sue1964

Hi.Lots of people mention eatting from stalls on streets is it safe as in Bali you stay well away???

Kooky.

It's safe. One of the main issues in places like Bali is that the water is not drinkable, certainly not for delicate western tummies, which means you don't want to risk anything washed in or cooked in it.

Water in Singapore is safe to drink, with some of the highest standards in the world. Use your common sense if you're not used to too much chilli or exotic fruits, and look for stalls with a big "A" certificate for hygeine.

It would be criminal to go to Singapore and not eat streetfood.

I think you're going to get a shock at just how developed and sterile Singapore is

sue1964

Sounds great any hints where to go??

Sandra Cruz

I have been living in Singapore for quite some years and yes food everywhere is generally clean and very safe. Hygiene is of world class standards there.

In Sg, chili crabs are very popular as the locals dig spicy food...

However if you are looking for something homely there, there's this brit gastropub my colleague brought me too.. Food there is rustic and sends a wave of nostalgia..think it's called The Jackson Plan..over at Duxton Hill..lotsa expats around that area..

sue1964

Sounds great cheers.

Kooky.

I do hope you didn't register mainly to plug that restaurant, Sandra.

Sue's a tourist, she can mix with Ang Mohs anywhere in the world so why go to an overpriced expatty area to a "british" restaurant?

Sue, if you want to play it safe, go in food courts in shopping malls. If you want a real street experience, go out into the more local areas. If you're feeling brave, go up Geylang Road to an amazing number of coffee shops (eating stalls) and have some great food whilst watching the street entertainment, i.e., the working girls We used to live up there, it's very safe (just take the usual precautions with bags and wallets - it's low crime, not no crime). If you read the link in my signature I'm sure I'll have mentioned some more areas.

Go to Little India and eat curry off a banana leaf.

Go to the East Coast Seafood Centre for, amazingly seafood. You can get a taxi there from the city for a few bucks. Alternatively go to the hawker centre just a short walk up from it.

And if you do want egg and chips, google for The Colbar. Best chips on the island and an authentic step back in time. No frills, no aircon, just lots of hangover fodder

sgbroll

I am a local S'porean or as the less patriotic amongst us say, a Sinkie. I wouldn't eat any 'street food' myself, and I almost never eat Hawker food. You think the average hawker who can't even read his own signboard knows anything about food hygiene, you are kidding yourself. I eat at Mac or KFC over any hawker stall. Most small food stores are OK as long as they are not hawker stalls or roadside stalls.

The hawkers in S'pore are 100% illiterate, that is why they work as hawkers, these are jobs no s'porean who has been through primary school would consider. Stand on feet for 9 hours daily, hot, dirty, earn 1000 bucks per month...and these days, most of the hawkers are foreigners from M'sia and China or Vietnam anyway..

And Geylang is 85% Chinese, the hookers you see are all Chinese hookers in Singapore on tourist visa and most of the stalls there are run by the mainland Chinese with a few M'sian Chinese thrown in. The legal prostitutes working in the whore houses there are from Thailand, Malaysia, China and some Viets. Personally, I can't stand walking on Geylang, it is the worst area in the entire country. It feels like walking in a small town in China.

Don't kid yourself just because the hawker has a 'b' grade for hygiene that means he is clean. The hygiene checks are once every 6 months, the inspectors look out for floor cleanliness in the hawker stalls, they don't care if the hawker used food that is two weeks old, did not wash their veg, washed their utensils and plates by simply dipping it into soap water, no scrubbing and rinsing with water, use table rags to wipe their plates or use plastic containers that obviously would melt with high heat to takeaway food.

Kooky.

Wow, so much snobbery and hatred in one post. Get over yourself

ex reg

Must say when I read the post and the others written by the same poster my first thought was 'must be an ex pat troll'.

sgbroll

Snobbery? I would hardly call avoiding hopeless illiterate ghetto nutcases and food with terrible hygiene as snobbery. I eat out at small cheap places that cost under 7 bucks all the time - KFC, Mac, Old Chang Kee, Yoshinoya, small restaurants in shopping centres, 7-11 etc.

But hawker trash? No thank you. They just dip their plates into soap water without scrubbing and that's considered 'washed'. They use food that are expired, ever had soy chicken? Ever wondered why they put so much soy and salt into their food? Most of these illiterate hawker trash probably have a string of criminal records as well.

If you think these loser hawkers know about hygiene, care about hygiene, care about your health, you are either naive or dumb. Give yourself a good smack on the head and wake up.

Kooky.

I think you spelt your name wrong.

Sue

Sharing personal experiences is fine, (and what BE is here for) and we don't all have to agree, but lets not direct personal remarks at other members. .... Thanks.

sue1964

Ok totally confused now!

sgbroll

I don't do agree or disagree, I simply write the truth. And the truth is, Hawkers in Singapore:

1. Employ cleaners to wash their dishes. These cleaners are paid 600 or so per month, they wash the plates/utensils by stacking them up on the road with two big pails of water next to the stacks. One is filled with soap water, the other with plain water. You throw 5 plates into the soap water pail, pull them out and throw them into the plain water pail, pull them out and stack them onto the 'plates stacker' thing and leave them to be air dried. Viola, plates washed and dried.

2. Sell you expired food by masking its staleness or odour with lots of salt or soy sauce or other flavouring.

3. Sell you piping hot takeaway food but putting them into plastic bags which melt. Enjoy plastic with food!

4. Are illiterates and many have a string of criminal records. Many are also loan sharks, gangsters etc.

5. Do not bother to wash their vegetables properly.

6. Do not know what is hygiene (illiterate) and do not care.

S'pore does look very sterile and efficient and clean on the surface. Why is it so clean? You think us S'poreans do ANY cleaning? Or that we preen the beautiful trees you see lining the roads? LMAO. No. The gov't employs South Indian cleaners to do ALL the cleaning. Coupled high fines for littering, that is how the country is kept clean.

If Singapore was run by the average S'porean, it would collapse. 80% of S'poreans can't even pass 1 O levels! 40% are totally uneducated, never passed primary school. (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/ghsr1/chap2.pdf)

The gov't had to protect the country from its own people through restrictions on freedom of assembly and protests etc, if it had not done so, with a largely uneducated society, S'pore would be like Thailand today.

S'pore is a first world country with a third world populace, in every aspect.

Inselaffen

why would that be an expat. looking at the clear hatred of PRC's and Malay Chinese, I would say its clearly a Singaporean