This famous hawker center, housed in a conserved building structure in the Central Business District (CBD), is also known as Telok Ayer Market.
When the famous Satay Club at Queen Elizabeth Walk was closed to make way for the Esplanade Theatre, many satay stalls were relocated to Lau Pa Sat. One lane of the street is closed every night so it could be converted to seating areas for diners.
The move was probably to add more night life and activities as well as dining option to the CBD area, which was pretty quiet after office hours in the past.
Being one of the few remaining places in the central area where you can find local food at night, this place has become a popular spot to settle a meal before heading to one of the pubs lining the Singapore River for a night of chilling. Where else can you find hawker food in the CBD area after 9pm?
With its unique structure and the history associated with it, Lau Pa Sat is also a popular place for tourists to indulge themselves into local food at a convenient location, which is close to Singapore River and the Marina Bay area. And this is one of the two hawker centers that you can really sit on the street for a meal, the other at Chinatown. And this place is also heavily promoted by the Singapore Tourism Board. So it has become one of the "must visit" place on many travelers' itinerary.
I was at Lau Pa Sat for dinner last Friday.
Perhaps it was the first weekend after it reopened, the place was extremely crowded. Many people came out of curiosity. Tourists were back. And maybe due to the Muslim fasting month, there were quite a number of Malay families breaking fast for their dinner there.
There were queue at almost every stall. And some stalls ran out of items on their menu. While queuing up to buy noodle, I overheard a guy speaking on the phone that he chose this stall as it's the only one without any queue.
After finishing my noodle, I decided to grab some satay. So off I went to check out the stalls by the side of the lane that was closed to traffic.
Every stall looked the same and you can't tell which is the best or better one. Perhaps they are all the same as they might have taken their stocks from the same supplier. And I couldn't remember which stall I had tried before that was bad.
When you are faced with this situation, the next best thing to do is to find the stall with the longest queue. There's one and I joined in. I was given a slip of paper with my order ticked and asked to come back 15 minutes later. Wow, that's fast considering the queue and quantities people are ordering.
Went back sightly after 10 minutes and was told to queue cos I was early. While queuing, I noticed the staff who was barbequing the satay holding a bunch of satay that were quite badly burnt on the upper portion. He then put them into a styrofoam box. I wondered if they are going to sell that?
I turned and looked at the fire which was really big. Anyone who has barbeque before will know that if you barbeque something over a big fire, you will end up with the outside burnt and the inside uncooked.
Sure enough, most of my satay were burnt and the meat were cooked unevenly. One was even raw. With the heavy seasoning and spices, some may not even realized that the meat were not properly cooked. And what about those seating on the street where lighting is poor? Can they see the meat were not cooked?
I almost wanted to bring the uncooked satay to show to the stall owner. In the end, I chose to be like a typical consumer - just walk away and never patronize the stall again. I don't think they are inexperienced to know how to barbeque satay correctly.
The worst thing is that I had a bad sore throat after that and a whole night fearing if I would get food poisoning.
I'm not sure if this happens to other stalls as well. Did the stall owner compromise on his quality in order to get more customers? After all, some customers will be turned off if the wait is too long. Did he speed up so that customers do not have to wait too long? If he is having problem coping with the demand, why didn't he inform customers that the waiting time is 30 minutes? Was he afraid of losing customers by turning them away and not making the extra few bucks?
Recently, there was a TV program about hawker as well. There is a 81-year old lady selling satay bee hoon (thin white noodle with meat, cuttlefish and vegetable top with satay sauce). She said that she's old and cannot work fast. For customers who cannot afford to wait, she will not be able to serve them.
There's another elderly man, also selling satay bee hoon, at a hawker center in the eastern side of Singapore. Every day by 5pm, there will be a long queue of at least 10 persons. He isn't worried of customers walking away from the queue. Those who can and willing to wait, wait patiently. And you're guaranteed a plate of perfectly cooked satay bee hoon.
In business, many owners compromised on quality for quantity. To them, making the sale is more important that winning a customer.
They may have win the sale, but they lost the customer.
And if you're planning to go Lau Pa Sat to eat satay, be careful and check that the meat are cooked.
P.S. I've written to The Straits Times forum through their Facebook but no one replied if it would be published. So I've decided to share it on my blog. Do share it if it's going to be helpful to your friends.