Over-charged 39X @ Fairprice

I had a bit of a shock when I heard the cashier announce my total bill at Fairprice @ HDB Hub today, Nov 3.

Yes, my trolley was full to the brim but I had bought no expensive meat or wine; mainly veggies, instant noodles, a few low priced cans of fish and peanuts, four packets of biscuits, and some bags of 3-in-1 beverages, with the two bags of Ovaltine being the most costly at $4.80 a bag.  My fortnightly gifts to some oldies at Bendemeer Road.

Nothing that could justify a $93.05 bill!

Still I paid up and then parked my trolley to check.

My eyes almost popped out when i saw that I had been charged $30.47 for a packet of 3 carrots. For heavens sake, they were plain carrots; not organic or carats!

Went back immediately to the cashier to protest the incorrect charge. She was nonchalant and said that the scanner must have made a mistake.

I don’t know about scanner but this is what the price code on the packet of carrots showed and the item and amount boxed in pink were what was captured in the bill (below).

I got my refund but had I been less vigilant I could in one fell swoop have lost all my rebates and dividends from shopping one year at Fairprice.

I shudder to imagine if I were just a little illiterate old lady living on the margins having my public assistance wiped out by one scanner mistake and I won’t have been any wiser.

My experience should be an alert to all who shop at Fairprice to double-check their bills. If it happened to me, it could happen to you or your maids whom you send to shop on your behalf.

Breakfast at Blu dinner

Things weren’t that topsy turvey at Shangrila Hotel’s Blu Challenge dinner on Oct 10 as implied by the title of this post.

It’s just that chef Kevin Cherkas named the dessert Breakfast (pix below) even though what he served wasn’t a poached egg sitting on a muffin, with the usual accompanying fried sausages and grilled tomato. Rather, sausages and tomato were optical illusions — just a picture on the plate.

I think the “egg white” was coconut cream and perhaps real cream from the cow while the “yolk” was some mango puree and juice with gelatine. I also think the “muffin” was laced with passion fruit extract of some sort.

Please note I use the word “think” deliberately because I was, and still  am, not sure what went into making up the dessert. The “ingredients” I had gleaned from what the waiter told us would be in the dessert when he was kindly re-organising my menu to avoid serving me beef, lamb, duck and goose.

“You can eat passion fruit, coconut and mango?” he asked, apparently throwing caution to the wind: my five dining companions would be taking the challenge to guess the menu’s ingredients, even tho I wasn’t, and they could hear every word. (or perhaps that’s Blu’s way of dropping hints?)

Pity the wait didn’t also ask whether I could eat cream made from milk, as I’m somewhat lactose intolerant and had a mild tummy upset the morning after the dinner, leaving me suspecting all the more strongly that the “egg white” had at least some cream in it!

Not quite what it seems

The dinner started with something which looked like a mushroom cap (left) but wasn’t. It’s amusing to look at and quite pleasant to taste but it won’t be something I would die-die must eat again.

This was followed by something I’m more familiar with. A generous portion of lobster meat, lightly cooked in a delicious stock (see below). I was less comfy with the foamy clump at one end of the plate and it stayed right there.

 

lobster portion: generous n colorful

Guess I’m not for the sort of cooking a la Fat Duck, molecular cooking, whatever, altho for a once in a blue-moon meal, it’s OK.

Otherwise, give me something simple, clean and natural like Sakura don (at between $7.80 and $9.90 takeaway), and I would be in gourmet (my version) paradise.

The lobster was followed by a soup, which I think looked very pretty as well (below left) but its taste wasn’t particularly memorable. Again, there was the ubiqitous blob of cream!  This brought an end to the “common” items which I was served, just like the others taking the Challenge menu.

 

so pretty!

solid monkfish followed by risotto consolation

 While those in the Challenge ate pan-fried foie gras (very generous pieces, cut heart-shaped and pronounced great by those eating it) I was served monk fish. With plenty of foam again, just as again I couldn’t fault the dish for its prettiness but wish ang mo cooks would learn to serve meaty fish in thin slices rather than like a thick rump steak!

