Why should there be another Singapore Food Festival aimed at Singaporeans' impassioned love for local food?

Question

Which organisation should lead the charge and why? Any ideas for the event? The Singapore Food Festival, to be held in July, represents Singapore’s food culture but it’s mainly aimed at tourists. Although the festival originated from Singaporeans’ famous love for local food, it doesn’t represent this and there is no true food festival targeted at Singaporeans to celebrate this unique passion of ours.

Answer 1

Another Food Festival?.....

Its purely for tourists, in the Orchard area? To 'showcase' our local delights? At crazy prices, in cramp and lousy environment ?...

Food Fest for us ??....Do we need one ?....

Food courts like Food Republic is already rounding some above average hawkers, isn't that good enough ?....

Locals may be spurred by 'herd instinct' for the moment of fun and curiosity in a food fest. When the 'media frenzy or hype' dies down, we will be back to our favourite stalls, at the comfort of our heartlands. Why bother with the long Q and high prices ?..

The last food fest thingy at Orchard Rd, I was not impressed. I rather go back to the actual stalls. Taste better & cheaper there...

'Invited' Hawkers there complained about paying cut-throat prices to organiser to run stalls there...

We were there to help pay their rent and start up....



With all the MediaCorp programes and magazines raving about food here, its hard to decide who is telling the truth now(about the best), it may just be some form of 'advertorial'....

Forget about running a Fest just for us ..... No need lah...

Either way, most here are not that 'particular' about food. In fact I find most here simply eat based on someone else's recommendations. If someone say its good, then that's THE definition of 'good'...like bible truth...

Just put a Q there and the 'world' here would Q up....Most people just believe that when there's a Q, it must be good....

OR put some magazine or TV endorsement....some suckers will Q there....One would blindly believe, 'its must be good...'

I'm tired of all these now....

I am happy to know where to find 'my best and fav' stalls of local food here.....

Answer 2

I never been in to any of the so call Singapore Food Festival. Its because 1 look I know it will not be cheap and to many artificial looks. I think why not do it in Marina or one of  the east coast car park to have a atmospre like a old `pasar malam` or (alamak i forgot the road name) infront of the supreme court open padang. Also sell at a cheap cheap price like dulu dulu( long time ago.) Invite locals hawkers that cook like the old ways with passion ,not to make many many money. Maybe Makan sutra can recommend or people choise.  Which only mean ....... the tourist board sponsor lah.  Just an idea cause I to miss the `pasar malam` where you eat cook food on the spot with the smell and the kecoh(noises). Since its its for the tourist why not put shows every or alternate nights. Shows in malay dance ,chinese dance or wayang or Indian dance. Like a funfair in Kallang.

Actually we don`t need food festival for singaporean cause mostly  go there to get free sample or want cheap cheap price with marvelous taste.

Thank you for reading and sorry my english quite quite poor .

Answer 3

Singapore has gone global so has the food but where would we be if not for globalisation ? The original Singapore Foods did come from other parts of the word to begin with and there is no denying that some tourist had to bring it here so why begrudge the tourist ? Our forefathers were tourists once . and altho the concept of "local foods " is good the original flavours seem to have been lost somewhat  when  the mass produced foods kicked in.

and please, hold it at a place more condusive for all and not at some tiny square where one has to jostle n push to get a sample of what is being offered !

Singaporeans love food, any kind of food so be it Singapore foods or Chinese or Italian or French, does it matter ?

We will eat     just about anything .........

and yes mediacorp should lead the event as it caters to a wider audience.

Answer 4

food festival is a best way to promote food not only from local but from overseas too.The tourist board should organised this event.Then who else?the main is not only target tourist but local as well where.Now days tourist dont come here to spent on food but too shopping.targeting China tourist is not a good idea.coz they are poor to spent on food here.The best way is to sell at affordable price so the local can enjoy it together.

Answer 5

you got no other question to post is it?food only....eat,**** eat and **** thats all......hello seetoh....are all singaporean really into eating junk food?should promote more on healthy lifestyle festivals or something...and not eating more than calories you burn from exercising.You know how many cases of colon cancer in spore?mostly are ppl who loves to eat. Eating as a hobby...singapore a food paradise?is that what you want tourist to know us as?.....should be more healthy singaporeans....

Answer 6

Your answer is seemingly contradicting to your question...

Well, it doesn't matter if the food festival is aimed at tourists and not us Singaporean because if you love food..YOU LOVE FOOD.

Without even realizing it, we're constantly celebrating 'this unique passion of ours' with tv programmes like ur own, Food Places..Lost & Found etc. Even with the springing of new cafes and food shops, we're highlighting on our love for food.

