Street food chef's stall becomes world's first to earn Michelin star | Hacker News Reader

Street food chef's stall becomes world's first to earn Michelin star

mirror.co.uk

349 pointswallflower150 comments

Until recently, I thought Michelin stars were awarded everywhere if the food was good enough. As it turns out, only select cities are reviewed. Recently there's been a big push to get Michelin to review food in Seoul, South Korea (which was successful). I always just thought the lack of stars meant the food scene wasn't quite good enough. It turns out the lack of stars in, say, Washington D.C., just means they haven't bothered to rate food in that town.

So questions like "which city has the most stars?" really mean "which cities that Michelin rates has the most stars".

That's true in the US and Asia, but not in Europe, where you will find that the majority of three star-rated places aren't in big cities to begin with.

My wild guess, however, is that many of these three-star places are in some ancient / traditional / cultural towns.

Not at all.

When you have the requisite density of Michelin reviewers, you can be in the arse-end of nowhere and still get your stars if your food, service and venue are up to scratch.

I am not saying it can't, but I am saying many could turn out to be cultural towns rather than big cities like NYC or London.

And to the person who downvoted me: just so you know, I rarely care about this, but if you downvote on a wild guess, you need to double check your interpretation of "wild guess."

One shouldn't forget that the Guide Michelin started as (or maybe still is?) a content marketing strategy for the tire manufacturer Michelin!

The original idea (~100 years ago!) was to boost demand for cars and tires in general, and what better way to do that than to provide a list of amazing places you'll only get to visit as a motorized person.

The guide was made because the founder of Michelin liked to travel and liked to eat. Over time it grew into an actual product. Rail is well established in Europe. You don't necessarily need a car to visit any of these places

The Priceonomics article [1] says otherwise:

> There once was a time when people had to be convinced that a car was useful. That was the situation in 1895, when brothers Edouard and Andre Michelin developed a new design for a car tire...

> First published in 1900, the guide’s 399 pages contained all the information drivers needed to “go touring” through French towns and cities. Only restaurants attached to hotels were included, and they were listed rather than carefully rated.

1. http://priceonomics.com/why-does-a-tire-company-publish-the-...

I mean, it's a French organization, give them time to establish a presence outside of Europe. I think they're only just taking notice of us here in the colonies. dry chuckle

They've only had 120 years...

I'll say it again, a French organization... ;)

I like how you call Washington D.C. a "town". That's a very modest description of the capital of the world's only superpower. :P

Now, Järpen in Sweden is a town (with about 1400 inhabitants). It has a restaurant called Fäviken. This restaurant has two Michelin stars [1].

1. https://www.viamichelin.com/web/Restaurant/Jarpen-83005-Favi...

Not sure how tongue in cheek you're being, but for those for whom English isn't a first language, calling a large city like DC or NYC a 'town' is pretty common, and is a more colloquial way to describe a region rather than to indicate the size of the named region. Often it is used interchangeably with 'place', for instance: "I've lived in New York City all my life, I've got to get out of that town."

Must be a regional thing because I've never heard of cities like NYC or SF referred to as towns. I would also say "get out of town" is a saying that means "I need to get out of this specific place." Whether the place is a town, city, region is besides the point.

It's a wry/sarcastic idiom, like calling the Atlantic Ocean "the pond". Nobody actually thinks the Atlantic Ocean is a pond.

Calling the Atlantic "the pond" is so cringe worthy. Why that ever caught on.

That probably comes from the 'English Understatement' school of thought.

"New York, New York, a helluva town. The Bronx is up but the Battery's down"

Frank Sinatra would like a word.

London is often called a town, e.g. London Town. If you said "I'm going into town" or "I got it in town" most people would know where you meant.

also uptown, downtown, cross-town, going out of town... town has no connotation of size in English. in fact you have to use modifiers like 'little town', 'big town', etc.

I'll take you to foggy London town 'cause you are my little gentleman.

The English refer to London as a "town". E.g. Town and Country Magazine (est.1769). [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_Country_Magazine

In fact, in the north at least, when we say "town" as though its a proper noun, we mean the city centre. To me, that's Manchester despite living in Salford. For example, "I'm off to town this weekend" means I'm going Manchester.

Not quite. London is clearly a city and referred to as such, unless you're someone in high society, in which case it is just 'Town'.

To complicate this further, "The City" or "The City of London" refers to a small area in central London where a lot of banks and financial institutions are headquartered. London as a whole is called "London" or "Greater London", but not "The city of London".

In the UK, "The City" is often used to refer to the London financial industry, much like "Westminster" is used to refer to the central government.

"Town" refers to urban centres in general, not just London.

> unless you're someone in high society, in which case it is just 'Town'

Please give us an example of this usage.

Go read any of Dorothy Sayer's Peter Wimsey novels --- not only are they excellent, but they're an interesting insight into upper-class cultureof the 1920s. The main character says this a lot.

Says what, though? I'm just looking for a single sentence that demonstrates the particular usage.

Search this for 'Town':

http://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/sayers-busman/sayers-busman-0...

It all seems perfectly normal to me apart from the capitalisation. Is that what is notable about it or is that a tic of this author?

"On the way up to Town..."

"We started back to Town..."

"I'd come up to Town one morning..."