What followed was the main-main course. The competitors were served tenderloin beef cut in medallions which all pronounced great. Unfortunately, I overlooked taking pix of dishes not on my menu.

For me, mains was cod in an emerald sea of pea or spinach puree– I couldn’t make out exactly. But it was avery decent portion, made more so when the restaurant threw in a small but still decent portion of risotto, although I hadn’t expected that. Blu at least made the dinner worth the $139+++, tho I won’t say the same for the Evian we were served, even tho we asked for PUB water.

codfish in a sea of green

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As stated in the earlier post, no one won the Challenge, so we had to pay for our dinner in full, plus all the other incidentals.

However, there was a sweet ending and I don’t mean just the “cotton wool” candy tree which came with compliments of the chef. Rather, it was the 15% we were given off our total bill because TK paid with American Express, though the waiter added, we would get the same discount with an UOB card.

Instead of us having to pay $234 per head for an evening’s indulgence, we found we needed to pay just $198 each. Well that’s why we left Blu in high spirits even tho we didn’t drink ourselves silly and almost choked over the price of Evian!

While the experience at Blu was nowhere near the WOW I felt on our first visit to GOTO, it’s certainly more value for money than Gunther’s.

And of cos at Blu, we spotted a celebrity couple, Dr Susan Lim, Singapore’s first surgeon to carry out a liver transplant. With her equally famous Citibanker husband. Just like we spotted UOB president Wee Ee Cheong at Gunther’s and City Developments chairman, Kwek Leng Beng, at our repeat visit to GOTO! 

Tin Hill Bistro Winebar closed down?

Or merely relocating or refurbishing?

I ask this because yesterday, when I turned into Sixth Avenue from the Bukit Timah Road end, I was surprised, shocked, to see the corner of a stretch of shophouses that was occupied by the bistro as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

I tried calling the bistro number — 64633811 — and was answered by a Singtel recorded message to say that it was temporarily unavailiable!

Then I checked Hungrygowhere and found there was the bald word “CLOSED” atop the 18 reviews done on the bistro, with the last one sooooooo negative that even if it wasn’t closing, it would probably have no choice but to close.

Or, if it wasn’t closing down, then Tin Hill’s owners could have threatened Hungrygowhere and the reviewer with legal action, just as Obolo did over Kaelyn Ong’s sincere but not overly flattering review.

Fact is, I had my premonition regarding Tin Hill from the first time I stepped into the place in September 2008. While the first impression was very good, I worried how it was going to sustain itself, with only two tables and four diners the first time I was there.

Also, a question mark hung over the untrained service staff, even if the owner was all toothy smile and helpfulness.

I liked it well enough to return a second time within a few days but then was thoroughly put off by the offhand manner of the owner, to sincere queries.  Perhaps she had already tired of the venture.

My impressions were recorded in these posts: 

http://singaporegirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/not-so-great-2nd-time-around/

http://singaporegirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/hip-hip-hurry/

I guess the moral of Singapore’s highly competitive food and beverage scene is that it isn’t enough to be hip and happening. If you want to keep the customers coming, you must work hard at pleasing their stomachs and self-esteem!

Challenging dinner at Blu – for starters

My usual dining companions and I went to Blu on the 24th floor of the Shangri La Hotel to try their $139 +++ Challenge dinner on Saturday, Oct 10. If the diner got all the ingredients right from the tasting menu of six courses in a multiple choice quiz, he/she got to dine free.

 The date wasn’t chosen because of any auspicious connotations but because that’s the Saturday when everyone of the regular group was free and more importantly, for four of the much travelling members, everyone was in town.

I must say rightaway that the six courses we had (seven if we included the cotton candy tree at the end of the meal which came with the chef’s compliments; and eight for me, as I had a different menu from the others; explanations in the post after next) were well worth the money, in taste and presentation.

The service was also on the better side of good.

But let me also register some negative points, as starters.

Although we booked for a table for six some 10 days or so be4 the actual dinner, we were informed only late in the afternoon of 10/10 that Blu cldn’t give us a table at the window. The person who called said they just wanted to be “upfront” with us.

