As seen at Sixth Avenue in Singapore over the weekend, an old row of hawker stalls closed, gutted, and re-opened as a new style GastroHawker(tm). The lighting is less harsh (hard to see from the photo, proof being the whole thing is not lit up like a floodlight), there are more comfortable tables and chairs, its generally cleaner than the standard hawker stall, and also hard to tell by the photo above, but they even have modern easy-listening music to eat along to.
Customers can order their food and drinks from a variety of new stalls, with only a slight mark-up on the standard hawker centre prices (which, according to some locals, is absolutely outrageous). Unlike Melbourne and Sydney, in Singapore we not only have gastrobars, we also have gastrohawkers(tm).
My single hope is that in time, Masterchef Australia might like to visit Singapore in an upcoming season, and as an individual challenge, could make do with each contestant running a stall and trying to live on SG$ 3000 (approx US$ 2400) monthly including rent, food and bills, which is the standard wage within the industry. The last contestant to return to Australia and the safety of its minimum wage (plus overtime) wins.
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