recommendations for a Singaporean cookbook

Belacan, kapi, terassi and whatever you want to call it, are all the same and all different
That's really an answer you can do nothing with, so a bit more:
They are all shrimp pastes and you can use whichever one you want or can get.
They are all slightly different, but that's even within the name group. Not all terassi's are the same. Same for kapi, same for belachan. It depends which part of the country (sometimes even town) they are made.
As far as I know Kapi is the Thai name, Belachan or belacan the Malay name (Terassi or trassi, the Indonesian name)

Fish curry powder:
I know nothing about it, so can't help.

Black bean paste:
I use the beans and crush them. In Indonesia they are called taotjo.
I find you can sub with black bean paste. It's a little different, but not enough to worry about

Hope that helps

I received the Singapore heritage cookbooks and I like them enough to order the remaining ones in the near future.
I got the Peranakan (I also didn't know that it was the same to Nonya), Eurasian and Malay books.
I have just glanced at them, so this is a first impression.
They start with a history of the specific group in the area and are followed by recipes.
Each recipe has a picture (I mention this because it was considered a minus point in the Charmaine Solomon cookbook).
The recipes look pretty authentic, at least the ingredients do
The ingredients are explained in the back.
There is also a mention in the caption of the recipe, where a different group uses a similar recipe.
This is mostly the case between the eurasian and peranakan books

Note that I got the books, not the kindle version

I've had some used ones come in from Alibris over the last few days. If you're in the US, they're a great resource for used books. They're kind of a master aggregator from many used book stores around the nation. When you search for a book, you search all the bookstores in the network.

Eurasian, Peranakan, Indian have arrived. Condition for used was quite good, a little ding on the cover of one, but the spines sounded like new when opened. The books are on thick paper, with an excellent binding.

I'm one who tends to find pictures of every dish a sign of weaker cookbook in general. My favorites tend to just have drawings and maybe a section of photos if that. So often it's about the food photos more than the information. I think the purpose here though is more to record things about what these cultures have been. These books are also from the Marshall Cavendish press that Pat Pat linked to for the Hawker Classics book. I have no basis for judging the quality of the recipes but they look interesting. One thing I noticed is that the Fish Head Curry also calls for Fish Curry Powder but doesn't explain it in the back as an ingredient. I'll have to look in the spice packet aisle more closely at my next visit to the Asian grocer and see what differentiates that powder.

I think I was expecting something more Chinese-like but the cuisine seems more diverged from that than I thought it would be as it adapted down the peninsula. My Biases are showing. When I study about Vietnamese or Thai cuisines, I can see strong similarities in approach to what I am familiar with from Chinese cooking. I don't see that so much so far with Singapore. More liquid and saucy and pungent. And spicy.

Thanks, I'd imagined there were variations but this particular restaurant actually listed their "alleged" ingredients.

Speaking of variations, and on a better note, I had the most fabulous chicken tica masala recently at a restaurant in the comparative boondock wilds of central Mass. The effect they got was very much like what I experience when adding a small amount of fine sweet vermouth to a dish, Antica Formula Vermouth to be exact. Nice smooth mouth feel also. Their lamb vindaloo was no slouch either, along with a wonderfully spiced deep fried cheese curd and onion chutney(?) that had a fine tomato like quality to it, though no sign of such pulp. Likely both these effects where achieved by other means than the ingredients imagined, a bit of kitchen magic, it would have been interesting to talk to the chef.