Singapore Food Festival

Just 2 months ago, I received a call from my colleague. To my surprise, he asked me about Singapore Food Festival…Like any other country, Singapore too has it very own food fest. I can’t equate food fest in Singapore to the more established and reputable food fests in U.S and in Europe but it does have its own set of unique followers. And whoever tourists you are from, you will certainly reap the benefit of the wonderful, tasty, rich food culture here.

Already I had four overseas colleagues enquiring from me about the Singapore Food Festival. There was a mountain of questions, bombarding me fervently – simply because I am a food lover. So this year, I decided to show them how to get involved!

For visitors, you can start off by visiting the Singapore Visitors Centers (Orchard Road). Tourists will be given free food sampler vouchers of any three local delights. Hmm…so there are such things as free lunch in this part of the world…

The festival is held annually in the month of July. Tourists who visit Singapore will get not only a taste of the local foods delight in Singapore but also being able to understand the rich treasures of Singapore culinary history. There will be a host of line up featuring culinary workshops, competitions, chef demonstrations, food tasting and even some chefs revealing their secret recipes.

Lau Pa Sat Festive Market

It is also during these periods that tourists will get good feel factors of the Indian, Malay, Chinese and best of Asian delicacies. The rich heritage of these food cuisines will surface to give food lovers an understanding of the cuisine origin history. Singapore is a multi racial country, a country of immigrant descendants, it is no wonder the mix and spread of the variety of local food will entice even the skeptics.

We went on to one of the event held in conjunction of the Food Festival in the Lau Pa Sat – Lau Pat Sat Festive Market Food Sampling! Situated almost in the heart of the financial district, this food paradise gave us an opportunity to taste some of the best local delights.

The event started at 11am -10pm on every Saturday. However, a normally short ride (we decided to take a bus since it so near the central business district) took us almost an hour to reach due to very bad traffic. The bus was literally crawling. By the time we did step out of the roosting bus, we were all pretty fed up. We almost turn back. But we were glad we didn’t in the end.

Lau Pa Sat Crowd

The Lau Pat Sat festive market boasted about 100 food stalls to tempt every palate. Every stall was all prepared to satisfy and compete with the rests, every stall owner seemed to wear a tag on their forehead “Try me, I’m the best” with an anticipating look. By then, our stomach was drumming and we wasted no time to compete with the rest who were there for the same accord or their lunch break.

Amazingly and somehow we stay put till the evening. But the crowd did not seem to lessen. We even got to catch an old movie screened while we dined under the stars. It was a magical experience though I couldn’t recall what the movie was all about. We were simply too busy with our mouth and our sight was more on the food than anywhere else that we lost track of time.

The devotees of the fine culinary food festival will be amazed at the extent Singapore Food Festival goes about wooing and alluring the food enthusiasts around the world. The Singapore Tourist Promotion Board seems to get this event right. Apart from shopping, food is in every Singaporean blood. And the multi-race culture here contributed greatly to the gourmet industry.

Singapore Food
Festival in Malls

The food certainly put a damaging dent to our health. But who cares! We had enjoyed every minutes of the moment whole heartedly. Throughout the food tasting experience, I have learned the whole new meaning of the word “Gorgeous” – a word uttered repeatedly by my friend each time he took a dish to his mouth.

There are few world food festival that can truly classified as “sumptuous” All year round the clock, food festival are held relentlessly in every corner of the globe. Not surprisingly, food is one of the enjoyments in life. It creates no rift, it holds no boundaries, and ultimately it brings people together – to taste and salivate on the best culinary food in the world – through all these food festivals.

From the famous Prickly Pear Festival in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (February), the Vegetarian Tapas Festival held annually in Navarra, Spain (April – May), the Belize’s annual Lobster Festival in Placencia, the impressive biennial Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy, to the smaller remote island of Caribbean culinary event: Festival del Mar in Anguilla, you are always in for a TREAT!