5 ms·

this is just my opinion, but i don't think this is literally 'street food' -- it's not on the street, it's in a food court inside of a shopping mall frequented

this is just my opinion, but i don't think this is literally 'street food' -- it's not on the street, it's in a food court inside of a shopping mall frequented by affluent professionals. in my experience, east and southeast asia have the best 'food court' cuisine on earth, probably by an order of magnitude. nothing i've seen on any other continent even comes close. i think this is just michelin recognizing that fact.

avar 10y ago
It's not inside a mall, it's in a hawker center, a complex that doesn't have traditional shopping and is literally many levels of nothing but small one-man eateries. Saying that it's not "street food", I think, glosses over the context of what these things are in Singapore. There was a concerted effort by the government at some point to bring what were "street food" stalls in the western sense into regulated hawker centers for hygienic reasons. There's almost no "street food" in the western sense in Singapore, for a combination of that reason and the fact that it's bloddy hot outside. While Hawker centers usually don't have AC, they at least tend to have fans everywhere, which makes it a bit more tolerable than eating food outside in the street. It is street food in the sense that it's all really cheap food that's prepared almost instantly, you can eat it in a hurry, and the Hawker centers are all in major thoroughfares.
- tamana 10y ago
  "street food in the western sense" is funny in USA because USA has nearly no street food in the sense of the western view of Asian streetfood vendors. USA has "food trucks"
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Hot dog cart?
    - theCodeStig 10y ago
      It's a rarity. Hot dog carts (or other food carts) would only be found in larger cities, such as NY. Smaller cities, only outside of a sports stadium during a game.
      - dllthomas 10y ago
        Normalizing geographically, it's a rarity. Normalizing by population, less so. It's still not something most Americans encounter, in person, with any frequency. But I think it's something Americans are pretty familiar with, if only because so much media is set in NYC.
- theCodeStig 10y ago
  It sounds like you're Singaporean. Cheers! While some parts of Europe have street food, other parts of the west, such as the US do not. "There's no street food in the western sense" would more accurately be "There's no street food like there is in the rest of Southeast Asia". Contrast hawker centers with the street carts like you see in Bangkok (literally street food).
  - avar 10y ago
    I'm not, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was. I've been to Singapore a few times though, and have eaten in the Chinatown hawker center discussed in the article several times so I thought I'd correct beachstartup's misconception of it. It's certainly nothing like a "food court inside of a shopping mall" and the comment that it's "frequented by affluent professionals" is laughable. People from all walks of life eat in Singaporean hawker centers. By "street food" in the western sense I assumed beachstartup was talking about mobile hot dog / kebab stands you can find in the US, or similar (but more often stationary) stands you can find on the street in many European cities. I don't remember any of that in Singapore, although I wouldn't be surprised if it exists. Instead the demand for street food is satisfied by hawker centers.

avar 10y ago

It's not inside a mall, it's in a hawker center, a complex that doesn't have traditional shopping and is literally many levels of nothing but small one-man eateries. Saying that it's not "street food", I think, glosses over the context of what these things are in Singapore. There was a concerted effort by the government at some point to bring what were "street food" stalls in the western sense into regulated hawker centers for hygienic reasons. There's almost no "street food" in the western sense in Singapore, for a combination of that reason and the fact that it's bloddy hot outside. While Hawker centers usually don't have AC, they at least tend to have fans everywhere, which makes it a bit more tolerable than eating food outside in the street. It is street food in the sense that it's all really cheap food that's prepared almost instantly, you can eat it in a hurry, and the Hawker centers are all in major thoroughfares.

tamana 10y ago
"street food in the western sense" is funny in USA because USA has nearly no street food in the sense of the western view of Asian streetfood vendors. USA has "food trucks"
- dllthomas 10y ago
  Hot dog cart?
  - theCodeStig 10y ago
    It's a rarity. Hot dog carts (or other food carts) would only be found in larger cities, such as NY. Smaller cities, only outside of a sports stadium during a game.
    - dllthomas 10y ago
      Normalizing geographically, it's a rarity. Normalizing by population, less so. It's still not something most Americans encounter, in person, with any frequency. But I think it's something Americans are pretty familiar with, if only because so much media is set in NYC.
theCodeStig 10y ago
It sounds like you're Singaporean. Cheers! While some parts of Europe have street food, other parts of the west, such as the US do not. "There's no street food in the western sense" would more accurately be "There's no street food like there is in the rest of Southeast Asia". Contrast hawker centers with the street carts like you see in Bangkok (literally street food).
- avar 10y ago
  I'm not, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was. I've been to Singapore a few times though, and have eaten in the Chinatown hawker center discussed in the article several times so I thought I'd correct beachstartup's misconception of it. It's certainly nothing like a "food court inside of a shopping mall" and the comment that it's "frequented by affluent professionals" is laughable. People from all walks of life eat in Singaporean hawker centers. By "street food" in the western sense I assumed beachstartup was talking about mobile hot dog / kebab stands you can find in the US, or similar (but more often stationary) stands you can find on the street in many European cities. I don't remember any of that in Singapore, although I wouldn't be surprised if it exists. Instead the demand for street food is satisfied by hawker centers.