Enthusiastic, friendly, happy, slightly nervous (due to language barrier) but sincere hearts were over flowing and it added a rare and much needed touch in the midst of our fast paced city. And these are the people who put in their heart and soul to make this WSFC a success.
First we were greeted by the pleasant officials who showed us the way into the event, followed by the nice lady in charge of selling coupons, then we toured around the 37 stalls and at one point, was politely interrupted by an friendly official along the way to ask if we would like to go for a MasterChef class demonstration while deciding what we would like to eat in the comfort of the air-conditioned studio.
Yes, it would have been nice to be in the air conditioned studio but it was also priceless to tour around the 37 stalls, reading the description of every single dish and background of the stall followed by the observation of the fantastic teamwork the students (from Shatec, At-Sunrice, Culinary Institute of America, Institute of Technical Education) have with each street food master. The new found bond was warm and mutual. Street food masters with language barriers depended on the student buddy to translate the queries and requests from the customer and the enthusiastic and helpful student buddy would be the middle person to explain, facilitate and ensure a smooth and happy experience was made.
They must have spent a good amount of time to understand the ingredients and taste of the dish to be able to explain and make recommendations while the street food masters were patient to listen and try their best to accommodate to any special requests.
Besides this, the choice of outdoors and indoor dining has been carefully thought through. It allowed customers to decide what they prefer and for a parent like me, I appreciated the indoors dining set up with cooling fans and neatly set up square tables with tablecloths, a television showcasing a documentary of WSFC and having the toilet available within a few walking steps.
I marvel at the strong teamwork and it almost felt like everyone of them were from the same organization, no differences and part of a big family.
The dishes were also prepared with pride and the street food masters would share about how they pack their ingredients from their hometown to here, specially for this congress.
It must be a liberating experience for them to travel out and participate and sell their food in Singapore, especially for those that were here for the first time.
I also appreciate MakanSutra for this fabulous idea to gather 37 best street food masters and invite them
to fly in and showcase their signature dishes in the comfort of our country. The amount of hard work to consolidate information about the best street food masters, inviting them for the Congress, doing the write up and photo taking of every stall, setting up the stalls in Singapore, for the street food masters to make a bold step to leave their comfort zone and to participate in this, for the collaboration of the various academies and agencies, for the planning of the numerous logistics and accommodation and for every single person who contributed just to serve the customers made this Congress possible.
All in all, I felt that this was an eye opener and a very good experience for a first timer like myself and I am
Definitely looking forward to the next WSFC!
Head down to WSFC before it ends this Sunday 9/6/13!
P/S: Please say the password "Patricia's guest" to be entitled to FREE ENTRY PASS worth SGD$8 per person with courtesy from KF Seetoh from Makan Sutra and Founder of WSFC. Only available on WEEKDAY till this Friday 7/6/13!
Operating hours: 11-10pm
Location: Singapore F1 Pit building and Paddock
Signing off
PoshPearl
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