Hello, with such short notice, what else could we say but with gritting teeth that we would accept, adding “how so we don’t get a table at the window when we booked long ago?”

“Because we don’t have a table for six at the window. The space doesn’t allow it; it will be too tight; uncomfortable…”

Now, I wonder why we weren’t told all this right at the time we booked? It probably won’t have made any difference but the fact that we were left with Hobson’s choice at the last moment didn’t feel good.

The next piece of “displeasure” was when we were dallying at the cocktail lounge, enjoying the night lights and pre-dinner drinks. All of us had arrived be4 7.30pm (that’s the time we booked) and it might have been a bit after that, but we were chased –not once but twice to get to our table– as the restaurant was quite full and we were having the Challenge menu. Something to do with the fact that the chef had to cook in batches, whatever.

All of us are reasonable pple, so after a couple of under-breath mutterings, we went kwai-kwai to our table. Although we would have preferred to linger a little longer over our drinks.

The next frown-making incident was when we asked for water — PUB water, as one of us put it– we were served Evian. This was despite the fact that one of us pointed out again to the waiter, as he poured, that we wanted plain tap water. But too late to reject, as some of us had begun sipping the water in our glasses. In any case, the waiter made no response.

Later, when we were settling the bill, we checked whether we were charged for the Evian. Indeed we were. $38 for 330ml!! Something that Sparklette who has compiled a list of restaurants that don’t serve water might like to take note of!

But because we generally had a good evening — even after TK was given a sticky dirty fork that he had to ask for it to be changed — we were loath to kick up a fuss and end the gathering on a sour note.

Yes, even after we discovered that the martinis with canned lichi that five of us had cost $120 (before SV + GST). It’s Shangri La after all.

 And the curious thing about the prices was that we had a very decent bottle of Argentinian Shiraz that cost just $120 +++!

Finally, the most curious thing was that the five who took the Challenge (I didn’t because I had a slightly different menu), the person who didn’t cook scored 79 points — the highest at Blu for that night according to Chef Kevin Cherkas — while the person who cooked for us regularly scored only 50 points.

For the Blu record: the chef said no one had had scored 100% and won the complimentary dinner as of the date of our dining. The Challenge is on till Dec 31!

Make Jobs Credit Scheme a PR

Please, please, please, pretty please, PAP Government, please make your Jobs Credit Scheme a permanent resident in Singapore. This is because Jobs Credit is the best invention since sliced bread.

Not because I’ve benefited directly from it; nor anyone else whom I know still in the workforce. But indirectly, everyone must have.

Let me list the beneficiaries.

The employers:

•  those in a bad shape were given a gentle helping hand, enabling them to run on empty a little longer and have the chance to see a new dawn. Something not wanted by those rooting for Darwin’s theory to take its ferocious course. But then, these root for restructuring only because they are not the candidates to be eliminated to prove survival of the fittest survive theory. They will sing another tune, if the bootie is on the other footie.
• those in good to decent shape: Jobs Credit boosts their coffers, albeit indirectly. When the Govt picks up part of your wage bill, there’s even more for the bottom line or more to reward employees even more; or both.

The Government:

• Jobs Credit helps to give profitable employers more for their bottom line, without needing to tweak the tax rate downwards
• Jobs Credit helps to lower the cost of doing business, a relief that businesses cry for all the time
• Jobs Credit makes Singapore more competitive by indirectly lowering costs and tax rates
• Jobs Credit helps to provide unemployed benefits by enabling many who might have been unemployed stay employed. Employers who might have had to shed labour become in effect unofficial “dole” distributors. But because workers stay employed, they don’t feel the stigma of unemployment or loss of self-esteem.
• Jobs Credit helps to contain the jobless rate so that confidence among the people and in the country and economy remains postive.
• Jobs Credit helps make Singaporeans generally more happy than they might otherwise be.

