7/13/2007

Upgrading peasant expectations

We have made progress. We started by squatting on the roadside eating from street peddlers. We have moved to hawker centres, aircon food courts and into restaurants. Now we are even into fine dining. At hawker centres, the dirty hawkers would throw the plate of char kway teow at you, with the dirty chopsticks as well. And you cannot demand for anything. That was what you paid for. In fine dining, things changed. The cooks are of international standards and paid top dollars. They knew perfectly what they are expected to deliver. The ingredients are the finest and freshest. The dining tables and chairs, the crockery and cutlery, each piece may cost a few hundred bucks. The table cloth, the service staff, not simply waiters and waitresses, are specially trained with fine manners to pamper the diners. These are what the peasants must learn to expect in fine dining. And they need to upgrade their taste and attitude. They cannot simply accept slipshod services and quality of food. When the service staff are rude and uncourteous, they must be rudely told off. When the food are not well prepared, they must demand to see the chef. There is no excuses for poor quality. They cannot turn around and tell the peasants, 'If you don't like huh, you could yourself lah.' They may be peasant made good chefs, no matter. Professional chefs of international standards, and paid in millions, must live up to their reputation and deliver quality stuff. Anything less is shortchanging. There is no such things as asking the people on how to cook a meal. They are the experts, and they called themselves the experts. When the menu is for French cuisine, it must be French cuisine. How would the peasants know how to prepare fois gras or escargots? How would the peasants know what is good wine or higher grade vinegar? The attitude and expectations of both peasants and chefs must change. Peasants should be more discerning and demand for good service and quality products. And they must know what is good service and quality products. They have the right to demand. For they are paying top dollars for it. The chefs must have some self respect to do what they are paid for. They can't be expected to continue with hawker fares and shaft it down the throat of the peasants. It is terribly embarrassing for top chefs who can't deliver and still collect top pay checks. As we progress, everyone must upgrade their mindset, their training and skills and expectations. Then only we will have real progress.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

As we progress, everyone must upgrade their mindset, their training and skills and expectations. Then only we will have real progress.


especially the massage girls, know how to charges alot but always give poor service, call you swai ker to make you forget their inexperience. should upgrade their mindset and skills ya.

Anonymous said...

"We have made progress. We started by squatting on the roadside eating from street peddlers. We have moved to hawker centres, aircon food courts and into restaurants".

Look our nation & society have progressed but a lot of ppls especially old & others immigrants nationals workers (Malaysia, china, balandesh, India etc)are not progress, in a nice supposed to be cleaned aircon foodcourt, the Malaysian lady fruit stall seller wearing & using a same glove whole day to collect money, chop fruit & pick up fruit from fridge & pass to consumers. The cleaners use one dirty cloth sweep away wastes instead of clean the table & chair properly, the wastes then fall onto the floor or settled on the seats. The noodles stall owner serve noodle soup with dirty finger thumb dip into a soup & passed over to consumer. So u guy said that is progressing…

The Kou Fu Foodcourt now having the high class foodcourt managers & executives dressed very smart plus tie some more but it seen just for image purpose, they standing there for show without monitor their cleaner & stall people hygiene or they simply do not know how to run the operation, another white elephants paying high pay doing nuts.

One last incident like to share with you guy, recently one of the morning I saw one foreigner Indian cleaner using a mop to mop our flat lobby floor, after cleaning the floor he used a same mop to clean void desk tile table & chairs. Immediately, I confronted him why not using a clean cloth to clean that table & chair instead of…. He acted blur keep on saying don’t know leh, his supervisor teaches him, to my surprised his supervisor was a balandesh with town council several years. I talk to that balandesh sup. & as a same times I called Town Council to give an explanation why they have not educated their foreign cheap cleaner on how to do a proper cleaning. So now u guys know why our children have so many mouths diseases in the past.
Until now Town Council has till not replying…..

Anonymous said...

you have made a very good point, but the only problem is it doesnt have currency, so that no body would care to respond or help, even bother abt those incidences.

