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Imagine driving down the main street of your town. As you drive you pass the bright lights of the many fast food restaurants that beckon you to stop for a quick dinner on the way home from work or a brief sit at a plastic chair for lunch.
Now imagine that, instead of each of these fast food restaurants being part of a multi-national chain, each one has a sole owner and proprietor. In place of a generic assortment of burgers and fries, chicken sandwiches and limp salads, each of these quick stop restaurants specializes in a single dish or type of food. There would be a restaurant just for chicken noodle soup and another with a selection of salads using just ingredients from your town. The fried chicken place would do just fried chicken and maybe plain mashed potatoes, no biscuits, corn or beans, and definitely no grilled chicken, nothing that does not fit with the house specialty, chicken that is fried.
On the roads and sidewalks of much of Asia, this is exactly what street food is like. Street food, in all its focused excellence, is the fast food of Asia. And the taste, well the taste is literally a world away from the fast food of America.
In the night markets of Bangkok or the sidewalks of Jakarta, stalls line up as meal time approaches. Little plastic stools crowd around maybe one or two low tables, or maybe some plastic mats are spread on the adjacent sidewalk, the set up for an urban picnic.
Singapore takes the idea of street food to a whole new level, one that should be replicated in other countries. Fed up with carts crowding the streets, the government erected open-air food courts called hawker centers where street food specialists can rent stalls. There are now over 100 such publicly run centers around the city state, each housing 100 or more stalls.
Most locals drop by the local hawker center several times a week for lunch or dinner, some people everyday. After marking one’s spot at a table, the hungry eater is free to order food from as many vendors as one chooses. From Singaporean coffee to custardy tofu dessert to crab noodles, vendors are laser focused on the foods they do well and don’t venture far out, working from memory on the dish that is their specialty and livelihood.
Recreating some of these street food wonders can be difficult, in no small part because of the extreme expertise of some lifelong food vendors. KF Seetoh, the leading expert on food culture in Singapore, recently told me a story about a vendor who has worked over a fryer for so long that his doctor said the heat was making him blind. He had to wear goggles while we worked or quit his only profession. He now works the fryer, same as he always has, fully protected with industrial goggles.
Another difficulty of recreating Asian street food at home can be the difficulty finding ingredients and working identical equipment. Not everyone will be able to source miniature dried shrimp but other typical Asian ingredients might be easier to come by. Consider the tart tamarind sauce that makes pad thai distinct. In addition to Thai markets, Mexican groceries can also be a good source for tamarind paste.
As for the cookware, unless you want to feed a super hot charcoal fire and rig a wok over it, the intense heat of many such fires at street hawker stalls will be difficult to make at home. However, dishes that rely on direct flame to meat, like lamb sate, can be done on any grill. And deep fried foods, like duck legs or pork ribs, just need a several inches of oil in a heavy pan. A good wok, an outdoor grill, and a large pot for soup or rice are really about all one needs to make a wide range of street foods.
KF Seetoh was generous enough to share a few recipes with me that he has taken from street food vendors in Singapore and adapted for home. Today I will share his recipe for deep fried coffee pork ribs, with a sweet and punchy sauce using 3 in 1 coffee packets. Next week I’ll share some more tips for making street food simple. If you can’t make it to the streets of Asia, and the McDonald’s on Main Street isn’t being taken over by Grandma’s Chicken Noodle Soup anytime soon, bring the street food home to you.
Photo credit: © Glowonconcept | Dreamstime.com - Row Of Food Stall In Asia Photo
©2026 CDKitchen, Inc. No reproduction or distribution of any portion of this article is allowed without express permission from CDKitchen, Inc.
To share this article with others, you may link to this page:
https://www.cdkitchen.com/cooking-experts/amy-powell/1176-street-food/
Street Food Made Simple, Part I
Imagine driving down the main street of your town. As you drive you pass the bright lights of the many fast food restaurants that beckon you to stop for a quick dinner on the way home from work or a brief sit at a plastic chair for lunch.
Now imagine that, instead of each of these fast food restaurants being part of a multi-national chain, each one has a sole owner and proprietor. In place of a generic assortment of burgers and fries, chicken sandwiches and limp salads, each of these quick stop restaurants specializes in a single dish or type of food. There would be a restaurant just for chicken noodle soup and another with a selection of salads using just ingredients from your town. The fried chicken place would do just fried chicken and maybe plain mashed potatoes, no biscuits, corn or beans, and definitely no grilled chicken, nothing that does not fit with the house specialty, chicken that is fried.
On the roads and sidewalks of much of Asia, this is exactly what street food is like. Street food, in all its focused excellence, is the fast food of Asia. And the taste, well the taste is literally a world away from the fast food of America.