You and me:

• In general, the $4 billion pumped into the economy has a multiplier effect. A Jobs Credit $ in the pockets of people still with jobs is worth more than the dole $ in the pockets of the unemployed.
• In any case, Singapore doesn’t dole out dole to the unemployed. What help that goes thru CDCs and Comcare doesn’t generate confidence but something akin to desperation.

Jobs Credit may have started out as a short-term answer to the threat of an economy imploding, much like a work permit worker does work that citizens don’t want. But like many work permit holders, Jobs Credit has shown that it does — and can do — much more than fill a temporary need.

So give Jobs Credit PR!

Cheap & good eat: fast to fix

LW is full of ideas for making great meals and consequently is often sought for her recipes. She doesn’t write them down, giving pointers whenever she’s asked.

Perhaps that’s the way to go for which cook, good or bad, follows recipes slavishly anyway, given the mnany things that can’t always be replicated — ingredients, size of kitchen, adequacy of cooking utensils and last but not least, the very personalised skills of the cook.

Indeed, when even the orginal cook can’t always produce identical dishes at the same sitting, let alone at different sittings, why should we expect copy-cat cooks to be able to make an exact replica, even if they are determined to?

Thus I think LW’s way is the best way: she provides the template and copy cats customise, whether by design or accident.

Today, I share a recipe for a dish — cheap and fast to make, good to eat – which LW gave me when we were chin-wagging at the club at the week-end over some finger food.

Ingredients: silken tofu (about 90 cents to $1); ginger, spring onion, Chinese parsley (optional) and chilli all finely sliced (30 to 50 cents); one table spoon of oyster sauce, one table spoon of hot water and one teaspoon of sesame oil (20 cents?).

Remove the tofu from its box and put on plate. Optional to leave whole or cut into oblong wedges. Put finely sliced garnishings on tofu. Mix the oyster sauce, hot water and sesame oil and pour over garnishings. Serve! Oishi!

smooth & tasty

Even Siti was able to produce the dish with only one briefing and we are having it again tomorrow nite for dinner and Saturday when Daffy comes for lunch.

I almost walked out but

thank goodness I didn’t or I won’t have had the pleasure of eating genuine China food in Singapore.

The meal had started so unpromisingly that I almost walked away while waiting for it to be prepared — a tantrum I could contemplate since I was eating alone and didn’t have to consider anyone else’s perspective or persuasion.

I had, against my inclination and better judgement, decided to try the Chicken Hot Pot cafe outside Fairprice Supermarket at Square2. 

Inclination and judgement told me I should eat at the foodcourt nearby because it would be faster and cheaper and I would have more time for my Tuesday grocery shopping to take advantage of the senior citizen discount. But inertia made me sit down and order the cheapest set available which was the chicken hot pot at about $9.80.

It seemed like a mistake from the start when no food came after 15 minutes while other diners who arrived appeared to be regulars, who moved around helping themselves to stuff from the fridge. (I later discovered they were “extras” for the hot pot).

When I asked abt my set, I was told firmly that the chicken had to be cooked and the cook couldn’t be rushed. When the clay pot came it was so blackened with soot that I wondered when it was last washed.

My heart sank further when the pot’s cover was taken off and I saw what appeared to be pieces of chicken so randomly chopped — no piece was the same size! — that it might have been the work of a frenzied killer! The gravy was greasy and what vegetables I could make out from the mess, overcooked.

My head told me to pay the bill and walk away rather than swallow the unattractive mess but my heart reminded me of the millions who are hungry in the world. Moreover, I was ravenous and had already wasted almost 30 minutes sitting, waiting.

So gingerly I started to spoon the stuff from the pot, separating the chicken pieces from the vegetables, laddling the latter onto a bowl of rice. And would you believe it, the more I ate, the more I liked the stuff, because strangely, each spicy, fragrant spoonful took me back to far away places with strange sounding yet familiar names; reminding me of happy memories and great times, good food, good shopping and a timeleness that lulled my senses. What I ate reminded me of China!!

Sure, it could be because one of the waitresses spoke as tho she’s a China-girl but then in many eating places in Singapore, one runs into service staff who are from China, but none of the food they served spoke remotely of China, not even if when it’s supposed to be a Chinese restaurant.

only bones left!

