Dinner in the Hawker Center

Instead of having food stalls on every street, the Singapore government created centralized street food centers, or hawker centers in residential and business areas around the city.  For $3-5 USD you can get some pretty tasty dishes from around the world, including Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Pakistani. Some of the more exotic dishes, such as seafood can cost quite a bit more. The most famous Chinese hawker center is located across the street from my brother's condominium, so tonight we had boys night out and headed over for some street fare.

Oh My Goodness!  For someone not accustomed to the hawker center, there were lots of people and way too many choices.  However, my brother has his favorites and was on a mission. He was after crabs and one of the best crab restaurants in town is a food stall in this hawker center. They actually close down two days a week to cook the sauce used on the chili crabs. So we picked out some crabs and some sting ray from this stall, I was in charge of getting some beers and procuring a table, and Jeff ran off to bring back some fragrant steamed chicken (a traditional Singaporean dish), beef sate, and some Indian flat bread and curry.  Just like every other American, we settled in to chow down on way too much delicious and spicy food, in an exciting atmosphere with the locals.

The black pepper crab and the chili crab were both outstanding, but messy. I ended up wearing a bit of the sauce by the end of the meal.

I am guessing that this will not be a vacation on which I lose a few pounds. I am going to have to start sucking in my gut when the cameras are pointed my way.

I will eat nearly anything, but fish head stew, may be a bit too exotic to pass these lips.

Great Success!