10.88g	Zi char	Salted egg squid
93	35.92	255	7.1g	Zi char	Oyster omelette
94	35.99	393	10.92g	Indian	Thosai
95	36.03	352	9.77g	Zi char	Sweet and sour fish
96	36.68	847	23.09g	Zi char	Pineapple fried rice
97	37.61	604	16.06g	Chinese	Chinese rojak (mixed)
98	37.85	974	25.73g	Chinese	Char kway teow
99	39.36	990	25.15g	Indian	Plain prata (2 pc, with curry)
100	39.75	648	16.3g	Chinese	Beef hor fun
101	39.90	486	12.18g	Zi char	Crayfish hor fun
102	40.66	318	7.82g	Western	Garlic bread
103	41.36	462	11.17g	Chinese	Fried carrot cake (white)
104	46.58	586	12.58g	Chinese	Fried carrot cake (black)
105	61.54	376	6.11g	Chinese	Kaya and butter toast

What it means

The pattern is consistent. Steamed and grilled protein is cheap: black pepper crab, steamed fish, wanton soup, fish soup, prawn soup and any bone-in chicken dish all come in well under 20. Add rice or noodles and the number roughly doubles. Fry the noodles and it roughly doubles again.

Zi char is the clearest illustration. From the same stall, black pepper crab is 6.9 and sambal stingray is 10.2. Sweet and sour fish is 36.0, oyster omelette 35.9 and salted egg squid 34.8. It is not the seafood. It is the batter and the sugar.

Hawker western does better than anyone gives it credit for. A chicken chop is 8.8 and a beef steak is 9.0, better than every rice dish in this list. What kills it is what comes on the same plate: coleslaw lands at 153 calories per gram of protein and garlic bread at 40.7.

Two honest limits. HPB measures a typical serving, and a chicken rice plate varies enough between stalls that any single number is approximate. And 20 of the 105 rows are per-100 g records rather than a plate - that does not affect the ranking, since a ratio does not care about portion size, but those rows are not one serving.

Sources

All figures come from the Health Promotion Board's SG FoodID database, the successor to FOCOS, which no longer exists on the web under its old address. HPB marks most entries as laboratory analysis; 11 of 105 here are recipe-derived instead, and those are marked in the full table.

This is an independent analysis of publicly published nutrition data. It is not affiliated with HPB or any hawker operator and is not dietary advice. Portions and recipes vary between stalls, so treat these as indicative.