Food Republic has always been known for its thematic food courts, but this one might be their most elaborate yet. Walk into their new outlet at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, and you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back to a time when we were enjoying our hawker food on the streets under the stars.

The life-sized facades of three-storey shophouses, movie billboards and vintage pushcarts, including a bird’s nest cart, really make you feel like you just walked onto a 70s movie set!

The Food Court occupies a 15,900 square feet space with cavernous high ceilings that can seat 400 indoors and 200 outside. And it’s fully air conditioned, which is a welcomed reprieve after a morning at the zoo or Bird Paradise.

They are so serious about the theme that they even specially made plastic plates that resemble the old enamel plates. Many of us Gen Xers and older folks will remember eating out of these plates. Together with the ceiling painted to look like the sky, foldable tables from a bygone era, and many other little fixtures, the place evokes some real nostalgia. To be sure, it isn’t exactly like the real thing, more of a whimsical theme park feel to it.

Is this somewhere you go specifically for the food? Probably not.

But it’s a great place to bring visitors who are already spending the day at the parks, and a good spot to educate the kids on what Singapore looked like when their parents, or grandparents