Town is always London in this context.

A Google Books search for "in town for the season" gives a result in Memoirs of a Peeress (1837) [0] which unambiguously refers to London. (The difficulty is not so much finding an example, as finding an example which explains which town is referred to, since it's "obviously" London)

   [0] https://books.google.de/books?id=ZdpPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA197&dq="town+for+the+season

I just asked a member of high society (my current employer) as to whether 'Town' is used to refer to London. His reply was exemplary:

> Only obnoxious wankers from London will, small minded people [...] will also talk about 'their little house in the country' when they mean it is barely on the outskirts of a city!

As somebody from the true North (with family originating in the North of Scotland) the way people refer to places always intrigues me. I once had a friend who referred to Southport (population 90k), where he grew up, as a small town.

I think most people don't actually have a real concept of the hamlet -> village -> town -> city relationship and so the words are easily repurposed. However I do not think doing this is somehow bad, or incorrect.

I'm from Ireland. In the version of English I grew up with, we refer to the nearest big town or city - wherever the business, social and cultural life of the area is concentrated, basically - as "town." We would say, for instance:

- "I'm going into town."

- "Let's meet in town."

- "Is there anything going on in town tonight?"

When I lived in the south-east of Ireland, "town" referred to the central business district of the nearby city of 50k inhabitants. When I lived in Dublin, "town" was Dublin city centre. And if I lived in or near London, "town" would refer to areas of central London.

It really has nothing to do with whether the place qualifies as a village, town, city or what have you.

Which was my point. There are at least two different uses for the words, and they are more relevant to some people than others. Neither is 'incorrect'.

Exception: if you live in a city and are going into the city centre, you might say "I'm heading into town".

China clearly qualifies as a superpower. Though, it's influence is more economic than military it still wields considerable influence on the global stage.

EX: This is more than a decade out of date, but it's a useful reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpower#/media/File:1_AD_to...

Being classified as a "superpower" is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale.

Don't let the prominence of discussions of China's "rise" fool you though, it is most certainly not a superpower. It certainly has the capacity to be one some day, but its power projection capability is fairly restricted to its immediate vicinity in East Asia still.

I must respectfully disagree. China is the worlds manufacturing center. The power it projects globally cannot be understated.

I think this is about military power.

I am not an expert but I don't think this is true. I think that would make for a very narrow definition of power, and by extension superpower. Intuitively power stems from all sorts of leverage. Could be knowledge based, economic, any number of factors. One term that is often bandied about is so-called soft power, cultural factors and what have you.

I say thank goodness military might is not the only measure of power or we'd be in a sad state of affairs when you come to think of it. That's not to undersell the force projection of military might, and does not deny that the US (and Russia to a lesser extent) derive enjoy an outsized place on the world stage owing to military might.

Put it another way. You may be right but I do not want you to be right. I don't want to live in that world.

He's not right.

If you discount China as a superpower, then you discount a country that could single-handedly throw the entire world into a state of political, economic, and military chaos overnight.

Defining power as military-only is as naîve as defining it as male-only or violence-only or sword-only.

You are right. One should take care defining a word so narrowly that it can only apply to one thing. If "superpower" by definition means "characteristics only the USA has" then why not just call it "USA?"

Let's be realistic here, the only reason China is the worlds manufacturing center, is because Western companies are exploiting their cheap labor. Beyond that, they crank out everyone's cheap knockoffs.

> is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale

What is the quantitative metric of this?

GDP, military bases outside of the nation, aircraft carriers, deals/alliances with nations etc. There are far more qualitative ones like influence..

And China couldn't? Well beside them making everything, they own or underwrite a vast amount of global infrastructure too. They can buy a lot more influence than the US could.

When faced with economic warfare, a country can simply nationalize all of the enemy country's assets. Who cares if you own every oil well in California, if you try to exploit that we just move troops in and take control. How does China defend the infrastructure they own?

Infrastructure funding is political influence. Non-warry stuff.

But if you want to wage war on China be prepared to go back to the 50s. China and its immediate neighbours make everything. And have done for decades. No country has the standing manufacturing capability (facilities, machinery or trained/robotic workforce) to replace what China does for them. Some other Asian countries manufacturer electronics and India and Pakistan do textiles like nobody's business.

This is where that influence from earlier came in. They've traded cash for foreign government bonds to ensure great tariffs and to stop protectionist policies. They pegged their currency to ensure their exports undercut everybody else.

Automobiles are pretty much the last serious manufacturing done in market countries... And where do you think many of those source their parts and steel from?

So yeah, you piss off China and they have the physical wherewithal to embargo almost all material imports. Your economy dies overnight.

You take back a bridge and a nuclear power plant. Big whoop. What's your next move?

Yeah not a thing over here in Australia which I find strange as being a UK expat the food over here is exemplary even at a cafe level!

Well, we have our own Hat system in Australia.

Michelin critics are also trained to evaluate restaurants on specific Michelin criteria and to not just give their personal take on the food. So "good enough" is very specific here to what Michelin considers important.

This is true, you need a scale and criteria which can be used by all the reviewers. This is really what matters for the consistency of the grades.

Note that the Michelin is also reviewing hot-dog stands in the US and in Asia a couple of small Sushi shops have a star or I think even two.

