Singapore's Mega World Food Fair 2006

Singapore's Mega World Food Fair 2006 was held from the 6th - 10th September 2006, at the Singapore Expo, Hall 5. Organised by Eastern Directories Ptd Ltd, the 5 days showcased an extensive line-up of the latest food and beverage products from all over the world, ranging from Asian food to Japanese, Thai, German and our very own local favourites! There were more than 150 stalls present at the gala event, and it sure was a 'gastronomical adventure' for both Francesca and I.

However, we felt that the quality of food served were not up to our expectations, and most of the food we tasted were disappointing. Take for example, our local favourite "Sharks' Fin Soup"; stalls promoting this delicacy had it served filled with "glue" rather than sharks' fin (or at least crab meat!). There were also huge queues for this meat filled "Man Tou", which I didn't even think was fantastic at all. We also waited about half an hour for deep fried chicken drumstick from the same stall, where the staff cooked extremely slowly, taking their own sweet time. Many people seemed rather annoyed, and we suspect that it was a deliberate attempt by the stall to create a long queue.

I attend such Food Fairs almost every year, but was so disappointed as I could not find my favourite "Malaysian Otah"! This Otah is fried with onions on a hot pan, tastes really spicy hot, and is served on banana leaf, but all I saw there today were the usual Otah which could be found almost anywhere along the roadside. But special commendation goes to the stall "Chun Man Yuan", whose Chicken Satays and Otah were delectably good, and which we subsequently catered for our BBQ later on at night. Everyone agreed that the food was superb!

Overall, this year's Food Fair was rather disappointing, and I feel that the Hall was flooded with more stalls serving healthy living foods, ginseng, tit-bits, desserts, and wheat grass (though I did enjoy drinking it). The organisers should invite more restaurants and hawker centres to showcase their foods, and restrict the number of stalls serving packaged products.

Article written by Davyd Chong.

For more information on the event, click here.

To cater food from Chun Man Yuan Food Industries Pte Ltd, click here.