Man Travelled to 16 Hawker Centres & a Food Court to Report ‘Hawker Traffic’ When Dine-in is Banned

As of Sunday (16 May), Singapore officially re-entered Phase 2 but under a fancier name: Phase 2 (Heightened Alert).

Under this mode, dine-in is not allowed. Instead, consumers are required to tabao and eat from the safety of their homes or workplaces.

Yeah, we’re totally getting Circuit Breaker vibes here.

And so, the important questions are: Where, then, should we get food? Are the queues still long?

Well, one hero decided to find out, and he has since kindly shared his findings with curious netizens.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Man Travelled to 16 Hawker Centres & a Food Court to Report ‘Hawker Traffic’ When Dine-in is Banned

Netizen Larry Lai may not exactly be blessed with superhero abilities, but he has certainly done the public a great service with his latest act.

Following the implementation of the heightened alert status, he decided to scout out the hawker traffic situation in some 16 hawker centers, as well as one food court.

And after he got his results, he decided to document his findings on Facebook.

“This is my update on the state of our hawker centres and food courts as I know some of you are deciding where to go to get food for dinner and if the queues are long,” he wrote.

And here are the results.

According to the foodie, Lau Pa Sat, Kukoh 21 Food Centre, Food Republic (Suntec City), Block 89 Circuit Road Market & Food Centre, and the Chinese side of Haig Road Market & Food Centre are all effectively quiet.

On the other hand, Chinatown Complex Food Centre, Old Airport Road Food Centre, People’s Park Food Centre, Berseh Food Centre, Whampoa Food Centre, Albert Centre Market & Food Centre, and Circuit Road Food Centre (Blk 79 & 79A) are bustling as usual.

Meanwhile, Amoy Street Food Centre, Maxwell Food Centre, Tekka Centre, and Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre are doing alright. Not exactly great, but still passable.This is partly due to some stall closures.

Lai was also humorous when delivering his observations.

Lau Pa Sat, for instance, was described as “comatose” with people beating “mosquitoes”.

“Except for the Indian stall with 7 people in the queue,” he wrote. “The rest of the stalls (they have to open under their contractual terms) all beat mosquitoes. Some stall holders simply dozed off in front of their stalls. The drinks stall assistants were doing some arm exercise to prevent rigor mortis from setting in. Status—comatose.”

Old Airport Road Food Centre, on the other hand, drew positive recognition.

“This one no need to worry. Life goes on. The satay stall is busy. The rojak stall got people. The western food, fried kway teow, fried hokkien mee (you just name it) all have business. State of hawker centre—super fit,” says Larry.

You can check out the full Facebook post here!

Some netizens have also added their two cents’ in the comments section, with new places reviewed and added.

Heightened Alert

In light of a recent spike in cases, authorities have had no choice to tighten restrictions again.

For one, working from home is once again the default mode.

Group sizes have also been cut down from five to two, though allowances can be made for those who’re going out for “essential activities”.

There should also be no social gatherings at the workplace.

And as mentioned earlier on, dine-in has been taken out of the equation.

Mr One Ye Kung has since stated that Singapore may revert to its Circuit Breaker phase.

Whether they have to do so, however, would largely depend on these few days of development.

“You can see the cases rising and whether the trajectory goes exponentially up or flatten—which did happen (during) Chinese New Year this year, we saw cases going up and then it flattened and then it disappeared—which direction it goes, we will only know in the coming days,” he said.

“So all I can say is as of now, we need to monitor the situation and then come to a decision later.”

Feature Image: Facebook (Larry Lai)