Buzzy New Singaporean Food Hall Opening This Week Offers to Employ Newly Arrived Migrants

The chefs and owners of Urban Hawker, the ambitious Singaporean food hall opening this week in Midtown, have offered to employ migrants, including some refugees and asylum seekers, who are being bused into NYC every day from Texas, New York Daily News reports. What started as a trickle in April with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending 9,000 migrants to New York City, is now a flood, with Texas officials angry about the Biden administration’s immigration policies sending nine buses with 40 to 50 migrants per bus to Port Authority by midday Sunday, New York Post reported. Nearly 25 emergency hotels have been used for housing, the Post reports.

Singaporean celebrity chef KF Seetoh, who brought over 11 chefs from Singapore to operate the food hall at 135 W. 50th Street in Midtown, posted on Instagram that the Singapore hawkers at Urban Hawker are “happy to hire them if they are keen and allowed.” Urbanspace teamed up with Seetoh for the project he dreamed up with Anthony Bourdain at the World Street Food Congress in Singapore in 2013.

New York Times drops its ‘Best Restaurants in America’ list

Here are the restaurants you’ll see most on Instagram this month: a list of long open as well as new places that the New York Times is excited about. In New York, they include the vibrant South Indian newcomer in Greenwich Village Semma, the Dhamaka sibling; Michelin-starred Musket Room; Zaab Zaab, the Thai darling that opened in April that’s already expanding; Little Mad, chef Sol Han’s fun Korean American tasting menu spot, and Bonnie’s, the impossible-to-get-into Chinese American party spot in Brooklyn.

Amazon makes employees share bagels

An ex-Amazon staffer claims workers were forced to share bagels at staff meetings due to budget limitations, the New York Post reports. Documented on an email thread among two dozen former Amazon workers who have since left to work at Google, employees were allegedly told that managers didn’t have enough funds to order bagels for everyone. Another worker was reprimanded for keeping cereal in office kitchens because “it didn’t represent a frugal mindset,” while yet another was told to “solicit donations” that would allow them to continue the practice of stocking the kitchen with cereal. The owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of $ 146 billion, according to Forbes.

New Yorkers are still heading home early

Closing time is still earlier than pre-pandemic, the New York Times confirms, a phenomenon chronicled across the internet since restaurants have reopened. Restaurants that used to host post-theater diners and others that had been open 24 hours are closing early due to an uptick in crime, outrageously drunken customers, fewer tourists, and staff shortages.