THE smell of roasted robusta coffee beans wafting through the air. The unmistakable clangs of the wok. The ease with which Singlish flows from customer to cashier. There are even tray-return stations.

Welcome to Urban Hawker – a slice of Singapore, right in Times Square in New York City. The 15,000-sq-ft food court is located in the middle of Manhattan and is the latest and biggest addition to the Singapore food scene that has been quietly growing in the city in the past few years.