There's a "small sushi shop" that, gasp, has even three stars!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro

> Note that the Michelin is also reviewing hot-dog stands in the US and in Asia a couple of small Sushi shops have a star or I think even two.

They're also doing Michelin Bib Gourmands for "quality food at a reasonable price" which is what most hot-dog stand type places have gotten (I'm sure some got stars too.)

DC is getting a Michelin guide this October

https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/05/31/michelin-star-resta...

Michelin is an auto company. The star system was originally a marketing project to promote road trips (and dining on the road) in regions Michelin did business.

Really fantastic achievement and a really down to earth take on food - good to see Michelin not adopting a stuffy elitist stance on their awards.

I shudder, however, when I think of the queues to try this tasty goodness. For reference, queues can easily top 90 mins if a hawker stall is locally well reviewed! And just over the sea, the queues for Tim Ho Wan (Michelin star dim sum in Hong Kong) are also already oppressively long (1-2 queues). Bookings are non-existent (it's a street stall after all).

Secret to Tim Ho Wan is to get there before rush times! Went at like 4:30 for an early dinner and had no wait. Amazing.

According to my Photos.app timestamps I went at 5:30PM and there were no lines at all, too.

I actually didn't came out that impressed - sure, the BBQ Pork Buns definitely lived up to their reputation and are worth the trip alone, but the rest of the menu was kind of a disappointment.

I did spend the previous week in Bangkok though, eating almost everything in sight, so my heightened expectations might have had something to do with my impressions.

Agree it's more about the individual dishes rather than the entire menu, but their prawn dumplings (har gau) are also spot on.

Photos of menu I took say that I did have them too, but I can't say they were memorable.

The only two dishes from Tim Ho Wan that I _really_ remember are BBQ Pork Buns and the steamed egg cake.

Looking at the photos now — I remember thinking toasts filled with kaya were interesting too. But none of shrimp or pork dumplings, neither any of the vermicelli or steamed rice were notable.

Queues like that always make me wonder if the restaurant is charging enough. If demand is outstripping supply, perhaps they should raise the prices until they have _just_ enough customers. Otherwise it seems like they're throwing money away and not capitalizing on success.

It's the Pulp Fiction $5 shake; if your food is good enough people will certainly pay more for it, even if the price seems absurd at first.

Note: I'm speaking from an American perspective, where it would be seen as odd to leave money on the table. In other cultures I'm sure the pride of having good food and happy customers outweighs profit.

I agree, but enough people don't that it can quickly turn a community, or portion of it, against the business.

There's also the desire to not price out the loyal customers that got you to where you are.

This is pretty astute.

Theoretically, the owner could probably get away with charging quite a lot more. If he were a cynical man/short-termist he could double/triple his prices (possibly even 10x his prices) and still be turning away business in the next couple of weeks while the hype train is running. The spectrum of prices for food in Singapore is pretty wide, you can easily have a meal for anywhere from 4SGD to 200+SGD so there would still be people up for trying Michelin-quality chicken rice if he suddenly started charging 20SGD for a meal.

That will definitely rub the community up the wrong way, given that hawker food is very much deeply entwined with the local community and relies heavily on regulars. The owners are often from the community too so such behaviour would incite feelings of "casting aside your roots".

Would seriously love to give this a try though, when I think of michelin food I tend to think of Heston-style experimental cuisine, which pushes the boundaries of food and employs novel cooking techniques. This type of food is labour intensive though and doesn't really work when one guy in a stall is serving 180 chickens a day. Hawker food done right is like the pinnacle of home-cooking so would be good to taste first-hand how good this is!

One reason might be too attract a certain kind of clientele. I know AirBnB people who charge less than what the market will bear, because they know that at a higher price point customers will be much more demanding - both because of the psychological impact of paying more, but also because the kind of people who can afford $100/night are likely to be older and more picky.

Similarly, by charging less and having a line out the door you get to enforce standardization and other nice things on your customer base.

My experience with AirBnB is opposite.

The higher the price I charged, the nicer, cleaner, more-accomodating, courteous, and non-demanding the clientele.

The lowest-price guests were rude, uneducated (scratching non-stick pans with forks, for example), noisy, ungracious, and otherwise a huge pain.

Likely because people paying higher price points have ample cash and aren't watching every penny they spend.

I agree that it is an American perspective, but not everyone shares it. Case in point: my wife offers horseback riding lessons and is very good at it. She is recommended enough that new clients have said "you got such good recommendations that I wasn't sure I could afford you."

Yet she charges under $40/hour even though I remind her that she could easily get north of $60/hour based on what I've seen people will pay. Her response: "I want to make it accessible to people." Great motivation, but poor profit.

I should add, though, that part of it is what another poster mentioned below: beyond a certain price point you tend to get a class of customer that's simply annoying to deal with.

I agree. The stall Bourdain went to, across the street at Maxwell's, has always super long queues. Not 90 mins but still a pain. I'm glad most of the other stalls are usually not far off on their quality..

Given the multitude of good quality food you can get in Singapore (and presumably also HK) I cannot imagine that there's a hawker stand worth waiting 90 minutes for. Am I missing something?

That's pretty true - quality of food in HK and SG really is at another level for certain cuisines (though options for decent European food are naturally fewer).

