Vietnamese chuoi nuong Congressman global Street Food in Singapore. Photo: Marie Francoise Abdullah/Getty ImagesIf there's one thing I take the works of Anthony Bourdain, is that you live only once - so eat out of your comfort zone. If you are in the Philippines and want to try a slab of blood of pig gelled, direct to street markets. And if you want to try the balut-incubated eggs full duck with embryo - this is the street where you will get the chance. If the 'chance' is the word... This is why Bourdain has been invited to speak at the World Congress of food Street of the week last in Singapore. There is a single problem-Singapore doesn't have street food.
Singapore has taken street food off the coast of its streets, 20 years ago. Due to health and safety issues, the traders (or hawkers) were moved to warehouses with electricity and running water. And now, if you want to kee wee nam - chicken poached on top of chicken fat glistening rice - you will need to visit one of the 107 "hawker centres" of the country. Odd, then, to Singapore to host a Congress of world street food and invite a man who is all about life off the beaten track to make speech.
Bourdain has had the opportunity to deplore the State of gastronomy in London, New York or Paris, where, he said, that the food was unlikely to have a sense of belonging. "But in the streets of Mexico," he said, "you know where you are." He raved on the streets of the Viet Nam pho, and how it tasted better on a low stool in plastic in the middle of the durian and diesel fumes. But he did not waste of hawker centres. Even a hedonist of food as Bourdain can see they have much to recommend them.
The 107 centres - with 10 more scheduled in the next five years - resemble Western food courts, lined with uniforms tracks small boxes serving cuisine. In the middle are plastic tables and wipe the seats. Each stall is given a note of cleanliness of Government, which appears at the level of the eyes - the difference between an A and a B may be salary a month of. All the food is good. Some of it is great. But something is missing - the individuality that we attach so strongly in British street food.
To see the queues from noon to Maxwell Road, a centre of hawker in the Singapore business district, you wonder if what really matters. Types of companies Queuing for their crab - pepper or head of fish curry alongside schoolchildren and taxi drivers food Street in Singapore seems democratic in a way that British traders can only dream. It is not just for cool kids. What is the way forward for Britain? Should copy us the model which has been adopted in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong?
The Association of traders throughout the country - the professional association for the restoration of food Street in Britain - is ambivalent. "Traders in this country find it if difficult to obtain permission to trade anywhere, I'm sure that many would jump at the chance to exchange a restoration funded, area", said Mark Laurie, Director of NCASS. "But they would feel the possibility of expressing themselves in the streets. Street food is quality, affordable food and choice - our merchants want just the chance to offer it. ?
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