So, for all of you true food lovers out there (like myself), continue to support the local scene of foodfares regardless of who the organizers are aiming at;>

Answer 7

Imagine film without film festivals. Same goes for food. Without festivals opportunities and recognition by not come by. Impassionate Singaporeans yes. But there are passionate Singaporeans like you out there too. A festival is not just for passionate people. It is to promote and generate interest in the community also. Success doesn't come immediately. It is through sheer determination and hard work that one achieve success. While we can't have all singaporeans to be passionate about local food, it is good that we have started promoting our local food and opened the eyes of the ignorant. we can't jump the gun to get to our goal. =)

Answer 8

don't know who should lead but i sure know shouldn't. Definitely not Makansutra.. I tried the food a few times at Esplanade because i had no other choice. It was late and i always went to a club there. It not tasty and freaking expensive for the standard of the food. I can accept expensive provided its good. The attitude of the hawkers were Very bad. Especially the drinks stall. There's once a customer complained bout a badly burned toast to a staff. the staff smiled(a very fake one) and said ok i'll change for you. And when the customer turns away she said burned toast cannot eat meh. Right in front of me and a few other customers. I was very disappointed with the place. Especially the place was obviously catered to tourists. How would the foreigners look at us. Bad food, Bad manner, Bad services from Singaporean. So i think anyone can organise the food fest but makansutra.

Answer 9

ayah.. singapore food where got nice. .. black char koey teow.. very bad taste that only singaporean like.. coz singaporean bad taste too...hahhah

Answer 10

aiyah...why not?? it's food right....what harm can they have, lol.

but seriously FOOD is our passion adn Singaporeans are adventurous enough to try  international food but we still absolutely love our many local delights be it chinese malay indon, indian punjab gurkha eurasian dishes u know ....everything's rojak..lol...........................

Answer 11

The Ministry for Trade & Industry should lead the charge. We should move beyond the sole & repeated focus of the Singapore Tourism Board. A much needed dash of objectivity is crucial if we are to steer away from staid & stale accolades for 'safe' old dishes.

The Singapore Food Festival should be one that highlights the best of food that is readily available locally. It could be hawker fare or gourmet cuisine... but the food must be reasonably priced so that they are readily available realistically.

We should steer away from fine dining gourmet reviews of cuisine coughed up by visiting top chefs or those that a exorbitantly priced. In short, ... no more PIES IN THE SKY.

The event could be held in September, during the Term 4 school holidays.

To bring out the rich diversity of our multi-racial makeup, we could have competitions to establish by handphone voting the signature dish of each ethnic entity. The best Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Malay, Southern Indian, Northern Indian, Eurasian, Hakka etc dish.

The dish may be traditional or fusion - what matters is that it is popular. That is, we identify the top 3 outlets for each dish without ranking them.

Then, every year in December, we vote the current 'Signature' dishes of Singapore - the top 10 dishes chosen across ethnic boundaries, based on phone voting.

These could be touted as 'Singapore's Gourmet 10 2008', for example.

Venue: How about the Civic District? The old Esplanade - now the Queen Elizabeth Walk ... flanking Connaught Drive (where the Satay Club used to thrive), the Padang - with road closure that seals off St Andrew's Road & Connaught Drive.

Several notable buildings & monuments, flushed with history, abound. Anderson Bridge, Victorial Theatre, Victoria Memorial Hall, Singapore Cricket Club, St Andrew's Cathedral, City Hall, the Supreme Court Building, the Lim Bo Seng Memorial, Tan Kim Seng Fountain, the Indian National Army Plaque, the Cenotaph etc This Padang zone could be the central 'Heart' of the event.

Peripheral sites could be at Little India, Geylang/Arab St, Katong, Joo Chiat, Chinatown.

Could this be the 'true food festival' we crave for? Die, die, must try ... lah!!!

Answer 12

Singapore Tourism Board should host this event.

Generally i think it is ok that there are actually more festival here and there. Although in this way we would be having any official ones, we do keep Singapore lively in this manner. More activities means more tourists and more spendings induced for Singapore. Signapore is aiming to be one of the tourist's favourite vacation destination. We have to keep hosting big events like F1 and IMF  to make it interesting for the people to find out more about this tiny red dot.

Answer 13

Singaporeans are known to love food, but if the festival is going to be mainly concentrated on local food (we could get it everywhere, anywhere, anytime) so it will automatically be targeting the tourists. To attract more Singaporeans, the organisers just need to add in some food that are not found locally (namely Japanese, Thai, Germany, Brazil), with some advertisment and Singaporeans will come wanting to try it out for sure.

