In 1929, my grandfather, Ho Loke Yee, started a tradition with the opening of Spring Court, then known as Wing Choon Yuen.
A tradition that not only centres around Singaporean Chinese food, but the coming together of family, friends and business partners for a meal.

…

Today, we are proud to be Singapore's oldest family-run restaurant. And we have unfailingly dedicated ourselves to making every meal a relaxing, enjoyable and special occasion, much like eating in your own home.

My parents, and now myself, are happy to carry on my grandfather's dream and passion of bringing Singaporean Chinese Cuisine to you, and making your occasion, our occasion.

Mike Ho. (2019) Spring Court 詠春园 Celebrating Singaporean Chinese Cuisine Since 1929. Retrieved from https://www.springcourt.com.sg/ https://www.springcourt.com.sg/

While this dish has Hainanese roots, over time, hawkers have adopted the Cantonese method of preparing pak cham gai (Cantonese for “white chopped chicken”). This involves soaking freshly boiled chicken in iced water to produce a jelly-like silky texture in the skin. The addition of aromatics like lemongrass or pandan leaves when cooking the rice, and the use of a dip made from chilli, garlic and ground ginger makes this dish very much a product of this region as well.                 

In 1991, pasar malam returned to HDB estates and this hawking culture continued.

Unlike the travelling pasar malam of the 1950s and 1960s, present-day pasar malam generally operate once a year at fixed locations by grassroots organisations, and charitable institutions.
Source: Prasad, Vina Jie-Min. (2015, March 2). Pasar malam. Retrieved from http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2015-03-02_121952.html

Ocean Restaurant is Singapore’s only underwater fine-dining restaurant and probably the hottest dining ticket in town: it’s uniquely housed within the world’s largest oceanarium at Resorts World Sentosa, with a breathtaking front-row seat to the massive undersea habitat, and headlined by a two-Michelin star celebrity chef Olivier Bellin, lauded for his fierce advocacy towards sustainable cooking approaches.

In terms of the ambience, it’s still as majestic as ever, with the huge floor-to-ceiling glass panels of the aquarium giving the restaurant an azure glow. There’s also the clever use of sleek architectural lines in the main dining room inspired by the streamlined movement of the highly threatened manta ray. You’re likely to spend most of the meal gazing in wonderment as giant manta rays, zebra sharks and shoals of silvery fish glide past.

Dining here is always surreal and hypnotic and the restaurant’s design takes full advantage of this – angled mirrors are placed at the opposite end of the viewing window to ensure nobody in the 50-seater misses out on the view.

Citation: Dawson, Tan. (2022, 27 June). Ocean Restaurant. Retrieved from https://www.timeout.com/singapore/restaurants/ocean-restaurant

 They are more like structured air- conditioned spaces shared with chain food outlets.

 Still, the hawking culture of the past still exists as hawker centres and food centres continue to feed residential housing estates with a wide variety of cheap and affordable food.
Source:Ghani, Azhar. (2011, February 28) A recipe For Success: How Singapore Hawker Centres Came To be. Retrieved from http://lkyspp.nus.sg/doc/default-source/ips/ag_history-of- hawkers_010511.pdf

Chinese traders migrated from several different provinces of southern China, bringing with them distinct languages and cuisines. This can be observed in the dishes of modern day Singapore. Hainanese chicken rice, arguably the king of Singaporean hawker food, evolved from a Hainan dish made of bony wengcheng chicken. Hokkiens from Amoy and Fukien provinces brought with them Hokkien mee, or yellow wheat noodles, incorporated into many hawker dishes, a popular one being Hokkien char mee, pan fried noodles in dark soy sauce with squid, prawns, pork, cabbage and crispy pork belly.

Peranakan, or Nonya, cuisine was born in the late 1800s, Hutton explains in her book, when Chinese labourers arrived in Southeast Asia without wives. They began marrying Malay women and their descendants came to be known as Peranakan or Straits Chinese. Their food combined flavours from China, Malaya and the countries they travelled to as merchants.

One example is ayam buah keluak, braised chicken and black nuts stuffed with sweet pork. The nuts come from Indonesia, since many Peranakan families came through Java and Sumatra, while the pork is Chinese, since Muslims from Malaya and Indonesia did not eat pork.

