
Street food chef's stall becomes world's first to earn Michelin star - wallflower
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/street-food-chef-speaks-amazement-8561995
======
bane
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".

~~~
bjornsing
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...](https://www.viamichelin.com/web/Restaurant/Jarpen-83005-Faviken_Magasinet-456922-41102)

~~~
beisner
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."

~~~
markcerqueira
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.

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

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

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

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yomly
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).

~~~
fpgaminer
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.

~~~
kbenson
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.

~~~
yomly
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!

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hiou
* > 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.

~~~
3legcat
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.

~~~
puranjay
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

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avar
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.

~~~
fatjokes
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).

~~~
Scarblac
Raw herring with chopped onions in the Netherlands.

~~~
DrPhish
Definitely! Also, Stroopwafels

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phantom_oracle
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...

~~~
kagamine
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.

~~~
titanix2
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.

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xorgar831
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.

~~~
twoodfin
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.

~~~
xorgar831
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J2YpV2442w&t=3m42s)

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mark_l_watson
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!

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

------
crdb
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Loiseau#Death)

[2] [http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/unhappy-with-
mich...](http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/unhappy-with-michelin-
guide-singapore-choices-dont-get-mad-get-to-work)

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

~~~
tamana
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.

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

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lifeisstillgood
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.

~~~
cyberferret
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.

~~~
aaron695
> 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.

------
agentgt
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.

~~~
mywittyname
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.

------
sandworm101
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.

~~~
dimal
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

------
exclusiv
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.

------
oliv__
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1dBTqm90A4)

