World Street Food Congress: Your favorite festival returns!

National Heritage Board, WFCS has one mission: to gather and celebrate chefs, vendors and street food enthusiasts from around the world. This year, the event will see 23 stalls from Singapore, Indonesia, India, Bolivia and the United States, among others.

The first two days were dedicated to ‘Dialogue-Hackathon’ where an esteemed panel discussed and opened the floor to questions pertaining to heritage street food culture. The panel included major players in the industry, such as founder and creator of Makansutra and WSFC, K.F Seetoh; Thailand Iron Chef Ian Kittichai; US Top Chef season 9 Paul Qui, Indonesian celebrity chef William Wongso and many others.

This year’s theme says it all – ‘engage, empower and entreprise.’ Questions raised include: how can we promote street food to the next generation and expand it to new countries? What challenges do vendors face when attempting to create a continued interest and be successful? The not so conventional congress aims at connecting people, sharing, protecting the culture and spreading it further.

The allure of this year’s festival is that, except for 2 returning vendors due to popular demand, all of them are new participants who will be showcasing their skills and adding a piece of their cultural history. Dishes start at SGD4.50 so you can safely feast on a couple without worrying about your wallet!

Now, if you’re not sure where to start, we’d suggest hitting up all of the Indonesian stores since they’re known for their rich street food culture. In particular go for the mala grilled chicken from Taliwang Bersaudara or the gudeg from Gudeg Yu Nap that takes 3 days to cook.

For heritage street dishes, head to Tuck Nyonya Catering that’s run by a lovely couple. Then go on to have some golgappe from the third generation-run Mangala Chaat from India! As for all the roast suckling pig lovers, Pepita’s Kitchen from Philippines will tantalize your taste buds to no end. For a more exotic touch, Bolivia’s Gutsu restaurant will be your best bet. Lastly don’t forget to pay a visit to our very own Singaporean stalls! The list is obviously not exhaustive, so go forth and get a bite of everything!

From cooking demos to mouth watering snacks and live music performances, is there really a better way to spend the weekend than at WSFC? We doubt it.

Céline Manoukian

Photo credit: World Street Food Congress