Make no mistake Big Mac, KFC and Pizza Hut are here in abundance and Singapore's own fast food brands are making their mark as well. Everybody wants food and wants it now! But there is an extremely popular alternative to the big brands - the Hawker Centres.The name is a spin off from the days when people wandered the streets carrying stoves, pots and pans as well their ingredients and just set up the on the side of the road if they saw the potential to sell to customers. In an effort to control the street sellers the government set up the Hawker Centres. They are like food courts and you can find them everywhere from the high class shopping malls on Orchard Road to the opposite side of the road to my apartment by the beach.
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n the bigger sites there as many as fifty or sixty small kitchens each selling their own expertly produced recipes to the bewilderment of the novice. I haven't a clue what most of the dishes are but they are cheap, nutritious and fast. Once you get the confidence and the hang of it they are great places to go. For $5 (about £2) you can get anything from chicken noodles to dishes from Malaya, Thailand, China and occassionally Europe. The kitchens are graded from D for dodgy to A for amazing.
n the bigger sites there as many as fifty or sixty small kitchens each selling their own expertly produced recipes to the bewilderment of the novice. I haven't a clue what most of the dishes are but they are cheap, nutritious and fast. Once you get the confidence and the hang of it they are great places to go. For $5 (about £2) you can get anything from chicken noodles to dishes from Malaya, Thailand, China and occassionally Europe. The kitchens are graded from D for dodgy to A for amazing. Last night I after seeing Khamma back to the airport I visited the Bedok hawker centre. It's a colourful, vibrant market and a true theatrical culinary eperience. It's a great place for the locals to socialise and meet with friends and family. There was no sense of threat or tension as people of all races and creeds mingled. Alcohol is freely available but there is no sign of drunkeness or threatening behaviour and it was a pleasure just to stroll with the good folk of Bedok.
I don't think the Hawker Centres will not be adopting any kind of computer system to control their stocks that I am familar with, but there are two Hawker Centres in the airport and they are open to the public. In each one there's about 30 stalls open 7 days a week from 7am to 10pm. The variety of food on offer is immense and it is difficult to spend more than $6 (about £2.50) on a fair size portion. Very different from lunchtime in T2 Manchester.
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