In the night markets of Bangkok or the sidewalks of Jakarta, stalls line up as meal time approaches. Little plastic stools crowd around maybe one or two low tables, or maybe some plastic mats are spread on the adjacent sidewalk, the set up for an urban picnic.
Singapore takes the idea of street food to a whole new level, one that should be replicated in other countries. Fed up with carts crowding the streets, the government erected open-air food courts called hawker centers where street food specialists can rent stalls. There are now over 100 such publicly run centers around the city state, each housing 100 or more stalls.
Most locals drop by the local hawker center several times a week for lunch or dinner, some people everyday. After marking one’s spot at a table, the hungry eater is free to order food from as many vendors as one chooses. From Singaporean coffee to custardy tofu dessert to crab noodles, vendors are laser focused on the foods they do well and don’t venture far out, working from memory on the dish that is their specialty and livelihood.
Recreating some of these street food wonders can be difficult, in no small part because of the extreme expertise of some lifelong food vendors. KF Seetoh, the leading expert on food culture in Singapore, recently told me a story about a vendor who has worked over a fryer for so long that his doctor said the heat was making him blind. He had to wear goggles while we worked or quit his only profession. He now works the fryer, same as he always has, fully protected with industrial goggles.
Another difficulty of recreating Asian street food at home can be the difficulty finding ingredients and working identical equipment. Not everyone will be able to source miniature dried shrimp but other typical Asian ingredients might be easier to come by. Consider the tart tamarind sauce that makes pad thai distinct. In addition to Thai markets, Mexican groceries can also be a good source for tamarind paste.
As for the cookware, unless you want to feed a super hot charcoal fire and rig a wok over it, the intense heat of many such fires at street hawker stalls will be difficult to make at home. However, dishes that rely on direct flame to meat, like lamb sate, can be done on any grill. And deep fried foods, like duck legs or pork ribs, just need a several inches of oil in a heavy pan. A good wok, an outdoor grill, and a large pot for soup or rice are really about all one needs to make a wide range of street foods.
KF Seetoh was generous enough to share a few recipes with me that he has taken from street food vendors in Singapore and adapted for home. Today I will share his recipe for deep fried coffee pork ribs, with a sweet and punchy sauce using 3 in 1 coffee packets. Next week I’ll share some more tips for making street food simple. If you can’t make it to the streets of Asia, and the McDonald’s on Main Street isn’t being taken over by Grandma’s Chicken Noodle Soup anytime soon, bring the street food home to you.
Photo credit: © Glowonconcept | Dreamstime.com - Row Of Food Stall In Asia Photo
3 in 1 Coffee Ribs
Made with bird's eye chilies, corn starch, salt and sugar, ground cinnamon, baby back pork ribs, vegetable oil, salt and pepper, instant coffee, water, oyster sauce
Made with bird's eye chilies, corn starch, salt and sugar, ground cinnamon, baby back pork ribs, vegetable oil, salt and pepper, instant coffee, water, oyster sauce
Serves/Makes: 4
- 1 full rack baby back pork ribs
- vegetable oil
- salt and pepper
- 6 packets 3 in 1 coffee (instant coffee already has sugar and creamer)
- 6 cups water
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- salt and sugar to taste
- 6 tablespoons corn starch
- bird's eye chilies, optional
Tenderize pork ribs. Preheat several inches of oil in a large heavy pot to 350 degrees F. Cut ribs into individual pieces. Season meat on all sides with salt and pepper. Fry ribs working in several batches if necessary until cooked through.
Meanwhile bring water to a boil in a medium pot. Add 3 in 1 coffee packets and stir to dissolve. Whisk in oyster sauce and cinnamon. Add a bit of salt and sugar to taste.
In a small bowl whisk cornstarch and just enough water to form a runny slurry. Add cornstarch a bit at a time to the pot with the coffee sauce. Continue whisking and bring to a simmer. Add more cornstarch if necessary and continue to boil reducing the liquid to a desired thickness. At this point optional bird's eye chilies can be chopped and stirred into the coffee sauce.
Drain the fried pork ribs on paper towels. In a large bowl toss ribs and hot sauce to coat. Spread ribs on a platter and serve family style.
Recipe Source: adapted from a recipe courtesy of KF Seetoh
Cook's Notes: try substituting 3 packets Starbucks Via plus 1 T. sugar and xxxx powdered milk
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©2026 CDKitchen, Inc. No reproduction or distribution of any portion of this article is allowed without express permission from CDKitchen, Inc.
To share this article with others, you may link to this page:
https://www.cdkitchen.com/cooking-experts/amy-powell/1176-street-food/