So contrary to my expectations, I ate everything, every bit of soggy veg and mishapened chicken piece and would have licked my bowl and plate, if I had been with friends or family who would shield me from the scorn of neighbouring diners and the service staff.

And what remained was a pile of bones and the plentiful and favourful (but greasy) soup in which the chicken and the veggies were cooked.

When I got up to walk towards the cashier to pay my bill, I saw a proud poster hanging on the wall behind me which I hadn’t noticed be4. It proclaimed that Chicken Hot Pot where I was eating was from — China! Shanghai, no less!

Well, my taste buds didn’t fool me and neither did the food. Every bite did taste of China and the poster confirmed that fact!

Modern Johnnie Walker

In late June, I wrote a short account of people I know who tho past their “use-by” employable dates but somehow still have employers either desperate or discerning enough to want to keep them on the company’s payroll. Here’s the post.

PT, a friend, was so inspired by that post that she has written an account of her own to share. It is about her very dear friend, Eric Simon, who tho 74, continues to hold full-time employment besides having paying hobbies, thru writing books and giving talks.

Without more ado, I hand the mike over to PT for the rest of the story on how despite reaching the wrong side of adulthood, one man can still put good food on the table, rising prices notwithstanding:

Eric Simon, at aged 74, has neighbours shaking their heads asking him why  he must continue to slave away, putting in 7.30am-5pm routines 5 days a week – and sometimes even till 6 or 7 when the pressure is on – at a place that’s 30 mins drive from home.

They say ‘Why sweat so much when it is about time you take it easy, enjoy your hobbies, and come makan with us retirees?’ But Eric would have no truck with that.

 A graduate of Serdang Agricultural University, Eric has been a horticultural consultant with a property developer in KL for the last 15 years, and this was after he took early retirement at aged 50, together with full pension, etc, as a government servant. (between the age of 50 and 58, he was employed by yet another condo developer).

 Eric says, part of the reason why he enjoys his work is because it is less cerebral and more physical than most professions – i.e. going out to the hot sun to supervise landscape contractors and Bangladeshi gardeners on the one hand and co-ordinating with specialist builders, engineers and project managers on the other.

eric + orchids=inseparable

His ability to speak reasonably fluent Bangladeshi and Tamil, plus really excellent Bahasa Melayu, and plus a smattering of hokkien and cantonese, makes him popular with nearly everyone including all the staff – so much so that he is also appointed president of the staff recreation club.

 Although Eric has a room in an office (as well as a site office which he shares with site engineers) he doesn’t have the use of a PC, instead sharing one with the secretaries. Once he asked the office girls how to manipulate certain keys on a PC,  and got a retort from one of the young naïve ladies: ‘Ai yah, uncle, you are so old already, why must you learn the computer?!’ That fired him up even more and now he is the proud owner of not just a PC but the latest Apple iMac at home, busily checking the web, firing off emails to all his friends around the world, preparing work schedules, etc. Not to mention enrolling on an (free) iMac course one night a week.

 And speaking of Bahasa Melayu, his is so good that his Chinese friends – usually owners of garden nurseries in Subang -  regularly seek his help to interpret and draft government letters on his days off.

 But Eric’s all-consuming past-time is gardening. Besides sitting on several social committees including gardening and orchid societies, Eric has also published two how-to books on his twin passions –  bougainvillea and orchids.

 Chockful of information for the novice gardener, the books have a friendly laid-back Malaysian style, and also contain chapters for those who just want to enjoy the beauty of flowers without the back-breaking work! Much of the sale of these books are done by the author himself, through word of mouth, or at horticultural and orchid shows. A good number are also snapped up at talks Eric gives to government officials, schools, retirees, gardening/orchid socieites and other special interest groups.

Right now, Eric is working on his third book – on garden tips. His motto in life? ‘He who plants a garden plants happiness.’

So, who says life must slow down when you’ve reached your golden years?” 

(Eric’s website can be accessed via the navigation bar on the right.)