As a slight diversion for the day from the other more serious discussions about HK:

Regarding food hawker centres -- I noticed on a recent visit (where I went to several neighborhood "cooked food" centres) that in Hong Kong, this has a pretty different meaning than what you find in Singapore.

Based on Singapore, I was expecting open air floors, where there are dozens of small shops serving one specialty each, and lots of people sampling from different stalls, taking things to their tables.

However, HK is different -- each centre seems to have a concentration of only 6-7 larger actual restaurants with more full service, and people order everything from that one place. Little/few sampling going on. Also, air conditioning.

Is this correct? Is it because HK already has many street level small food outlets, while Singapore not so many so they flock to hawker centres? HK has tiny shop front opportunities on busy streets, so the owners prefer those, while Singagpore doesn't have the same kind of storefront/street geometries? Higher costs to open any food outlet, so they tend to be bigger? Could it be as interesting as that?

I found it curious. Personally, I like the Singapore model when traveling as a single person or very small group. The buying transaction feels more straightforward and no ambiguity versus the restaurant model.