Another is laksa, one of the several dishes both Singapore and Malaysia claims to haveinvented. Katong laksa is a vermicelli noodle soup made with coconut milk, prawns, cockles, fish cakes, bean sprouts, lemongrass, turmeric, homemade shrimp-chilli paste and the all-important laksa leaves. The turmeric and chilli suggest Indian influence, while the sprouts suggest Chinese influence. The rest incorporates a mix of Malay, South Indian and Eurasian influences.

Indians came to Singapore first as indentured servants and later as traders. Hailing from modern day Tamil Nadu and Kerala, they brought vegetables like gourds and seedpods and seafood like crab and fish, respectively.

One Singaporean dish with obvious Indian influence is the curry puff, created as a British friendly version of the samosa. Curry puffs are puff pastries filled with potatoes, Indian spices and meat.

Indian transplants also shared their love of spicy food, bringing heat to such dishes as the ever popular chilli crab and curry debal, or "devil's curry". Curry debal was created by Eurasian traders (of mixed Portuguese and South Asian descent) when they decided to stew leftovers from Christmas. The hodgepodge stew, made with pork, poultry, potatoes, candlenut, galangal, vinegar, mustard and homemade chilli paste, is commonly enjoyed on Boxing Day.

One of today's most popular Indian-inspired dishes came about more recently. Fish head curry is thought to have been created in the 1950s by a Keralan chef who balked at the idea of discarding edible parts of the fish. While fish head does not exist in Indian cooking, it does in Chinese, so the dish became a hit (as the story goes, anyway).

Looking forward
It is fitting that this merging of cultures would take modern day shape in Singapore's hawker centres. The country's multicultural dishes, though, are also making their way into the world of fine dining, with some restaurants re-imagining old classics and others simply upgrading traditional recipes.”

An excerpt of an article from https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20101214-travelwise-singaporean-foods-past-and-present

Charcoal was also used when firewood was not available. People would light up the charcoal using match sticks.

We now have gas/electric stoves to do the job for us


National Archives of Singapore. (1950, July 20). Traditional Cooking Method Using Firewood and Charcoal.
Retrieved from:
https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs

Yeo, Hong Eng. (1960). The Charcoal stove and Kettle. Retrieved from:
https://www.singaporememory.sg/contents/SMA-9238b27a-aed9-46a5

This preservation method is known as curing.

These days, in order to preserve food, we place them in refrigerators or air-tight containers to reduce the growth of fungi and chances of spoiling.

Curing is still being used in modern times to make sure that their ingredients stay fresh.


Hybarger, Courtney. (2007). When Dinner Wasn’t Quick and Easy.
Retrieved from:
https://www.ncpedia.org/culture/food/cooking-in-the-1800s

After World War II, three-quarters of the population were crammed into the city centre. Street hawkers congregated in hotspots, with the ensuing crowds blocking out entire streets to traffic. Unsanitary food preparation and improper waste disposal led to public health concerns, as hawkers were linked with cholera and typhoid outbreaks.. This was compounded by itinerancy, making hawkers vectors for the spread of disease.

But the problem was also an opportunity. In 1965, the newly independent government embarked on a plan to redevelop the city centre, which was then filled with slums, into a business district. To do this, it first needed to create new homes outside the city centre and relocate the population living in the city there. When the Housing and Development Board (HDB) started building public housing in the 1970s, urban planners sited centralised hawker centres in housing estates. Registration for hawkers was introduced around the same time, transplanting once-itinerant hawkers into state-built hawker centres. This was the birth of hawker centres as we know it today. Hawkers were thus relocated along with most of the resident population into new housing estates outside the city centre.

Over time, hawker centres evolved beyond food centres to become a symbol of heritage and culture. A notable example is Newton Food Centre, built in 1971. The architecture and landscape at the food centre recreated the atmosphere of the plantations that once dominated the area. Another notable example is Bedok Food Centre, which is located in an area that used to be a Malay kampung. The design concept was based on a Malay theme, including the entrance roof inspired by the Minangkabau style of architecture, as well as lush tropical vegetation to evoke the feeling of a kampung.”

