Hawker centres close for good…our good.

It's lunch. Your brain is still at work and your stomach is heading out for food. It moseys unconsciously down to that nearby food centre, orders that "safe" plate of chicken rice and wolfs it down. Recharged, then it heads back to the brains, and you are whole again, all eager to toil once more.

In nutshell, it's a lunch in the day of a mindless, hard day's work.

The next similar day, as lunch approaches, the same unconscious routine beckons. And as you gravitate towards that same eatery…..arghhh! the food centre is closed for six months! Oh no, where do I go, who should I call…I can't think, my mind's not here!

Well it's not so funny if you happen to work around the Maxwell Road Food Centre. It's closed but only for the next six months." SIX MONTHS!…TWENTY -FIVE WEEKS!" you say. It's only one hundred and eighty days of a lunch date with mind and body. Which means that you got to think about what you want to makan, where to go, how to go and what to eat. And if you pine for a joyous bowl of ice-kachang for dessert….good luck, it's no longer just five stalls and twenty steps away.

Oh, the inconvenience of it all. First it was the Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, then Maxwell Road Food Centre and now the Changi Village Market & Hawker Centre (next to where Charlie's serves fabulous chicken wings on kindergarten tables and chairs by the walkway). It is just so breezy to pop into a hawker eatery, look for a cool spot, flash a couple of hand gestures (read our story on makan hand signs in this issue of Makanzine) to the hawker and voila, served within minutes. Lunch is in progress, offline and B2B - DO NOT DISTURB! Ditto to the ice-kachang seller and the ginger tea mamak.

So we realise that these food centres are more than just a convenience, it is also a part of our lifestyle.

Imagine if they cease to exist.

I can't quite visualize it. I suppose on these routine days, you may be struggling over home made sardine lunches and cold Teochew porridge.

Anyway, the forces that understand our Singapore lifestyle. So they made us bear this out temporarily as they renovate and improve the facilities of food centres. They are in effect, tearing it down for good… our good. Bravo!