From what I've noticed, Asians seem to be more prepared to queue for a good meal.

Examples above aside, those in London need only to go to Kanadaya by Central St Giles to see queues galore.

Jury's out on whether this is a down to a great desire to experience good food or people being kiasu (fear of missing out)

> Really fantastic achievement and a really down to earth take on food - good to see Michelin not adopting a stuffy elitist stance on their awards.

This is kind of late to say this.

The article doesn't make this obvious, but the Michelin Guide just expanded into Singapore this year.

Singapore has some amazing food, and the hawker stalls are no exception. If anything they exceed far fancier restaurants with their focus and authenticity.

But as far as this being news or worthy of HN goes, this just seems like shameless corporate propaganda, even the video accompanying the article is entirely produced by Michelin.

If anything I think the newsworthy aspect of it is why there's been literally no street food stall in Michelin's established markets deemed good enough for certification? Maybe I just have my guilty pleasures, but there's some truly delicious street food to be had in Europe.

Suggestions for delicious street food in Europe? I travel to Europe pretty often and consider myself quite the glutton but have yet to experience good street food (great restaurants, yes, but not street food).

London is packed with street food, but other than that there's less by orders of magnitude than Asia or Latin America. (I'd love to be wrong on this one).

Berlin has something called "Thai Park", which happens on summer weeekends.

It is, as far as I know, the best Thai food west of Thailand.

Kebabs, gyros and shawrma, though they're served from holes in the wall and not from a cart.

Europe is much too diverse to give you proper recommendations without knowing what city or country you'll be in.

Raw herring with chopped onions in the Netherlands.

Definitely! Also, Stroopwafels

this is just my opinion, but i don't think this is literally 'street food' -- it's not on the street, it's in a food court inside of a shopping mall frequented by affluent professionals.

in my experience, east and southeast asia have the best 'food court' cuisine on earth, probably by an order of magnitude. nothing i've seen on any other continent even comes close. i think this is just michelin recognizing that fact.

It's not inside a mall, it's in a hawker center, a complex that doesn't have traditional shopping and is literally many levels of nothing but small one-man eateries.

Saying that it's not "street food", I think, glosses over the context of what these things are in Singapore.

There was a concerted effort by the government at some point to bring what were "street food" stalls in the western sense into regulated hawker centers for hygienic reasons.

There's almost no "street food" in the western sense in Singapore, for a combination of that reason and the fact that it's bloddy hot outside. While Hawker centers usually don't have AC, they at least tend to have fans everywhere, which makes it a bit more tolerable than eating food outside in the street.

It is street food in the sense that it's all really cheap food that's prepared almost instantly, you can eat it in a hurry, and the Hawker centers are all in major thoroughfares.

"street food in the western sense" is funny in USA because USA has nearly no street food in the sense of the western view of Asian streetfood vendors. USA has "food trucks"

Hot dog cart?

It's a rarity. Hot dog carts (or other food carts) would only be found in larger cities, such as NY. Smaller cities, only outside of a sports stadium during a game.

Normalizing geographically, it's a rarity. Normalizing by population, less so. It's still not something most Americans encounter, in person, with any frequency. But I think it's something Americans are pretty familiar with, if only because so much media is set in NYC.

It sounds like you're Singaporean. Cheers! While some parts of Europe have street food, other parts of the west, such as the US do not. "There's no street food in the western sense" would more accurately be "There's no street food like there is in the rest of Southeast Asia". Contrast hawker centers with the street carts like you see in Bangkok (literally street food).

I'm not, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was. I've been to Singapore a few times though, and have eaten in the Chinatown hawker center discussed in the article several times so I thought I'd correct beachstartup's misconception of it.

It's certainly nothing like a "food court inside of a shopping mall" and the comment that it's "frequented by affluent professionals" is laughable. People from all walks of life eat in Singaporean hawker centers.

By "street food" in the western sense I assumed beachstartup was talking about mobile hot dog / kebab stands you can find in the US, or similar (but more often stationary) stands you can find on the street in many European cities.

I don't remember any of that in Singapore, although I wouldn't be surprised if it exists. Instead the demand for street food is satisfied by hawker centers.

Not to discount the efforts of this chef, but is it not possible that the organization called Michelin has done this in an attempt to stay relevant with the growing East-Asia market?

It kind of reads like a touch-your-heart story that will increase brand-presence of Michelin and the validity of their ratings of food.

Who knows though...

the food is not just rated on taste and the decor (or lack of it in this case) is not a significant factor afaik. From my extensive research[1] the reviewer takes into account:

1. taste

2. presentation

3. use of local ingredients

4. use of fresh quality ingredients

    [1]every episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares UK.

I think one of the important factors is the consistency of the food (taste, presentation, etc.). I learnt this from my research[0]

[0] Jiro Dreams of Sushi on Netflix (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/)

When I was child my grand father sometimes took me to a restaurant he said didn't get a star because the parking lot wasn't big enough. So I believe they rate restaurant no just on the food, or at least they used to.

I'm right now eating at a takoyaki place in Osaka which is referenced in the guide (no star thought) so I guess criterions were somewhat adapted to deal with foreign food culture.

