Franchise vs. Street Food

So today, I was craving for a bowl of Kai Si Hor Fun and I was annoying almost everybody in the office about it. And yes, as always I managed to get myself a bowl of Kai Si Hor Fun at one of the famous kopitiam franchises. As I was waiting for my food to be served, they were chitter chatter about the food I ordered and how it is being too commercialised that it has lost its authenticity.

Check out this place for one of the best Hor Fun!

Most of the people I worked with are Chinese and they were telling me how good and refreshing is the bowl of Hor Fun that they get to enjoy back in Ipoh, the birthplace of Hor Fun. So, when the food arrived, I put aside all my thoughts and I indulged on a bowl of perfection, at least to me it is. And they were still saying how good the hawker food is compared to all the prestigious places people would actually go to eat. So, for today I guess, it is only appropriate if I were to cover of franchise food vs. plain old good street/hawker food.

So the question is what makes people go to the expensive franchises outlet instead of the good street stalls? It is a matter of choice and preference. Simple, basic, everyday example would be coffee. Why on earth would you go to an expensive coffee shop and get a black coffee when you can get a fresh one brewed at the warung? The way I see it, coffee is coffee. It is made of coffee beans. You may add sugar or cream to it. Again, it’s preference and choice. Of course I too believe that people buy things with brands that they are comfortable with and they trust.

When a food is too commercialised, it will lose its authenticity. And it is a sad fact that people are still consuming it, well for the sake of eating. But do they enjoy the food? I believe not. Again, it all goes back to preference and choice. And just recently I was reading some online article about youngsters are more inclined in joining the F&B business and opening up a restaurant rather than open up a hawker stall. Why, you ask? Well, it’s simple. 40 years ago, they’ve seen how hard their parents worked under the blazing hot sun opening a hawker stall selling their family’s authentic dish made with love to provide a shelter.

However, this is not the case in this present time, as more and more people wants things to be done easier! Did you see the salad pack at the supermarket? They even have ready-made vegetables used as coleslaw and not forgetting Caesar salad packed in plastic bowl ready to eat! People are getting lazier, aren’t they or we, for this matter? Opening a restaurant and selling food (not good food) seems like a simple matter and everybody can venture into it and what attracts them most is the profit margin that is waaaaaaaaaaaaay higher in comparison to street stalls.

I’m actually running out of idea to talk about this matter. And I strongly stand by my opinion when I said it’s all the matter of choice and preference and most of the hawker stalls are one of a kind and it’s a lost for people to only go to franchise outlets and not acknowledge the goodness of food at the roadside. Till then, toodles!