Whaddaya think? 
I still remembered how incredulous I felt when Michelin, in its first Japan Guide in 2008, awarded 3-Michelin-stars to Sukiyabashi Jiro. I’d been there way before then: with its wooden counter and 10 counter seats, it was a far, far cry from the luxurious temples of gastronomy that were the 3-Michelin-starred places in France. We all knew that, up till then, ambitious French chefs had been known to run into huge debts borrowing money so they could renovate their restaurants into Versailles clones, in order to impress the Michelin inspectors and ensnare that elusive 3rd star. Sukiyabashi Jiro looked like the closet room of its French counterparts.
Then, when Michelin first went to HK in 2009, it ran into controversy from the start when Hongkongers accused them of ignoring the smaller eateries like the dim sum shops, the “cha chaan teng” casual cafes, and the “dai pai dongs” (street-side/hawker eateries) which formed an indelible part of HK dining culture. In response, Michelin awarded Tim Ho Wan , a cramped 20-seater eatery (its 2 feet-by-2-feet toilet even have a wet mop propped up against a wall) one-Michelin-star in the following year. There is NO way any restaurant in France could stand the ghost of a chance to get away with that.
So, when the Michelin folks came to Singapore in 2017, they already knew what they had to do to gain some “street cred” among Singaporeans: just remember to NOT ignore the street food culture in Singapore. That’s how we ended up with one-Michelin-star dumpsters like Hawker Chan:
