Chapter IV: SINGAPORE’S FOOD PARADISE !

Publié le 26 novembre 2011 par The Singapoverblog.

“Singapore is a culture that celebrates the sensual enjoyment delivered by food.”

“An environment where excellent food flourishes in a multi cultural, multi ethnic style that has no peer around the world.”

… In the previous article I mentioned the cost of life, do you remember? And in my paragraph about the cost of life in Singapore ,I mentioned a place where every food enthusiast will find happiness. Do you remember the name of this place? The Hawkers Centers.
Delicious, cheap and with such a large choice! These 3 words perfectly sum up what is a Hawker Center.
Food enthusiasts, welcome to heaven!!

Alright, let’s go for the second part of this series of 3 articles. As you may learn after the few introduction lines, we’re going to speak about food in Singapore. An essential topic of the Singaporean culture and experience.

Singapore is… Is… Humm aaah… How can I say…? Just AWESOME for the food! You can find every type of food from all over the world and for a very cheap price! And moreover, the cheap price of the Singapore food doesn’t mean that it’s disgusting! No, on the contrary, it’s so deliiiiciiiiouuusss!
Of course, you have all the famous fast-food restaurants like Mc Donald’s, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks etc… You have some “special” fast food places as well for pasta, for vegetarians, for… for everything actually.
But all this “European/American” food is not where you should go, they are expensive and not good enough to compete with the local food which is just amazing.
The culture of food in Singapore is a deep part of the culture. Since Singapore was born, food, cooking, meals have been at the core of everyday life.

Question: Where can I find this “unbelievable” food? There are three ways to find your happiness.

-The Hawkers Centers: You can find them everywhere in Singapore, there is at least one Hawker Center per “district”. The biggest is at Newton Circus and no, no there is no Circus there, only a very important traffic circle in the district. Anyway, what is a Hawker? Actually a Hawker is a special area where there are many little food stalls who cook many different things. It’s like a giant “Resto U” in the street where you first find a table to sit and after order your meal at a counter you have chosen before for the specialties they’re cooking.
Count between 2.50$ to 5$ for an expensive meal. After ordering you just go back to your table and the stall man will find you and bring you your meal (and collect the money as well!).
You have food counters for sea-food, for Malaysian food, for “Singaporean local Food”, for vegetarian, for Indian food, Chinese, Korean, Japanese…

Note that these Hawker Centers are built by the government, but all the food shops are all independent from each other. It’s not a company who manages the Hawkers, that’s why your favorite Food shop could close for 3 or 5 days of holiday without notice!
The first time you eat in a Hawker, you could be wary of hygiene... Indeed the plates are common to all the hawker centers and there is no giant washing machine to clean them. The people who collect the dirty plates and do the cleaning of the place are old people who obviously need to keep working to complete their retirement (if they have any…) . This is the bad side of Singapore‘s society…

In these Hawkers, you can find all the social categories of Singapore, from the Senior Manager to the poor Indian worker… This is where everyone meets to take a local beer (The Tiger Beer), or eat a delicious meal and chat with friends. I discovered the Hawker centers with my office team who took me there several times.

-The Food Courts: they are the second option you have to get your lunch, dinner or even sometimes your breakfast. Actually, they are quite similar to the Hawkers, with the same system and organization of food counters, but here when you order your meal, you wait for your meal to be ready before taking it.
The prices are may be 1 or 2$ more expensive.
But the main difference between a Food Court and a Hawker is that the Food Court is managed by a company. All the stalls are controlled by the same owner and are mostly present in all the giant Shopping Malls all over Singapore. But the largest Food Courts are (it’s not a surprise) in the biggest Singaporean shopping malls such as ION Orchard, WISMA ATRIA, Marina Bay Shopping Center etc…. There are different companies of Food Courts but the most popular are Food Republic and Food Opera. Another difference is that most Food Courts are bigger than the Hawkers.

- What else? After I tried all the Food Courts and tasted every dish from the different Hawkers Centers, you will still be able to spend your money in the countless restaurants and small food shops everywhere in Singapore.
Wherever you are, there are plenty of restaurants to grab some good food!

And likewise for high-budget, there are also good, sorry, excellent and luxurious restaurants. The most famous is “Iggy’s”. It is ranked in the TOP 50 world’s best restaurants in 2011.

Ok that’s great, now you know where get your food. But may be I should tell you which food I enjoyed most!

Fried Rice with Chicken: May be not a must to taste but to start it’s a very good meal. Its rice cooked like fries in boiled oil with corn and vegetables. The chicken is cooked as usual.

IMGP3569 Chicken Curry: Fried chicken, curry sauce and potatoes or rice. Enjoy!

Korean BBQ: Many vegetables, rice, chilli, and chicken. Delicious!

Beef Noodles: Noodles, beef, vegetables, and a special sauce.

My last advice before let you enjoy your dishes will be, be careful with what you order, many meals are spicy or VERY spicy. And if you are not used to it, or if you don’t like it ask before order!

This is it for this one.
I will let you enjoy your food!!!

- Bref, j'avais faim et je ne savais pas où manger,
- J'ai décidé de tester un des nombreux Hawkers de Singap'
- J'ai commandé un plat vietnamien avec du riz des légumes et du boeuf,
- Le cuisinier m'a regardé
- Je l'ai regardé,
- Il m'a demandé, "You sure?"
- J'ai répondu "Yes"
- J'ai mit 10 minutes à faire passer le goût du chilli...
- Bref, J'ai mangé dans un Hawker.