Way before the stalls close, some smart alex wud climb the walls on start to wipe the aluminium ceiling etc below which is the wok, and when a customer come by they wud take their orders and fry using the same wok which will definitely contain more than what the customer ordered ie sludge and oil droplets plus dirt brushed off from the ceiling. This is happening everywhere.

Yesterday I ordered fried noodles for dinner and the lady taking the order was really dreamy looking, in the end brrought me a wet noodles and apologise. while I ate in disgust she was laughing and joking with her colleagues as if these things are nothing.

Today at a different stall, I ordered fried noodles and sat down for the meal, 10 mins later it came in a takeaway box. I told the fella I wanted to eat that is why I am seated..

Anonymous said...

I am not exaggerating, but the singapore hawkers are really brainless. It wud be interesting when the population here increases by 2 million. These hawkers must have thought their business wud be roaring. I think on the contrary, more newbies will enter the hawking business and squeeze out these stupid idiots. I will go for the new hawkers when I have enuff of these stupid and undeserving ones. They are not worth patronising and they will fail simply becos they are not doing a business but daydreaming at work.

the people that must upgrade are the hawkers. i see a lot of weakness in the way they work.

Anonymous said...

one chicken rice stall operated for more than 10 years in my area. i have eaten there a few times, but gave up becos the chicken is dried and tasteless. but there was no competition and the rental was cheap then. so this man got by and probably doesnt saw the need to upgrade.

as such i always eat at another food center a long way off, as the chicken rice is more tasty and well served with cucumbers and tomatoes. that man in my area didnt see the need to go and recreate his chicken rice although he cud have easily done that.

a year back, a newbie came to the opposite stall and set up a designer type of chicken rice cum porridge cum char siew rice. the servings were extremely innovative with ginger chilly servings like the chatterbox style. That man in my area felt the pressure as most of his client migrated to eat at the new chicken rice stall across the road.

a year later, i saw him closing his stall often, and on the days it is open, his customers are so few and far in between. he is still servbing the same miserable dish, unchanged and has started throwing glances around like wondering why everybody seems to be avoiding his stall. he is stupid and missed the point and he is not alone.

Anonymous said...

he is not alone becos there were 2 fried hokkien mee stalls at the central who have been frying for 20 years plus.

after eating there a few times, and was told by the hawkers proudly that they were the original since the beginning, i gave up on them after my tastebuds disagree with my assumptions from their claims that they were very experienced hawkers and therefore they must be good.

for hokkien mee, i go to a newbie across the road becos they do a better job. the 2 pioneer hokkien mee hawkers were puzzled why i didnt eat from their stalls. how to tell these stupid people their mistakes?

i am not being mercenary, but since eating is my favorute pastime, i have assessed these people thoroughly and come to the conclusion that our hawkers are mainly brainless idiots who simply day dream on the job for a living becos of lack of competition.

But this may change when more innovative newbies especially the china birds enter the picture.

Anonymous said...

sorry but i am particular abt my food; we are only allowed so many calories a day and it is impt that the meal is served right the first time.

i may not be paying top dollar for my food yet, but still it is good money i am paying. please let more hawkers come in and give these uesless bums a run for their money ok.

Anonymous said...

since i wrote so much crap here i tot i must be nice to write something postive.

being the fastidious eater i am, i have surveyed alot of eating places in search of good food. i found one hor fun stall which i am happy to go eat by myself when i am depressed.

i like to keep quiet abt the stall so that i can hoard all the food by myself. this must be your lucky day. next time you run out of places to eat, go to circuit road bus interchange and try the hor fun. the stall is run by a couple in their forties and the meals prepared by 2 oldies. although frail and thin, they looked like sifu masters to me, when they touch the wok. it is such an interesting sight.

the hor fun comes sighlty burnt with the wok hei (fire), served with oyster shell, sliced fishball roll, pork, prawns, vetables and squids. you only need to pay $3. the best part is it is served with a seductive smile by the pleasant looking lady who gazes sweetly into your eyes as she put the plate in front of you. her smile is unforgettable i tell you.

the best day to go is saturday becos the wok hei is strongest. if you see a handsome man sitting there with a beer bottle, call out to me, i am blackbean.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

thanks guys and blackbean, the tall and handsome guy.

