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Oosters
All dark wood, brass and big windows, Oosters faithfully recreates the cosy interior of a Belgian pub, with a wide range of beers (the Leffe Blonde on tap is a favourite) and hearty food - mussels are a specialty.
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Paulaner Brauhaus
Wear your best pastel-striped shirt or power dress to mix with the business crowd downing highly addictive German beers at this convention-centre microbrewery. The inconvenient location at soulless Suntec City means that once you've made the effort to get here, you might as well dig in for the long haul. Two more please, fraulein.
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Penny Black
Homesick Brits populate this trad English pub, doubling as the home of the Liverpool FC supporters club. Big-screen TVs, decent pub grub, live music on Fridays and happy hours from opening till - not a bad combo.
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Peppermint Park
Outdoor chill-out area with a bar, large day beds and swing seats.
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Post
After-workers schmooze beneath high ceilings, metallic Art Deco finishes and a wall of vodka - if only all post offices looked this snazzy! Things look even better after a few caipiroskas and a chubby Davidoff 'Short Perfector' from the humidor.
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Post Bar
Retaining the original post-office ceiling, decked out with modern sculptures and some decidedly futuristic underfloor lighting, Post Bar exudes class without snobbery and mixes an outstanding mojito. Worth dressing up for.
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Powerhouse
Industrial design and a huge dance space aimed at a younger crowd.
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Prince of Wales
Rough at the edges, knockabout Australian-style pub and beer garden, with scuffed wooden floors, Gippsland Pale on tap, acoustic strummers and live bands, and appropriately laconic blokes behind the bar. A slightly surreal enclave of non-Indians amid the Sunday evening Little India melee.
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Privé
Located on an island out in the middle of Keppel Harbour, with the city on one side and Sentosa on the other, you couldn't ask for a better location for evening drinks, or Sunday morning brunch. Attracts an affluent, well-dressed crowd, with guest DJs and occasional live music. The attached Australian-style restaurant is worth staying for.
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Que Pasa
Mediterranean-style wine and tapas bar in Emerald Hill, a pedestrianised lane of crumbling, lantern-lit shophouses. There can be few more atmospheric spots in the city to stop for a drink - that is until you realise it's all a bit of a charade. That little neighbourhood bar strip is entirely owned by a single company, but even so the drinking holes are all good, drawing crowds of locals and tourists alike.
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RAV
Unrelentingly red with disco balls aplenty, RAV is Circular Rd's stand-out club, pumping out everything from acid jazz to Motown to under-30s. Big-name local DJ Illusion is a regular; gals are regular recipients of free-flow 'housepours'.
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Red Dot Brewhouse
The service at the restaurant here was shocking, which is a shame, because this microbrewery is the product of one Singaporean man's passion for beer - and his beers are pretty damn good. So go along and plonk yourself at the bar, where the staff can't ignore you, or take 40 minutes to bring your drinks.
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Red Lantern Beer Garden
For a taste of old Singapore, head to the seedy, bayside Red Lantern Beer Garden where bands often play, cheap meals are served, and you can get a reasonably priced beer. It can get pretty rowdy late at night, so just go with it.
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Rouge
On a stretch of restored shophouses trying to maintain their Peranakan themes, Rouge features a host of snuggly nooks and crannies with an emphasis on deep red and velvet. Luxurious yet intimate. Wednesday is the funk and groove-themed Love Hotel night, Thursday and Saturday are hip-hop, and Friday can be anything in between.
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Singapore Repertory Theatre
The bigwig of the Singapore theatre scene, expect to see repertory standards such as Death of a Salesman and The Glass Menagerie , as well as modern Singaporean works.
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Singapore Symphony Orchestra
The outstanding SSO likes its venues grand - it plays regularly at its Esplanade home and also at the splendid Victoria Concert Hall and also, most memorably of all, on the Symphony Stage in the Botanic Gardens.
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Sound Bar
Choose between alfresco riverside cocktails and beery bar stools by the glowing fish tank. Ambient tunes, evening breezes and sexy clientele round out the mood. Migrate upstairs to the Liquid Room later on.
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St James Power Station
New poster boy of Singapore's night scene, St James is quite an achievement. Converting a 1920s coal-fired power station into an entertainment complex took both huge amounts of money and a fair scoopful of design talent. All the bars and clubs are interconnected, so one cover charge gets access to all of them. Several bars - the Bellini Room, Gallery Bar, Lobby Bar and Peppermint Park - have no cover charge at all. Minimum age is 18 for women and 23 for men at all except Powerhouse, where the age is 18 for both.
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Taboo
Hottest gay dance club on the scene (for the moment, at least), always packed with the requisite line-up of shirtless gyrators, dance-happy straight women and regular saucy themed nights.
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Tangos
Tangos' red/white/black perspex-panelled interior is a stylish place to prop yourself for a few happy hours ( to ). The daiquiris are reasonably affordable, and it also serves some tasty pasta.
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Thai Disco
Thoroughly raucous, slightly seedy and heartily drunken - it's a Thai disco! The house band, featuring scantily-dressed female singers and heavily hair-gelled male heart-throbs, play danceable rock classics at high volume, while admirers buy garlands to place around their necks. You're likely to be the only tourist in here, but no one seems to care.
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The Arena
Touted as the largest live-music space in Singapore, this slick venue wheels out international bands and DJs for short residences or one-off gigs. Expect danceable mainstream Top 40, hip-hop and house to a cashed-up crowd.
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The Boiler Room
Straight-up, no frills rock and pop club, with a Filipino band performing Western hits to a largely table-bound audience.
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The Old Brown Shoe
Classic British-style pub that gets especially jammed on Wednesday nights for its pub quiz, which draws competitive types from far outside the pub's usual Bukit Timah catchment area.
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The Screening Room
All-in-one hip entertainment venue comprising two bars, screening room, bistro and function room. The highlights, in a city swamped by mainstream Hollywood, are the sofa-filled movie rooms and the rooftop bar offering fantastic views across the district.