I thought Michelin stars were about the whole restaurant experience, and especially the consistency. That's interesting they said it was just about the food in the video, that really opens up the award to a more contemporary foodie audience, which is interested in where to get the most delicious X, which is rarely even expensive.

Me too, but I suppose they are attempting to get with the times. There's always been an air of pretension and stodginess around the whole process. Undoubtedly the food must be excellent, but this is also a feel good story for Michelin and great PR.

Street food can have an experience too, if you open your definition of experience beyond white tablecloth

I think in general the hawker stands are such an integral part of the Singaporean culinary culture that, even as an homage, you'd have to honor that culture by finding the best one to give a star to.

I'm certain that his food is outstanding, but it's also a good move to ingratiate yourselves with the locals as you start your business there.

As an aside, I have never been anywhere with more consistently amazing food than Singapore. You can pay $300 for a fabulous meal or $7 for an almost equally fabulous one. The first time I went, I ate at a couple of high-end restaurants, but on all my subsequent trips, I've basically just wandered around and eaten at random. I've never been disappointed.

Just curious - have you been to Bangkok? "Just wander around and eat at random — you have a decent chance of having one of the best meals of your life" was my impression of it — but I haven't had chance to visit Singapore yet, so I'm wondering how it compares.

Bangkok is much cheaper and has more variety than Singapore. It has real communities from different parts of the region and the world who maintain their culture, run their own schools, and speak their own languages... not some kind of silly-Singlish with cheapened versions of iconic dishes of everywhere, like this Michelin stared foodstall selling soy sauce meat. The ignorance of western culinary practitioners to mainland Chinese cuisine is really staggering.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Michelin star reviewers they used here were those "considers-self-Chinese, can't-even-properly-speak-Mandarin" Singaporeans with some kind of half western/half-Singapore restauranteur career and a Cantonese family.

The first time I went to China, 15 years ago, I flew through Singapore. "Eat well here, the food in China is terrible!" my ultra-rich Chinese-Singaporean friends told me. Still in China now, and I've since been back to Singapore: how wrong they were!

I just founded a mainland Chinese food-related startup...

> considers-self-Chinese, can't-even-properly-speak-Mandarin

i don't think true ethnic chinese speak mandarin. that language is something that was only recently (in the grand span of chinese history) imposed upon the rest of china by a bunch of mandarins in Peking.

in fact if you look at the chinese diaspora in overseas chinatowns, the predominant language might be something like cantonese. these people have avoided the homogenization that is taking place in their ancestral villages. in the straits settlements, various (mutually intelligible) subdialects of hokkien are the predominant languages among the ethnic chinese, but standardization in mother tongue education among these countries are eroding this uniqueness.

> It wouldn't surprise me if the Michelin star reviewers they used here were

also, the michelin guide does not use local reviewers in the first (or more) years of a guide starting up at a new city.

Yes, what you say is true, which is the point: these people are multi-generational isolates. Therefore, from a mainland Chinese perspective, they are considered less Chinese, and their tastes (culinary or otherwise) unrepresentative.

It's like, if you had an Italian grandfather you never met, never having visited Italy and literally unable to speak any Italian, you visit Sicily once on holiday, pick up a few words, return to the US, and open a Sicilian food truck declaring it 'traditional' and yourself 'true ethnic Sicilian', serving only one type of pasta.

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with the "mainland Chinese perspective". The Michelin star wasn't awarded for pure-bloodedness.

Also, try telling the Taiwanese that they're "less Chinese" because they don't write simplified script.

Ok, so if I go to Sichuan and eat Sichuanese food which is widely different from the food in Beijing or Shanghai which one is the correct "mainland Chinese" food? It's rather difficult to call any food traditional mainland Chinese food when there's so much differences between regions even.

And on your comment on language, go to Sichuan and then tell me if the chef in a food stall speaks decent Mandarin? What about people in Xinjiang? or people in Wenzhou?

Of course, educated professionals tend to speak relatively good Mandarin (they have to) but don't tell me that the Mandarin of people working in food stalls in the country side is any better than the Mandarin of people working in food stalls in Singapore.

People in Singapore are mostly Hokkien, Teo Chew and Cantonese, they claim to be oversea Chinese but definitely do not claim to be Mainland Chinese but, they've kept a big part of the Chinese culture and customs from their regions (and yes, the food in Chaozhou is much more similar to Teo Chew food in Singapore than to food in Shanghai or most regions in China).

I think you're just unfairly biased against Singapore for various reasons and don't want to admit it...

Bangkok more diverse than Singapore? That doesn't really ring true.

That and the fact that Singaporean students are required to study their mother language in addition to English.

Also—aren't most Chinese-Singaporeans of Hokkien or Cantonese ancestry? Their forbears likely didn't speak Mandarin. For that matter, Hokkien was the dominant Chinese dialect in Singapore until relatively recently.

I don't know what is the obsession of westerners with Cantonese. There are several chinese languages spoken in Singapore. The most widely spoken is Hokkien (~50% in singapore) followed by the Teochew language (~25% of chinese in singapore). Cantonese is spoken by much fewer people in Singapore as well as in mainland China.

in the US the chinatowns (used to be) largely populated by toisanese emigrants. it is now mostly HK/China prestige yue and mandarin speakers, but the traditional image of the american Chinatown is seiyap.

