Penang bans hawker food cooked by foreigners - about time Singapore follows!

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Hawkers unsure if food can be prepared from home


The Star/Asia News Network

Saturday, Oct 25, 2014

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GEORGE TOWN, Malaysia - While some hawkers are receptive towards the state government's move to ban foreigners from cooking local delicacies at food stalls, a few are wondering if the move includes those who plate up a dish.
Curry mee hawker Bok Siew Peng, 37, questioned if the food prepared by locals at home could be sold by foreign workers at hawker stalls.
"For example, can the locals prepare the main ingredients for noodles such as the soup and broth at home first, with the foreign workers then boiling the noodles at the stall and just adding the soup and broth?
"I prepare everything myself and I see this being done by a lot of hawkers in Penang," she said when met at her stall in New Lane here.
Bok added that she welcomed the new ruling as foreign workers may not understand the local hawker fare and what made it special, and some might not even bother about cleanliness.
Char koay teow seller Steve Ng, 26, opined that it was best for locals to prepare their respective hawker food.
"Foreign workers would not know how it tastes exactly and do not have the right skills to cook the dish," he said.
"For example, the char koay teow I'm selling is a recipe passed down from my mother and it took me several years to master the technique of frying.
"It might be difficult for foreign workers to pick up the skills when they don't even grow up eating these foods," said Ng.
A check at New Lane's renowned chee cheong chok (pig innards congee) stall found Myanmar nationals scooping the porridge into bowls and adding toppings onto the dish as customers placed their orders.
The worker scooping the porridge, who preferred to be known only as Nyi, said that the chee cheong chok was prepared by their local boss and they were only there to sell it.
Over at a coffee shop in Bayan Lepas, 39-year-old Myanmar national Myint Zaw Khaing, who has been selling tom yam for around three years, said he was aware of the new ruling.
His brother Tun Zaw, 29, had been helping him out for the past two months.
"If the government does not allow us to work as cooks at hawker stalls, then we have no choice but to go back to our country and find another job.
"Nothing much can be said if that's the rule," Myint Zaw added.




- See more at: http://www.soshiok.com/content/hawke....YYUjue0Y.dpuf


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