Answer 14

After travelling a lot , I agree SINGAPORE is still one of the best place when talk about food. If u r targeting on singaporean well i say 90% of us who always eat outside knows well where to go. An example to support this answer is that my friends or my families will always argue where to go & eat when come to food. When come to burn down calories we have so many question on how to do it. Singaporean need now is information on how to burn that FATS. Maybe the fitness centre should join venture with the Singapore Food Festival. It will be good if the organizer can display individual food calories on each food just to make a different from other food festival.

Answer 15

Can such a food festival (for all its good intent and purposes) be a sustainable event?

Answer 16

Hi seetoh,

Just some opinions from me as a guy who's into F & B... Last Food festival was crowdy and do attracts many locals and tourist yet the whole event was actually promoting the food supplying organisations such as Polo cakes, Dodo seafood, Eu Yan Sang Chinese Medicine, etc.

So what's the point of going when you dun get to eat ah goh fried carrot cakes from People Park hawker Centre, Toa Payoh Lorong 6's curry fish head, thasevi's murtabak and roti prata from jalan kayu, heng kee's curry chicken noodles from hong lim square, etc... Those are what we are proud of rather than other things. Yet we must understand that without those big organisations' support, the festival cannot go on. You need money to feed the people food.

Sadly it will be very difficult to organise such a festival by inviting the abovementioned and other great hawkers as I known them since my childhood days til now. So what do your guys think? Btw do anyone knows the new location of the chicken rice stall that used to sell at Queenstown hawker? It used to have many awards and highly recommended by Mr. Moses Lim as I missed it very much.

Answer 17

All these foods cause cancer. Look at the pimples on your face. Try to eat more organic fruits and vegetables. Sorry to say this. But nowadays foods are full of chemicals.

Answer 18

Why should there be a Food Festival for a specific time period for that matter?

We don't need a Food Festival, Singaporeans are so passionate about food, we don't need a reason to eat good food!

Its a festival all year round

Answer 19

I think it will be a waste of time & energy unless there are some guidelines. Food Festival = mass food = yukky food. True good local food is cooked fresh and for those who travel,  wait & probably some take the abuses of the store owner.

If you must have a food fest then suggest, a two tier eating feasting. Those who walk in, maybe tourists, to try and taste the local food but have no idea what is good or bad.. just eat taste & something they can tell friends back home. Then for the local or even overseas connoisseurs who will pay more but be in a organised seated place whereby the island selected best will have their food served to them.

Answer 20

Actually I think that Either of the big media giants like Mediacorp or Singapore press holdings should lead the charge by giving more coverage on the festival itself. This can be a real boost to the industry as the information can be disseminated more rapidly and the locals (like me) are more aware of such events. I have this idea that if we held a food competition (Big gourmet etc)in the Suntec Convention hall or other venues there will be a win-win situation where the event hosting area is highlighted and  there will be more interest in such events.

Answer 21

I firmly believe that STB and the Association from the Food and Manufacturing Industry along with Hotel Association within Singapore should lead the pack. We can also rope in SLA for provision of the State Property for rent to create a ambience by having a theme with ech different room or turning a warehouse into something unique and EDB to invite other country to participate such that we locals can know other good and nostalgic food of others.

This will be something different from the carparks or road stretches style. I think we should bring back those nostalgic food with a theme in each room in the building. (Much like the Majestic Hotel with a different theme in each room) Possibly a big building like the ex NASA building off Orchard road. Make it a unique experience such that tourist and local alike will like to try it out.

We should have a competition for food lovers at the location to spice things up a little. Maybe say an eating competition. Who can eat the most within a timing or the person who can think of the most number of ways to savour a particular food.

all this will evoke the sense of taste within the viewer minds and leave a deeper impression of good food associating them with something close to their heart.

We can also take that oppurtunity to invite locals and tourist alike to name or suggest a few of their favourite dishes in the festival or should also have been worthy to be included in the festival.

The Media will help to publicise it and maybe if all turns out well then we can look forward to another eventful year of Food Festival as i am sure that some very nice home dishes never make it to the Festival at all. Like my mum's "hong zhao ji" and "mee suah"

Answer 22

Being a foreigner I don't understand the fuss about Singapore food.

Maybe I missed the good old days? What is served now is nothing but dishes that originated somewhere but Singapore.

The food here is full of MSG and lacks the uniqueness. Coming here to Singapore to watch the locals get Crazy over there food is just pitifully to watch. The double standard is strange, or should I say typical for Singaporeans. On the one side so "petty" about Singaporean "whatever" but then the lack of quality, originality - Singaporeans, what's wrong? There is no Singapore nation with its own culture and food. You are a melting pot.