It's due to the fact that Cantonese is the main language that Westerners will encounter if they ever visit their local Chinatown.

Singapore is actually unusual compared to other diaspora communities in that most of the emigrants were from Fujian province, not Canton.

Don't think that's true. I'm in southeast asia and the largest chinese language groups in the following countries are:

Singapore: Hokkien

Indonesia: Teochew

Philippines: Hokkien

Malaysia: Hokkien (although cantonese popular there)

Thailand: Teochew

Teochew and Hokkien are actually part of the min-nan dialect group which also includes Taiwanese.

That's fair, but anything outside of SE Asia is predominantly Cantonese, hence why Westerners are familiar with it.

There's also the fact that the HK film industry was fairly dominant for a couple of decades--if a Westerner saw a Chinese-language film before the 90s, it almost certainly had Cantonese in it.

Bangkok more diverse than Singapore? That doesn't really ring true.

It does, when you consider that there are real communities of diverse groups, each of whom have restaurants. Just last visit (one week, about a week ago) I personally ate at authentic Tamil muslim, Sikh (temple), Karnataka, Burmese, Korean, Lebanese, Yemeni, Italian, French, Sichuan, Thai Muslim, Thai and Thai vegetarian restaurants.

That doesn't touch on Nepali, Yunnanese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Malay, Japanese, Indonesian, Philippino, African, or other Chinese or western cuisine. For sure there are many more Middle Eastern places too, Russian and eastern European, plenty of Australian, US and Canadian places, as well as South American, etc. I've eaten Iranian before there too.

Nor does it touch on the significant local cuisine of the city (some of which is Chinese-derived), or specific regional cuisine from other parts of Thailand, virtually all of which can be found in Bangkok and virtually none of which can be found intact in Singapore.

In Bangkok you will have more of a "street food" experience. In Singapore you will have less risk of food poisoning (but it can still happen).

At least nominally this is not true: Michelin claims that stars are only earned based on the quality of the cuisine, not the comfort or service of the establishment.

Now, Michelin "inspectors" are human and certainly still susceptible to our usual cognitive biases, like food tasting "better" if it's eaten with a vermeil fork. And the economics of the restaurant industry make it difficult to profitably produce the kind of meal that earns Michelin stars without charging so much that your customers will demand a certain level of ambiance and service.

It will be interesting to see if this is a one-off for the Guide, or represents the start of a shift away from the dominance of 7+ course, white tablecloth places.

Looks like the stars are for the food and the forks and spoons are for everything else accoding to this anonymous inspector interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J2YpV2442w&t=3m42s

> and especially the consistency

what about a hawker stall would prevent the achievement of consistent results?

to me, in a smaller area there are fewer variables to control, ensuring a more consistent level of quality.

That has been changing over time. Traditionally there was a bias towards the classic french style restaurant for exactly that reason. As dining trends have changed over time there's been a push to focus more on just the food.

Wonderful! I worked in Singapore in April, and the street food is indeed great! I looked at the pictures in article and didn't recognize the chef or his restaurant. My other favorite place to eat in Singapore, that I would like to recommend: in the basement of the famous "Buddha Tooth Relic Temple" is a cafeteria where the monks and the public eat; delicious food!

Thanks for the tip! I worked in Tanjong Pagar before, and went to Maxwell many times, but never knew about the temple cafetaria :)

I have mixed feelings about this Guide and I think it's important to see the backstory.

The origins of the Michelin Guide were to be a trustworthy guide for its salesmen travelling around the country. Gradually, it became the de facto standard for an impartial guide that not only checked food quality with experienced, anonymous inspectors but also consistency with repeated visits - all costing a fortune, all more than made back with sales. Chefs would literally kill themselves for losing a star (see [1]). The Gault Millau became the Michelin rival but few other guides or competitors really existed.

This has been true in London or Tokyo as well as Paris. You could trust the Michelin Guide: not only would your meal be good, it would be roughly at the level implied by the stars, and it would always be good.

However, I suspect the internet killed sales of the paper guide and generally, as with movie piracy, reduced the amount of money people were willing to pay for the information. Why pay when you can check any of a thousand blogs and newspapers and grab the latest stars there? So the Guide needed a new strategy and Singapore is sort of the hard launch of it.

This Guide was financed (cannot find a source now) by both the tourism authorities (fair enough) and various corporate sponsors (not so good for impartiality). Various writers (see for example [2]) have pointed out the large presence of Resorts World Sentosa restaurants (this is also where the award ceremony was held) and the absence of young interesting chefs or many restaurants that are on par with the starred.

(Examples: I'm personally surprised not to see Gunther's anywhere in the rankings, since the restaurant has been around for years, is a massive favourite of the community, has a chef with pedigree in Singapore (Les Amis, starred), the service is friendly (I've eaten there in shorts a couple of times surrounded by suits and it was STILL friendly) and despite the eye watering dinner prices there's a $35 set lunch with 3 courses and petits fours which is one of the most generous in Singapore. No mention of Hakumai, where a Singaporean chef with a decade of training and experience at the best sushi-yas is doing very interesting things with the same Tsukuji fish used at every other high end sushi-ya in the country. Pollen is not listed; I haven't eaten there, but corporate friends who have and who do these things all the time often told me they thought it was "the best", and Jason Atherton has stars in London where the standards are higher.)