by switching our policy to mass recruitment of foreign workers, we have to start at square one again as far as hygiene, personal hygiene and cleanliness is concerned.

even the foreign students, many still problem bath once a week like in their home countries. they smell like hell in the mrt. instantly you know that they have not taken a bath for days.

the foreign workers will go and return from work in the same soil work clothes.

that is what we will get in our first class public transport system.

but wait a minute. this topic is not just about hawker food and fine dining.

tranfer it into a different context. what about political chef and their service staff? our politicians used to be barbers and taxi drivers and chee cheong fun sellers. now we have top notch talents being paid top notch pay.

Anonymous said...

I guess not many of the younger guys know that some of our past politicians used to be barbers, taxi drivers and chee cheong fun sellers. Now that they have top-notch talents being paid top-notch salaries, they sometimes forget their own humble beginnings and tried to belittle the less talented opposition candidates.

It is a good thing, Redbean, that you have occassionally tried to jot the memory of the older readers as well as educate the younger readers about what it was, once upon a time.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

more important is that the citizens must demand for better quality decisions. no more slipshod works.

we are paying good money and must expect good quality work in return. we must raise our standard of expectation.

we can talk rubbish here for we are not paid a penny. but the people must not tolerate rubbish or foolish talks from highly paid supertalents.

no more mediocrities.

Anonymous said...

rebdbean got a point, there shud be quality control and new hygiene guidelines. if you are not a sadist and you dun want 2 million newbies to end up with diarrhoea then stop the slipshod works pls.

china has done its part on food exposure, they are chopping heads to get there. when are we going to do ours?

officials here who have collected huge paypackets shuld at least ensure the people are not exposed to unneccessary health hazards in public eating places.

doing fta and long distance deals is ok but it doesnt mean a thing to ordinary folks like redbean but cleaning up the food centers to ensure safety and hygiene and kissing cute babies, ah there's a different thing.
now are we talking?

have you seen the ah soh clean the tables with the same cloth throughout the evenings?

have you seen the ah soh puts the swill bins on your chair and brushed the leftovers into your chairs?

do you know the chap who mops the floor also mops the tables and chairs with the same pail of dirty water?

do you know the forks, spoons and plates are rinsed with the same soap and water until the wash becomes too oily and sticky?

do you know the cook climbs the aluminiun ceiling to wipe the oil sludge and brush the dirt off the top into his wok to give you added flavor?

You dun require an mba to look into these problems and you shudnt wait until some one die from these before you make a case. If the Chinese can do it, perhaps we can too.

mediocrities no more?

you are paid! pls do your work.

Anonymous said...

Hey, they have an article abt the chinese cooks making it in singapore today. Great i honestly hope one day our cooks at the hawker centers will all be foreigners. They are more hardworking, smart and deserving. With such good food no singaporean will need a kitchen anymore.

But then again something puzzled me, I thought we are supposed to bring in talents which we are SHORT of..

...Then how come ALL THE FOREIGNERS I know RE WORKING AS REAL ESTATE AGENTS, INSURANCE AGENTS, COOKS, TUITION/ PIANO TEACHERS, MLM SALESPERSONS, CONTRACTORS, BUILDERS, PAINTERS etc etc... so that they are allowed in to take away ordinary ungrateful singaporeans' jobs?

I mean do they have any criteria to fullfil like in australia, where only certain professions like computer programmers or jobs where there is a critical need are allowed in?

What is going on? Hmmmm as usual, nobody bothers to ask, so forget it. Let singaporeans do the menial tasks ok. Fine with me cos I wont be involved.

If we continue to bring in foreign clerks, engineers, salespersons, doctors, lawyers, managers... then displaced Singaporean should be entitled to claim unemployment benefits from the gst the govt collected from them... is that a good idea?

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

the singaporeans should sell out and shift out. they are sitting on a non performing but high value asset. sell the flat and convert to cash and move to india, china, malaysia, indonesia, thailand etc and live like a rich foreigner.

singaporeans cannot have it any better.

Anonymous said...

like that they must get the PRs to do national defence leh.