Face it - it is a great blend of Asia - not Singapore. Just look at the names. Malayian, Indonesian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese...

It is obviously hard to be Singaporean and therefore only  acceptable if to create artificially all Singaporean "own".

Tourist don't come here for the food festival - every country and even villages around the world have their own festival.

Your passion for food! - have a look at that. Why don't you also have a passion for other things. You are the laughing stock because you are incompetent to do anything else but to talk about food. During the meal, after the meal, before the meal, anytime. How many of you actually know what you are eating and how to cook it. What ingredients it takes? The way is see it, "your passion of food is nothing but a clever political education and manipulation to keep a population "happy" and contented. As long as ther is food there is no question. You (Singaporeans) should worry more about your country then about food. With the costs of living spiraling, there will be soon no more tourist and even "Singaporeans" as it is only affordable for rich crooks from all over the world.

Enjoy your meal.

Answer 23

Instead of a Singapore Food Festival for Singaporeans, why not organise a food ambassador programme where local Singaporeans can volunteer to become food ambassadors to foreigners and bring them to our favourite and popular " Hot food spots " ( hawker centres , local exotic but not so well publicised locations, etc. ) Let the locals introduce them, let the locals bring the tourists to the spots , n let the tourists feel the ambience and environment  where the food is consumed.

I think this would be a break from the usual mold of food festival.

I felt that the ambience factor is important , because it lends the food consumed a unique sorrounding of sight , scent , sound and feel. This is a unique experience to the tourists.

Remember your own travels overseas , when you ate their local fare , the experience comes in a whole package ( unique surroundings-> sight , scent , sound and feel) , right ?

So, it would be the same here .

Much of our local HDB hawker centre's , food court's ambient sorrounding is unique to foriegners. Take someone who comes from , say Sweden. Do you have something like an open air hawker centre that sells hot , fresh cooked  food with lots of fumes , a humid surrounding , people eating in shorts , etc. in Sweden? Though i have never been to Sweden, but, no, I don't think so  and I feel that this would be a unique experience to them.

It would also be a good learning experience to the locals ' volunteers' ,where they can bring real Ang Mos or other foriegners around and to speak and eat with them.Maybe we would further deepen our knowledge and feelings to this Tiny Red Dot(our country) if we were the ones introducing Singapore. Or maybe this kind of contact would open up new opportunities,for the locals or the foreigners ,  maybe financial opportunities, friendship , marriage or otherwise . Well, these opportunities could blossom in Singapore or elsewhere !( Remember, we lived in a Global Village)

These 'volunteers ' could also be paid some allowance, which would give them some pocket money and they could spend it on the food themselves or spend it on something else ! It doesn't matter , the money will still go back to the economy, creating some virtuous cycle!

Maybe for this programme, STPB could lead the charge,

give some guidelines , give some promos.

Just some thoughts on the subject.

Answer 24

Any professional event organizer is capable of putting together any festival.

There shouldn't be another Food Festival in Singapore.  You already have the Gourmet Festival and some Food Expo annually. One for 'high class', one for 'low class'.

The Singapore Food Festival should be held for Singaporeans living overseas like you had for "Singapore Day" in New York, but you should have it in different cities worldwide.  Re-create the "Singapore hawker food court" atmosphere for those living overseas.

We have great food islandwide.  Singapore is not big and people travel great lengths to eat and wait in line. Why have the food festival when you have all manner of "best food guides" in Singapore. Promote Singapore food culture outside of Singapore to lure tourist into Singapore.

Answer 25

please dont!!

Answer 26

There is actually not much point for a Singapore Food Fest.  Just drop by any respectable hawker centre or food court and we can find all the 'local' food we want !  (",)

Answer 27

Singapore is a tourist mecca and it should continue that way. Tourism in turn boosts the economy and creates jobs.

Answer 28

in fact nobody will care who organise the event,as long people get to enjoy good food and great buys...maybe it is a way to draw in more crowd and attention,especially for tourists,and to join in the feel of great singapore sales,,,(in sense of crowd)

Answer 29

i think a few F&B industry boys should come together to form the SFF committee to lead the annual festival.

It should be a time to eat, drink, be merry and celebrate the local cusine!

Answer 30

I agree with a some of them here.... most of the food industry has become just that... an industry.  Mass manufactured food.  But the govt has a part to play too... they only support the biggies...like getting loans and stuff... do u tink they will help a start-up or even some old uncle.  Unless you dream big, then the govt will help.... who cares about taste....it's all about the money!