And then we get to the food courts. Yes, including a chicken rice stall and a bak chor mee stall have gotten the "new Michelin Guide" what they wanted - massive PR, as seen by many of the comments on this thread and virtually every headline everywhere. Yes, hawker food can be good and filling. But it's also quite commonly good. I've not been to either of the starred stalls but friends have and confirm they are nothing that rare - you can probably find a similar quality stall in your neighbourhood.

So, either you star them all - after spending a year and a huge staff to create a good quality guide - or you don't star any of them, because the standard of cooking is far below what - even in Hong Kong - used to pass as the minimum for a star. Just yesterday, I was hesitating between two stalls facing each other, both of whom were making their noodle fresh from flour even as they served customers. This is normal and starring a hawker is like starring a bakery or cheesemonger in Paris (not Pierre Herme, more like your decent neighbourhood bakery) or a chippy in London or a kebab or pizza truck in Berlin. It's a massive departure from what the guide stood for.

On the other hand, Singapore is the ideal city for this departure, because its food review scene is completely and utterly commercialised. I ate yesterday at a delicious, packed restaurant which has 2.5/5 on Yelp and is ignored by bloggers. I've talked to chefs who have confirmed that bloggers and reviewers literally come in and say "I have X visitors, feed me your best food for free" and in some cases "if you don't, I'll slam your restaurant" (one did not, the threat was executed). The bulk of the high spending customers are brand driven - a chef that trained at a French 3* place told me he could not sell his boeuf charolais hanger steak because the customers repeatedly requested wagyu fillet and got angry at him for not stocking it. It makes it hard to spot where are good places to eat and as such everybody relies on word of mouth, friends' recommendations, and so on. Michelin was sorely needed but at the same time, could get away with what they did big time: now a steady stream of affluent foreign tourists will be directed like a hose at the awaiting arms of RSW's various commercial ventures, and the next year's Guide list price can probably go up multiples once the data is in.

I am sad as a Frenchman that one of the last bastions of French excellence has just died out like that. I hope Paris and Tokyo will not follow.

I recommend anybody who wants to understand why the Michelin was a big deal watch "L'Aile ou la Cuisse" [3]. The fight between integrity and encroaching corporate interests is absolutely there, and beyond the comedy, you get the message: journalism is about getting past your short term interests, fighting those who want to use you as a shortcut to profitability, and enlightening your readers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Loiseau#Death

[2] http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/unhappy-with-mich...

[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074103/

It's a little funny to say that a vendor doesn't deserve a star because the regional food culture is so good that the concept of food criticism is unnecessary.

I don't quite understand what you mean. Mind expanding on your point?

I have tried to comment on this several times but cannot say what I mean : my last try...

This is a fairly big deal for me - not because Michelin awarded a street vendor a star. I don't think this is a stunt, Singapore has sufficient vibrancy in this market that someone was going to be worth a star once they started looking.

No this is a big deal because of the golden future of humankind. Somehow it's possible for all humans to live safe middle class low energy democratic not in a war zone lives. It's a 5% chance maybe.

But it means that to do it we need to raise the lives and lifestyle "bottom" billions. This is the goal of the UN millennium goals and their new follow on work, and it is worthy - and this award, while not really about the poorest of the world, is about how we are spreading the wealth, spreading the capability. A street vendor has the supply chain, the training the market to cook Michelin starred food. This is a tiny tiny hint that we can do it - We can pull everyone up to the golden future

I know there are a million objections to this - but to bastardise William Gibson, the golden future is here, it's just unevenly distributed.

A wonderful thought and insight, and you're right that this is a positive indication. Perhaps for those of us here on HN, a worthwhile thought is how we can accelerate this change and help more rapidly distribute it as well.

While I appreciate your sentiment and objectives, in this case we are talking about Singapore - one of the most affluent Asian cities. The standard of living, health, safety is probably better than most Western countries.

As other have pointed out, if awards like the Michelin one can provide recognition and support for actual third world countries, then it will start to make the difference you are looking for.

I eagerly await to see if we will see street vendors in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Bali, Bangladesh etc. being nominated/winning stars.

> I eagerly await to see if we will see street vendors in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Bali, Bangladesh etc. being nominated/winning stars.

Unfortunately this is not going to happen. A street vendor got a Michelin star in Singapore because it is such a super rich place.

As mentioned even the lack of a dependable supply chain in these poorer countries would be crippling to the last 5% Michelin requires.

I feel ambiance and decor of a restaurant is highly underrated. It is one of the reasons I do not like food trucks (I assume a street food stall is analogous but perhaps I'm wrong). There is a difference between dining and just eating something good. Reviewers seem to harp on taste and service but honestly I can put up with both (with taste there is always alcohol and with service ... you can just be patient).

Of course there are exceptions to this if the food truck is positioned in a great place (some Hawaii food trucks come to mind).

I'm not saying I can make better food than a Michelin star chef but one of the reasons I go out to eat is for an experience and that experience for me has to be more than it tastes really good. I feel like many review sites, magazines, etc are ignoring this.

I'm the opposite, I only care about atmosphere as long as there's a mostly clean and comfortable place to sit. One of my favorite Indian "restaurants" in college was a just a guy that converted a camper into a kitchen and parked it in an empty parking lot.

