It's Friday night and I'm staring death in the face. The face in question happens to belong to a red snapper, and it's peeking out from the dark depths of powerful tamarind broth shimmering with crimson chili oil.

As it fixes me with its upturned eye and gaping maw, I feel a vague twinge of guilt at having been partly responsible for bringing it to this sorry state. I pick up my chopsticks, gingerly.

"The rich would always eat the finer cuts of the body: the loin and leg of pork, the fish fillet, and toss the head," announces Patricia Chia, the Singaporean owner of Sin Tong Kee (03-3713-2255; 1-18-12 Ebisuminami, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; www.sintongkee.jp). She has been watching me engage in a mental battle with this fish-head curry and is running a historical commentary while I gather my resolve. "Our cuisine was born as a competition between immigrant laborers to scavenge leftovers and make something edible out of them," she adds. I would come to realize, after visiting two of Tokyo's Singaporean eateries, that the visceral aspect of the cuisine isn't simply definitive, but also a large part of its appeal.