Uncle, Melamine Utensils Please

I have always been the kind of person to run back to the familiar, the familiar smell of home cooked food, the familiar sights of my residence, the familiar feeling of sleeping on my bed its contours forming a nest for my body. The unfamiliar is interesting, but ultimately left to the adventurers and the misguided. Whats worse then the unfamiliar? well, its the feeling of the familiar becoming all to alien.

Case in point, NEWTON HAWKER CENTRE. I must say that I had fond memories of the old Newton. Yes the one with the with really small stool like chairs and even smaller circular tables, where the light Blue paint tried in vain to hide the rust that had accumulated throughout the years there. Yes the Newton of old, where you were greeted with a warm humid fog before you even entered. No this was not any ordinary fog, it smelled of the wonderful hawker fare on offer. The Char Kuay Teow, the Hokkien Mee, the Chai Tao Kuey, the Stingrays, the Oyster Omelet, the BBQ chicken wings, etc. Yes my friends, that was a heavenly scent like sweet nectar from a rare flower in full bloom. The only thing that was better than the smell, was the the taste. Oh! the froth from the teh tarik, that spicy mee pok ta that seemed to transcend the spicy o meter, and could only be extinguished with some sour sop dessert or some sugarcane. The blend of old school charm, good food and the low attention to hygiene seemed to be the most brilliant formula that made Newton, well, Newton.

You could imagine my utter dismay and shock when I went to the new Newton. After a hectic week in the Emerald City, I was hoping for a reminiscent of her old school past. What I got was a slaughtered version of Newton, that saved for the name and a small nuclear of stalls, had nothing that brought the throngs of people it did just a few years ago. The stalls had become generic, the seating arrangements so awkward, the hawkers, so lifeless.

The food was worse, for a higher price and a smaller portion, I got to taste the "toast of Singapore", the epitome of Singapore's "hawker fare". In fact it did nothing to represent Singapore's quality food. I swear, I could find better food at the coffee shop next door. The hokkien mee could well be called noodles, the mee pok had by "decent" seal of approval, nothing like its 'die die must try' status bestowed by some television programme(i wonder how you got featured). The stingray was 'ok' but not the best I have had. And the teh tarik only "flew" once. I felt like the bigger clown getting fooled into buying from that store. All in all, it was a farce, a sad combination of gimmicks and bad food all served in Styrofoam plates and plastic cups.

You know what I say? I say, Give me back my melamine tainted utensils. I don't care if its hygienic or lacking in presentation. If it adds to the taste, then I am having it. I say, dear Mr Hawker, get yourself together, I can feed your excuses of cuisine to the 'old guard" and they would spit it out and take laxatives to flush whats left out of their system. Theres no more oomph, no more sweet melancholy. Give me back my NEWTON HAWKER CENTRE. I taste generic food whose taste could have easily come from flavoring.

I don't know what it is, it could be the sweat I drip when I eat, or the confusing ambience , but I love the old newton, the new one's just cold, lifeless. So yea, I can now only imagine the tastes and flavors that the old Newton brought, unable to realise them ever again. Viva la Modernisation.