Friday, November 17, 2006

Hawker Centres
When we talk about food in Singapore the first thing that comes to mind is the hawker center. Hawker centers have been around for a few decades and play a very important role in Singaporean culture. Hawker centers perfectly reflect the Singaporean culture as each of the stalls represents one part of the local population. These food centers came into existence in the 50s and the 60s. They were introduced by the government to put a stop to the problems that the food cart owners were causing. These so called food carts were mobile and the vendors would push them across the country selling food on the street. This was an issue of major concern because of the unhygienic conditions prevailing at the carts and the traffic congestion that was caused by these slow moving vehicles. To address this problem the government decided to group all the cart vendors into one massive area where they could all sell their respective dishes. This way the government could also enforce and maintain strict hygiene standards.

Since their introduction in Singapore hawker centers have become very popular. They are great places where people gather to grab a quick bite or come down with the family and have a big three course meal. Hawker centers are very convenient as the stalls serve tasty food in a jiffy and at a very reasonable price. This is one of the main reasons why they are so popular with the local working population. These centers are frequented by all the different communities and races in Singapore. Hawker centers serve great Malay, Chinese, Indian and western food. Due to their reputation of being the traditional fast food joints in Singapore and the fact that they are virtually located everywhere hawker centers are frequented almost on a daily basis by the working population.

Hawker centers are found in almost all housing estates and other residential areas. Usually consisting of about 10-20 stalls each of them serving their own specialties which could include nasi lemak, turtle soup, prawn noodles and the famous roti prata. These open air food centers are not as hygienic as their more sophisticated air conditioned counterparts called food courts. This is the main reason why some of the tourists are a little reluctant to eat at hawker centers. Food courts are very clean and are meant to cater to the tourists and the richer section of the population. Although the hawker centers are not very clean this does not seem to affect the local population which frequents these places everyday.

Be it breakfast lunch or dinner hawker centers are the places to go to as they serve different varieties of food at anytime. Hawker centers are crucial structures in Singaporean culture. A visit to Singapore is not complete if you have not experienced eating out in a hawker center which is essentially something very Singaporean.

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