It took forever to get your food, since it was just one guy, and there was no place to sit. But I was happy enough to walk down the street to a park and enjoy my delicious food on a picnic table under an oak tree.

Does the star go to the chef or to the stall? I always thought it was awarded to the restaurant rather than a particular member of staff. That would seem to preclude such small venues where the quality of food is so tied to the chef on duty at the time. This guy is always there, but the principal remains.

Fyi, from what I've heard about getting your 'first' star is that there is then a not-fun obligation to try and keep it. I hope this guy handles the pressure well.

I've always thought that pressure was more internal, that is, celebrity chefs want to have that accomplishment and maintain it, rather than an external obligation to Michellin or anyone else. If this guy never even considered it a possibility, I doubt he'd feel that pressure. If he lost it, I imagine that just earning it for a while would still be an achievement of a lifetime

It depends. The star IS given to the restaurant, however they do consider how big the chef's influence is. Many restaurants lose a star or two when the chef leaves, and many don't.

In this particular case, if he were to sell the stall I'm sure it would lose the star. On the other hand, if he passes it on to a child or a protégé, the stall might keep the star.

I just recently read the back story about the Michelin ratings and I must say - I really think it's awesome that a 1 star is a huge achievement.

Most rating systems rate everyone and end up with a lot of mediocrity. Michelin's system makes their brand mean something at every level. Quite brilliant from a branding and social experiment.

If anyone else wants to watch the video without their fans firing up, here's the youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1dBTqm90A4

* > Incredibly, the 51-year-old, who works 17 hours a day*

Could anyone comment on if this is an exaggeration? After commuting plus basic life tasks like bathing etc, this would allow him for a realistic maximum of 5 hours of sleep a day. And that is optimistic as likely this results in about 4 hours a day.

It seems like the story of a person who has gone 35 years on 4 hours of sleep a day is possibly more interesting than a Michelin star if this is true.

Based on my impression of the hawker trade in Singapore, this is pausible. I am guessing his 17 hours probably consists of the following:

2-3 hours of food preparation in the early morning. 12 hours of manning his stall. The remaining hours for commuting and other work things maybe.

It is likely with the michelin star he can work fewer hours. He can choose to close his stall once he sells all his meat.

It is a hard way of making a living.

The article already states that he has a line of up to 100 people to eat his food. I'm not sure finding customers is his problem.

He will likely be able to raise money now though

I imagine that he was asked to describe his day and someone generated the number from that, which might've been exaggerated, might've included things like getting dressed, commute, "thinking about menu changes before bed", etc. The story is not better served by a modest number, after all.

Many of us would have days and weeks of high working hour counts, but very rarely would it be sustained for many months on end.

It says 17 hours a day but it doesn't say anywhere in that article how many days he works, in which case he'd be able to recover (somewhat) on days off.

Most of the food stalls in Singapore and elsewhere are closed one day per week.

Well he does food service, which is generally really busy during lunch and dinner, and almost dead outside of those times, so even if he's present for 17 hours, I bet there's some downtime. I know when I worked fast food there was times we kept busy by playing stupid games like hide and seek in the restaurant.

Yeah, it's still work, but it's probably not a hard, strenuous job for all 17 hours of the day.

Typical service hours at a Singapore hawker stall would be either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner--not all three. This particular one is open from 11 AM to 8 PM [1], which is perhaps one hour longer than typical.

If the proprietor does his own shopping, he may start at 5-6 AM and finish clean-up at 8:30 PM, for a "workday" of about 15 hours. There may have been some respite pre-Michelin but now it should be just an hour or two to nap before service begins.

An hour commute each way is not rare for modern hawkers, who in times past might have worked near home for convenience or in the business district for more customers. Now they have to work where the rent is low--and rent inevitably ratchets up as revenue does. Some landlords in Singapore install CCTV at the till to track receipts and make sure they get their pound.

Given the reported increase of only 20% production (180 chickens up from 150), this stall's incredible journey could come to an end when its lease comes up for renewal.

[1] https://guide.michelin.sg/en/2016-guide/hong-kong-soy-sauce-...

I don't know of anyone who has done it for 35 years but most small business owners I know in competitive industries like restaurants work at least 12-14 hours a day, often taking only a few days off a month. Perhaps this has to do with the higher cost of living in their areas but it's pretty well accepted that small business owners and sole proprietors generally work a lot more than regular employees. Due to western labor laws regarding benefits and overtime that is usually the only way they can make it.

I used to eat at a little Chinese place where the owner worked 364 days a year. I told him he should close on Sunday but he said "my customers would miss me".

He likely lives within a short walking distance of his stall.

It's quite plausible. However, it's also common for successful hawker stall proprietors to hire staff to do much or even all of the work for them, and since it's essentially a cash-only business, it's easy to avoid taxes for a good chunk of your earnings.

A good example of this is 328 Katong Laksa, once Singapore's most famous hawker stall, which has fragmented into at least half a dozen competing variants: one's at the original location, one has the license to the name, some are run by the original dude's family, etc.

Commuting is part of work as well.

In addition to what other people have said, it's feasible that he had a longer sleep schedule- maybe 36 hours instead of 24.

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