Food guru KF Seetoh was all praises for chef Joseph Yeo, the owner of Smokin’ Joe, one of the Singaporean eateries that opened in Urban Hawker in New York in September after his fish and chips were named the best in New York by restaurant critic and author Steve Cuozzo.
In a Dec 16 article in the New York Post, Mr Cuozzo wrote that the “dark-horse breakout hit” of Urban Hawker “turns out to be a plate of fish and chips.”
The author loved Smokin’ Joe’s fish and chips so much that he “had to come back for it three days in a row.”
“The fish and chips at Urban Hawker’s Smokin’ Joe stall are nothing like the common NYC article, typically served up tasting mainly of oil. Check out Gordon Ramsay’s new Times Square fish and chips joint for such an object lesson, where the dish costs $1 more than Smokin’ Joe’s $16 masterpiece,” wrote Mr Cuozzo, who added that Mr Yeo’s dish “blew me away.”
In a Facebook post from Monday (Dec 19), the food guru congratulated the chef.
“Well done Joe!!. New York Post calls yours the best fish n chips in New York…as good as if not better than Gordon Ramsay’s version in Times Sq too. The writer had to eat Smokin Joe’s version 3 times just to be sure!
You do us all proud buddy. Worth all the effort crossing oceans to wow em’ in NYC See u soon.”
In November of last year, Mr Seetoh announced that his team would partner with Urbanspace, a US food hall operator, to open a Singaporean hawker centre in New York City.
The street-food vendors were hand-picked by Mr Seetoh himself.
Talking to TISG in January, Mr Seetoh said that the idea of this hawker centre is to emulate the new style of hawker centres that are more than the ‘old school uncle-auntie style’. He said they look to have modern takes on foods such as burgers, nasi lemak with blue pea rice and many more.
“I salute all you Pioneer world class hawkerpreneurs making this mark in NYC. They will talk about you in future and you will go down in our makan history,” he added before naming the hawkers in the photo: “Sulaiman of PADI, Roy(Daisy’s Dream), Syafiq (Ashes Burnnit), Alan (Prawnaholic), Terry ( Kopifellas), Raymond (Hainan Jones Chicken Rice), Joe ( Smoking Joe), Shukor ( Manager Mamak Corner), Ah Yau n May (Mr Fried Rice), Irwin (White beehoon..Sembawang),” he wrote in another Facebook post in July, shortly before Urban Hawker opened. /TISG
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