Eavesdropping

Nothing much happened today, except that I walked to SingPost centre to have my lunch as the cook cooked something that I used to like but now, am quite frankly sick of: it's fried ee fu noodles.

It was hot like hell on my way there and back and I felt like a barbecued turkey after that. I ate yong tau fu (my choice of food nowadays, as it is not too oily). What was interesting were the two guys sitting one seat away from me on a long table. I think one of them is a doctor for he could not stop talking about cancer, good cells, bad cells and so on. Really. Quite tasteless to be talking about illnesses and diseases when one is eating. Didn't their mums and dads teach them?

Every sentence had the word "cancer" in it and this doctor guy (I presume that he is) seems to want the whole world to hear what he was saying. He told his friend (whom I think is doing his Masters of sorts, as he mentioned about "finishing the thesis") that he should try "virgin coconut oil" or was it "extra virgin coconut oil". It was as if doctor guy was trying to create the next new buzz word and/or buzz product by word of mouth.

Frankly, I found it very tasteless and an uncool thing to do. Besides, just because the virgin olive oil is getting so much limelight, now all sorts of oils must be virgins?? Oh well, according to him, this extra virgin coconut oil is supposed to be good for the health (Ha!) I just say, everything in moderation.

OK, OK, so I was eavesdropping but they were not exactly very discreet with their conversation either. In actual fact, their voice volumes were bordering on rudeness and inconsideration. Well, the only excuse for them I can think of is that the food court was full of people and was rather noisy. Either that or one of them could be hard of hearing.

After lunch, I trotted off to my favourite de-stressing place: Popular Bookshop and bought myself some stationery necessities. As I exited the entrance of the building, I remembered seeing some handphone cases that I needed so badly. Mine was the faux leather casing type with a magnetic clasp that will flip open. The stuff in the casing that was supposed to hold my handphone has come to bits and was barely clinging on to my phone. My phone had slipped out of it's own casing and the casing had defeated its purpose in protecting my phone. Get it?

Long and short of it is that I needed to change the handphone cover. I had searched my whole neighbourhood, which is one of the most famous heartland neighbourhood shopping area in Singapore and yet, I could not find a case and/or one that was nice enough for me to want.

Today, I tried my luck. Like I said, I was exiting the building and stopped by at the store. After some queries from store owner and some recommendations later, I took an orangey-red 'condom' cover for my handphone. No more flips and flaps and no more bulky cases. This one just slips on nicely over the the phone and hugs it snugly. Sure, it does not protect the screen of the phone but then, I already have a protective sheet over it.

I'm a happy girl now! It's not as orange as I want it to be but I am still a happy girl nevertheless! :)

Aaarrrh!!

Today (as in Wednesday, 7 July), I was really bitchy. I was rushing to go for night classes as it was going to start half an hour earlier. We were going to get instructions about our practicums and such. Did not want to miss a thing.

I stopped by at Kopi Tiam @ Plaza by the Park and thought it would be healthiest to eat yong tau foo. There were these three persons in front of me: two ladies and one man. The man took longer to decide what to have and I beat him to the queue to get my food done first.

After cooking the second bowl for the ladies, he told the cook to calculate all three bowls of yong tau foo together. I do not know but I felt that since my bowl was at the counter top before the man, that the cook should ask for my opinion on whether I minded to let him go first or not (since they were in one group). Instead, she just told me in Mandarin, "You wait, ah."

That made me boil. Not really but because I was in a hurry. Therefore, instead of taking it sitting down, I simply told her back calmly in smooth Mandarin that I did not want to buy her food anymore. I think the four words "I don't want already" are very powerful consumer tools. In fact, in my opinion, the most powerful. After all, the money is in my hands. I have a choice. All I heard her say was, "Huh??" as I rushed to get other stuff for dinner.

I chose not to wait and went to the nearest, fastest stall, which happened to be the duck rice stall. The duck meat was chopped up in a minute and the whole transaction took less than 3 minutes. I paid, took the packet of rice and took flight. I was going to be at least 4 minutes late, all no thanks to yong tau foo auntie.

By the way, I think that man was also very ungentlemanly. He saw me looking at my watch a few times already and I WAS indeed before him in terms of finalising my choices of yong tau foo pieces. I do not see any reason why I should not go first.

Anyhow, I only just made it in time as they started 5 minutes late to accommodate for people like me :(

Will I ever get to eat dry noodles again?

Recently, I have been very troubled by the fact that most hawkers sell their dry noodles, rather wet!!

It all started from my minced meat mee pok, that I love to eat. Some places just love to scoop one big scoop of soup to so-call mix the sauces together, when I specifically ordered dry mee pok.

Then it extended to the wanton noodles that I love to eat! They had to scoop soup into the wanton noodles dry that I ordered. I was particularly very angry with this stall at Gourmet Paradise, a food court at Toa Payoh HDB Hub. I had specifically told the guy, "dry-dry, don't add soup". But in the midst of all that talking with his co-worker, he added one round of soup into my noodles already. The second time that I saw him wanting to scoop some more soup, I literally barked at him not to do so. I was fuming mad as I was ordering take-away and by adding soup, it would make the noodles super soggy.

True enough, the noodles were soggy and it had a very bitter taste to it, which means a certain type of ingredient (called jian shui in Chinese) has been overly used in this noodle. I swear I will never eat at this stall again.

At first, I thought this was a trend brought in my Chinese nationals but it seems like the Malaysians (those working at the Gourmet Paradise Hong Kong style roast) are also picking up on this adding soup onto dry noodles habit.

Worst still, I was watching this Taiwanese show on cable t.v. and they were doing an episode on instant noodles. The host was also doing the same thing!! She was demonstrating how to cook IndoMie Mee Goreng and after she dished out the noodles, she poured some soup in to mix!!! EEeeeks!!!

I guess it boils down to personal preference but I really prefer my dry noodles to be just that! Dry!!

I think the only mee pok I will eat will be from the stall at Kopi Tiam food court at Plaza by the Park (reachable by Circle Line, Stop: Bras Basah)and this 24-hour coffee shop at Toa Payoh. But for the latter, I must ensure I get the right staff to cook. If not, this other lady will still steal some soup and even add ketchup, which to me, in mee pok world, is not acceptable.

This stall at this particular food court is called Tang Ren Jie (Chinatown). You must look out for the uncle with white hair and not the uncle with thinning black hair. The latter is a stand-in. He has a slightly bad temper and does not cook as well as the 'original' uncle.

As for wanton noodles, I shall tell you in my future postings, which ones I prefer. Got to get the addresses right first before I 'report'.