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Street Food Home Introduction Louisville, KY Cedar Rapids Chicago Denmark Plano/Dallas/Fort Worth Richmond, VA Singapore Hawker Centres The Rules Teh Tarik / Turkish Ice Cream Chinatown Bugis Market Laksa Farewell Trenton, NJ San Antonio, TX India Introduction Bottled Water Roadside Coconut New York City The Rules Chicken on a Stick Chicken over Rice Nashville, TN Olympia, WA	Singapore Hawker Centres The Singaporeans organized their street food scene. They do have a love of order, and of things being clean and tidy and comfortable, and I mean, doesn't everyone? But this is a tropical climate we're talking about here. It's 90 degrees F and 90% humidity every day, unless it rains, and then the humidity goes up so high you can squeeze water out of the air. I could not get from the residence hotel to the work site at Harbourfront Centre with a dry dress shirt. I spent six weeks there and did not acclimate. I did, however, have a series of mind-opening experiences that led me in much different directions in my life. Let's talk about the ones involving food. First, the hawker centres, that I keep talking about. These are scattered about the city-state, and consist of a double row of food stalls back to back down the middle, with tables and seats fixed in place in dining areas down both sides. The people who used to do street food all got moved into the hawker centres, where they have a proper roof over them, a semi enclosed cooking space, counters for serving, and an onsite cleaning crew that takes care of the mugs and plates and sweeping up. The hawker centres get regular health inspections, although as noted under Chicago, the stalls cannot get an A rating because there are no outer walls. Singapore does not require outer walls, just enough distance from the edge to the first table that nobody gets wet if the rain blows in. Bear in mind that this is a tropical climate. Outer walls are just for blocking wind and rain. There is no cold to keep out. While the hawker centres are permanent structures, they were built to house the street food vendors and clean up the general environment. Once I was there, I understood why there were such massive fines for public health violations, like littering. The garbage pickup by Harbourfront Centre missed a day. That was all it took, one day, and the public waste cans were overflowing onto the sidewalks, the hawker centres had to use the motorcycle parking for a garbage pile, and the smell was already rising by the following morning when the public works teams started picking up again. I'll talk about the public health issues in India later on, that are made so much worse by their street food scene. Singapore decided to clean itself up, built the hawker centres, moved folks into them, and got things organized. The city is better to live in as a result, the vendors are doing a brisk business without having to see to their own carts and such every day, and folks get employed to clean the hawker centres. Nice system, and makes street food so much easier to find. It's all walk-up service, pay for it, take it, and go, and while there's a set menu, it's very limited, possibly to one dish only. You get your drinks at a dedicated beverage stall, and that's a whole nother thing I'll detail in a minute. So yeah, hawker centres are street food. Side note: When I got into office on my first day in the Singapore facility, one of the items I was issued was a logo mug, with my name on it done in label tape. I was told to keep track of that mug, as the drink machines in the break room did not have cups, and were calibrated to the standard issue mug. I learned that the hot drink machine dispensed half a mug per button push, while the cold drink machine dispensed a bit of ice and then filled the mug. There was a sink next to the machines where you could wash your mug. The break room produced very little waste, just from eliminating the disposal drink cups. I would later realize just what a significant source of municipal waste those paper drink cups are, when I got to India. The aforementioned overflowing wastecans on the sidewalks were mostly due to fast-food trash, drink cups, go containers, and the like.

Street Food Home

Singapore

Hawker Centres

The Singaporeans organized their street food scene. They do have a love of order, and of things being clean and tidy and comfortable, and I mean, doesn't everyone? But this is a tropical climate we're talking about here. It's 90 degrees F and 90% humidity every day, unless it rains, and then the humidity goes up so high you can squeeze water out of the air. I could not get from the residence hotel to the work site at Harbourfront Centre with a dry dress shirt. I spent six weeks there and did not acclimate. I did, however, have a series of mind-opening experiences that led me in much different directions in my life. Let's talk about the ones involving food.

First, the hawker centres, that I keep talking about. These are scattered about the city-state, and consist of a double row of food stalls back to back down the middle, with tables and seats fixed in place in dining areas down both sides. The people who used to do street food all got moved into the hawker centres, where they have a proper roof over them, a semi enclosed cooking space, counters for serving, and an onsite cleaning crew that takes care of the mugs and plates and sweeping up. The hawker centres get regular health inspections, although as noted under Chicago, the stalls cannot get an A rating because there are no outer walls. Singapore does not require outer walls, just enough distance from the edge to the first table that nobody gets wet if the rain blows in. Bear in mind that this is a tropical climate. Outer walls are just for blocking wind and rain. There is no cold to keep out.

While the hawker centres are permanent structures, they were built to house the street food vendors and clean up the general environment. Once I was there, I understood why there were such massive fines for public health violations, like littering. The garbage pickup by Harbourfront Centre missed a day. That was all it took, one day, and the public waste cans were overflowing onto the sidewalks, the hawker centres had to use the motorcycle parking for a garbage pile, and the smell was already rising by the following morning when the public works teams started picking up again. I'll talk about the public health issues in India later on, that are made so much worse by their street food scene. Singapore decided to clean itself up, built the hawker centres, moved folks into them, and got things organized. The city is better to live in as a result, the vendors are doing a brisk business without having to see to their own carts and such every day, and folks get employed to clean the hawker centres. Nice system, and makes street food so much easier to find. It's all walk-up service, pay for it, take it, and go, and while there's a set menu, it's very limited, possibly to one dish only. You get your drinks at a dedicated beverage stall, and that's a whole nother thing I'll detail in a minute. So yeah, hawker centres are street food.

Side note: When I got into office on my first day in the Singapore facility, one of the items I was issued was a logo mug, with my name on it done in label tape. I was told to keep track of that mug, as the drink machines in the break room did not have cups, and were calibrated to the standard issue mug. I learned that the hot drink machine dispensed half a mug per button push, while the cold drink machine dispensed a bit of ice and then filled the mug. There was a sink next to the machines where you could wash your mug. The break room produced very little waste, just from eliminating the disposal drink cups. I would later realize just what a significant source of municipal waste those paper drink cups are, when I got to India. The aforementioned overflowing wastecans on the sidewalks were mostly due to fast-food trash, drink cups, go containers, and the like.