Newton Food Centre, c.1971
Author: NA. The Past and Future of Hawker Centres. Published: 26 July 2019. Type of source: Secondary. Retrieved from: https://www.ura.gov.sg/Corporate/Resources/Ideas-and-Trends/Hawker-centres

This format has gained widespread acceptance for reasons more than one. Not only it helps the restaurants to counter the chronic problem of labor shortage, but it also helps them to reduce their operating expense and boosts the customer experience as it accelerates the entire ordering process while reducing the scope of manual mistakes to a great extent.

Self-service kiosks, which customers can access 24X7 has been present in Japan for decades; however, it is never too late to catch up to something new. The F&B industry in Singapore has already made its presence felt in this format; they need to hone their skills a bit further!

The concept has garnered so much of attention that the fried chicken chain Popeyes joined the club alongside with the leading fast-food rivals like Yoshinoya, McDonald’s and BurgerUp.”

Author: NA. The Rise of Self-Service Kiosks in the Singapore Restaurant Industry. Published: Not stated. Type of source: Secondary. Retrieved from: https://www.posist.com/restaurant-times/singapore/self-serving-kiosks.html

The five-year span between 1974 to 1979 saw 54 hawker centres built to serve residents and workers across the nation. Different architectural and design themes gave each hawker centre their unique touch. Newton Hawker Centre, for example, was built in 1971 with the idea of having “hawker stalls in a garden setting” with trees for shade, hedges and shrubs alongside a car park and a public toilet. The last food centre to be erected during this phase was Block 505 Market and Food Centre at Jurong West Street 52, in 1986.

Today, more than 110 hawker centres are located across Singapore, and there are plans to construct even more to better cater to our population (data extracted from the website of the National Environment Agency).”

Author: NA. The History and Evolution of Singapore’s Hawker Culture. Published: 15 December 2021. Type of source: Secondary. Retrieved from: https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi_w7mj44b5AhVgRmwGHdnuCboQFnoECBcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.roots.gov.sg%2Fstories-landing%2Fstories%2FServing-Up-a-Legacy&usg=AOvVaw1rUGygcJsVZcXRgGDrvdEl

Author: Time out Singapore editors

TItle: 697-699 North Bridge Rd, Singapore 198675

Courtesy of Timeout Singapore

12 oldest restaurants in Singapore 

Source taken from: https://www.timeout.com/singapore/restaurants/the-oldest-restaurants-in-singapore

Date: 25 Feb 2019

Type of source: Primary

Source taken from:https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/20c6f5bf-1162-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad

View of portable hawker stalls

Date: 1930

Type of source: Secondary

Date on which picture was taken: 1930

During Singapore's circuit breaker, the dine-in ban didn't stop Singaporeans from showing love to their favourite local eateries. The survey revealed that almost 3 in 5 (58%) Singaporeans prefer to order from local restaurants, with those aged 55 and above taking the lead (70%), followed by respondents aged 35-54 (65%).

Rising trend in Singaporeans ordering groceries straight to the doorstep through food delivery apps

Over a fifth (21%) of Singaporeans said they are most likely to order from grocery stores when using food delivery services. This trend can be attributed to the growing demand to purchase essential items online. Deliveroo launched its on-demand grocery delivery service last October to provide customers with greater access to a plethora of grocery products, especially important amidst the ongoing pandemic. These include household essentials such as fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood, eggs, milk and dairy, snacks and sweets, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and store cupboard essentials. Deliveroo's grocery partners include British retailer Marks & Spencer and specialty store favourites serving different areas of Singapore, including Blu Kouzina Mart, Ryan's Grocer and Kuriya Japanese Market.

Author: Deliveroo

Title: Food delivery platforms deliver more than just food; serves up happiness in a time of uncertainty

Source taken from:https://sg.deliveroo.news/news/food-delivery-survey-2021.html

Published: 8 February 2021

Then when you  call the man,the funny thing is you leave it down,and he will fill it up and you tell him okay,you want five cents worth of porridge,or you want your char kway[deep fried strips of dough],you want 10 pieces.

Or put piring[steamed rice flour cake filled with palms sugar,give me two packets.It’s a basket or in the old days,we’ll say”Kasi Turun Lu punya bakul[Malay for “Bring down your basket”].”You know the basket with a handle,leave it down and we will draw it up.

Oral History Interview with Aloysius Leo De Conceicao,Former Bank Officer at HSBC,Interviewed in 1998, https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/blastfromthepast/foodculture

Writer Si-Hoe in her book “house on silat road” which contains the recounts of her child hood.

