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Ex-restaurateur Lim Tse Wei on the labour and pleasures behind the Little Perfections of S’pore food
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US-based Singaporean writer and former restaurateur Lim Tse Wei's debut book of essays, Little Perfections: Eating In Singapore (2025), brings economics to the centre of the hawker conversation.
PHOTOS: LIM TSE WEI, LANDMARK BOOKS
- Lim Tse Wei's book, Little Perfections*, critiques the commodification of Singaporean food and the decline of authentic hawker cuisine due to economic pressures.
- Lim highlights the lack of engagement with food as a cultural phenomenon among younger Singaporeans.
- He champions "vernacular" Singaporean dishes and culinary experimentation, valuing craft and personal style over standardised food offerings.
AI generated
SINGAPORE – Former restaurateur Lim Tse Wei has a theory of how the humble handmade kueh might die out in Singapore.
“In a country that still thinks like a colony,” writes Lim, consumers demand cheap vernacular cuisine – and since the profit margin evaporates, younger Singaporeans are left only with the bad taste of factory-made “astroturf and old oil”.