Swatow townsfolk loved Tan Chee Kok's hearty, comforting savoury beefy slightly herbal soup with flat rice noodles and chunks of beef, tripe and tendons.

1911 was also the year, the 275 year old Qing dynasty finally collapsed after decades of rot and turmoil. The shattered empire descended further into more chaos and anarchy with warlords vying for power, waging war throughout the newborn Republic of China. Hundreds of thousands then millions were forced to leave China to escape wars and poverty.

This long period of  anarchy in China coincided with heightened demand for labourers in British Malaya including Singapore.

Peak inflows of Chinese indentured labourers known as coolies and also sinkeh ("new guests" in Hokkien language) were between 1823 and 1891, after Singapore became a free port. From 1910 to 1911, before World War I began (in 1914) and the imminent collapse of the Qing dynasty. Another surge came in 1926 but quickly tapered off with the onset of the Great Depression in 1927. Among the sinkeh was Tan Chee Kok who came to Singapore (which was part of British Malaya). (My own grandfather too came to Singapore in the 1920s, from Toishan in Guangdong

Once Tan Chee Kok arrived in Singapore, he started selling beef noodles, the only trade he knew - thus, bringing Swatow hometown flavours to Singapore. He didn't have a stall, but sold beef noodles from two large pots balanced on a bamboo pole slung across his shoulders. Tan Chee Kok lived in Simon Road, Hougang in Singapore's northeast and walked 10km down to the Fort Canning area near the former Anglo-Chinese School to sell his beef noodles. Tan Chee Kok was exactly like that hawker in the picture of ACS above, plying their trade on foot. The hardiness of Singapore's pioneer generation is amazing.

In those days, and to a lesser extent today, beef noodle is a minor luxury. It costs a little more than staples like Teochew bak chor mee (minced meat noodle) or Cantonese wanton noodle In 1921, Tan Chee Kok's son Tan Jin Seah (Tan Chin Sia) joined his father in Singapore. Tan Jin Seah worked at his father's beef noodle stall in Swatow since he was 11 years old and was 21 when he arrived in Singapore.

Together, Tan Chee Kok and son set up their street side stall at Hock Lam street, a stone's throw from Fort Canning. In those days, food stalls often have no name and would adopt the name of their location. Hence, Tan Chee Kok's stall became known as Hock Lam beef noodles

Bak kut teh is believed to have originated from China’s Fujian province. The introduction of the dish to Singapore and Malaysia is attributed to Hokkien immigrants who moved to this region in the 19th century. The dish is said to have been popular with the Chinese coolies as a hearty breakfast before embarking on their backbreaking tasks of the day.

It used to be called Coolie Tea (苦力茶) .As Coolie Tea, the meat bone was just cooked with garlic cloves and dark soy sauce. The Hokkien folks added Chinese herbs like dang gui and liquorice, and spices such as cinnamon and star anise to the garlic and soy sauce. Teochews added Sarawak white pepper and cut back on the black soy sauce. 

A steaming, aromatic bowl of laksa – from the Hokkien Laak Sua meaning spicy sand – which refers to the taste and texture of dried shrimp, owes its complex flavor to the hand pounded spice paste called rempeh. Taking its heat from chili’s, it’s briny funk from dried shrimp, its tang from blue ginger and a citrusy kick from lemongrass, rempeh is the backbone to a good laksa.
https://www.remotelands.com/travelogues/why-laksa-is-singapores-signature-dish/

“The buns started to get better … And people started doing all sorts of things to the patty – grilling in a charcoal oven, experimenting with smashed patties.”

The demand for burgers spiked as the world’s population expands because the new generation is absolutely in love with this western food.

As the Telok Ayer Festival Market in the early noughties, the reassembled market was pimped up with live entertainment, a pub and other gimmicks.
Source:http://graphics.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/2015/slider/microsite/index.html#laupasat

These workers needed quick, hearty meals, spawning a proliferation of itinerant hawkers selling comfort food—noodles, curries, skewered meats—from their home countries. Carrying baskets on poles balanced on their shoulders or pushing carts equipped with stoves, the hawkers peddled hot meals around town, stopping at various immigrant settlements.

Author: Rachel Ng

Title: Singapore’s iconic, but endangered, street food now has UNESCO status

Source taken from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/why-unesco-is-honoring-singapore-street-food

Published: 29 January 2021

The solution was found in 1972 with the building of Old Airport Road Hawker Centre as part of the Kallang Airport Estate Redevelopment Scheme. The new facility was an Emporium-cum-Hawker Centre with food stalls on the ground floor and shopping on the upper levels of the building. When it was completed, it was considered the most modern hawker centre, which had incorporated the latest architectural designs.

The new hawker centre, costing $2.5 million, accommodated 176 food stalls on its ground floor and 136 shop units on its upper floor. It was built as part of the government’s 1970s plan to relocate street hawkers into purpose-built food centers which had no wet market attached. Also, in terms of design, the Old Airport Road Food Centre reflected same design of those food centres erected in New Towns of the 1960s and 1970s, like those at Woodlands and Commonwealth Avenue. These hawker centres were by and large flat roofed and had two-levels to cater to the needs of a densely populated district.

https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/Hawker-Centres/Blk-51-Old-Airport-Road

The cuisines of these early migrants were thus woven into the country’s fabric and contributed dishes famous in Singapore, such as Indian rojak. Comprising fried fritters served with a thick, sweet sauce, the dish is said to have been invented by the Indians using ingredients that catered to the Chinese palate.

Kacang puteh, Malay for “white beans,” is a selection of nuts, crackers, and grain legumes. The mix was traditionally packed in cones made from newspaper and sold by pushcart vendors outside cinemas. These pushcarts usually contained a range of snacks, including roasted cashew nuts, steamed chickpeas, sugar-coated peanuts, and murukku, a crunchy and savory Indian snack.

The local cinema industry took a hit in the 1980s with the emergence of video-cassette recorders and rampant video piracy. Lower cinema attendances meant fewer customers, with the arrival of cineplexes eventually sounding the death knell for kacang puteh vendors. These modern cineplexes often come with adjoining food and beverage stands and strict rules on the consumption of snacks bought elsewhere.

Amirthaalangaram Moorthy is the only kacang puteh vendor whose stall is near a bus stop on Selegie Road right outside Peace Centre. But in the face of inexpensive, shiny packs of factory-produced party snacks stocked at convenience stores and supermarkets, he has stiff competition.
https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2019/a-history-of-singapore-in-10-dishes/

Beyond its utility, hawker food is also a symbol of our heritage and identity. Singapore recently nominated “Hawker Culture in Singapore” to the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. As we herald Hawker Culture as central to our Singapore’s history and identity, it is fitting to reflect on its past and future: How did hawking come about? And looking ahead, where is it headed?

Professor Lily Kong, President and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, believes that “Hawker Culture reflects and parallels Singapore’s journey and its urban development”, adding that “it’s intimately tied to the way the city has developed and how our lives and urban lifestyle have evolved over time”.

This article first looks back in history, outlining how hawkers moved from pushcarts to planned centres, and tying its evolution closely to Singapore’s urban development. Next, we anticipate what tomorrow’s strategies and trends – from the Draft Master Plan, to e-payments and food deliveries – hold for the future of hawking.

From the People’s Park Food Centre, which started as a humble “food shelter” about a century ago to the Changi Village Hawker Centre that has grown into a modern foodie’s paradise, Singapore’s hawker centres have cemented themselves into the socio-cultural identity of the places they are located in.

Roots.sg. ( Updated 2021,16 December)The Belly of A Nation: Singapore’s Hawker Centres.

Retrieved from https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/Hawker-Centres/singapore-hawker-centres

Many of these hawker dishes originated from the food cultures of different immigrant groups who settled in Singapore. Over time, they have evolved to become the distinctive local dishes that we love, and form an important part of our food heritage.

Patrons dining at Geylang Serai Market & Food Centre. Photo: National Environment Agency

Our hawkers, comprising individual of all races, gender and age, and their repertoire of skills are central to our hawker centres. Well regarded for their mastery of the hawker culinary traditions, it is important that our hawkers’ knowledge, culinary skills and values are passed on through the generations.

Today, hawker centres are an integral part of Singaporeans’ way of life. They are spread across our island and serve as “community dining rooms”, where friends and families gather, interact and bond over their shared love for food. They also serve as vibrant communal spaces that promote social cohesion, moderate the cost of living and foster a common national identity based on shared experiences, values, and norms.