dinner

Weird service at popular seafood restaurant

- Sheylara 15 Comments

Tekong Seafood Restaurant in Changi Village.

Saturday night.

[Eat me]
Photo by Leonardo Menezes.

The boss of the restaurant came to take our order. We ordered our food, followed by drinks.

That done, we waited.

It was early, about 6:30 pm, so there was no crowd. Only one other table was filled.

[Need a holiday]
Photo by Michel Meynsbrughen — not Tekong Seafood Restaurant!

Ten minutes later, our drinks still haven’t arrived. Waitresses were just milling around doing nothing.

We asked one of them to check on our drinks. She came back and asked if we could order again because there’s no record of us ever ordering drinks.

Not wanting to risk a double order, we told her to check with the boss.

Just then, the boss wandered in.

[Run for your life]
Graphic by Lynne Lancaster.

When the waitress told him what’s happening, he said, “Oh, I didn’t take your drinks order. Can you order again?”

*Profound silence*

Then everyone at the table started swearing that we saw the boss acknowledging our drinks order and writing it down.

His reply was, “Oh, I sent your food order in only. I didn’t take your drinks order. Can you order your drinks from this waitress?”

*Stunned*

We speculated that the boss must have been either drunk or not interested in doing business.

[Nice t-shirt]
Photo by Konrad Baranski.

===================================================

Seperate incident that happened in the same restaurant!

My brother was having dinner there some time back. He stopped a Chinese waitress and asked for sambal chilli.

Ten minutes later, the chilli still hadn’t arrived and he wondered what happened to it.

Twenty minutes later, the waitress brought a dish to the table. It was a big chicken dish which no one ordered.

[Hungry?]
Photo by Kristina Mileva — not actual dish.

My brother said, “We didn’t order this.” (In Chinese)

The waitress said, “Yes, you did.” (In Chinese)

“No, we didn’t.”

“You did.”

My brother thought for a bit and then said, “I asked for sambal chilli.”

The waitress said, “That’s right! This is san ba ji.”

(“San ba ji” is the Chinese term for “Kampung chicken”.)

Joke of the year!!!

I guess “sambal chilli” does sound a bit like “san ba ji”.

Be careful what you ask for and who you ask it from.

ROFL.

===================================================

This restaurant has the weirdest service ever. It’s not strictly bad. The waitresses and boss are actually quite friendly and easy-going. There was no rudeness or anything.

They just gave us the impression that they’re all clueless and not really present.

Strange, because this restaurant is supposed to be quite popular and has been around for decades.

Sorry I had to use stock photos for this post. I didn’t feel like taking photos that night because of the weird service, plus the food is average only, so I don’t really want to advertise for the restaurant. Hah.

Don’t go there. There are better places to eat seafood.

French fries and onion rings for dinner

- Sheylara 35 Comments

This is seriously crazy.

One night, the Goonfather had a sudden craving for french fries with ketchup, and he kept talking about it until I was dying to eat french fries with ketchup, too.

Idiot.

So we went to Billy Bombers for dinner. (Mr B doesn’t have the best fries, but he has killer onion rings and killer burgers and killer milk shakes.)

We ordered a basket of fries and a bowl of onion rings to start off with. We considered sharing a burger or a plate of honey stung fried chicken (my favourite), but we remembered that the fries and onion rings are huge, so we told our waitress we’d think about the main course later.

The onion rings came first.

[Onion rings]

Beautiful, succulent, golden brown onion rings!

And then the fries.

[French fries]

Thick, crunchy, steamy hot french fries!

With a huge glob of tangy tomato ketchup.

[Ketchup]

What more could you possibly need at your dinner table??

Maybe a tall glass of creamy vanilla milkshake

[Milkshake]

Maybe I should stop doing that because I’m sounding like a TV commercial.

But that was some dinner.

The french fries in Billy Bombers are very long and thick. It takes so many bites to finish a stick, especially when its steaming hot.

[Eating a french fry]

I prefer smaller ones.

Not like the gimpy McDonald’s type, but something in between, I guess.

We started feeling full halfway through our meal.

[Half a meal]

Which is ridiculous considering that these were only sides and normal people are expected to finish these and have a main course.

As a side note, while french fries taste sublime with ketchup, onion rings must go with chilli sauce. The Goonfather didn’t believe me until he tried it for himself.

At nearly the end of our meal, when we had a single fry and two onion rings left, the Goonfather made this.

[1 french fry, 2 onion rings]

Don’t look at me. I had no part in this.

I asked him to stop playing with our food, then I ate up the leftovers.

And then we were too full to eat anything else. What a super unhealthy dinner!! (Like we care.)

Here’s the bill, receipt, whatever you wanna call it.

[Receipt]

Freaking expensive for a fries and onion rings dinner!!

LOL.

I think the Goonfather and I are really bad influences on each other.

Survey: What sauce do you like your fries with? I think ketchup is great, but I also like fries with chilli sauce or vanilla ice cream. They’re all so good it’s always so hard to decide!

Damn, now I’m craving fries again.

The dinner that took 8 hours

- Sheylara 17 Comments

On Saturday, Porky made the most ridiculous suggestion of the year.

He said, “Let’s go to Malacca for dinner now.” It was six plus in the evening. The drive to Malacca normally takes two to three hours.

More absurdly, everyone said okay (except Elyxia and Uncle Kell, who already had plans).

I was actually looking forward to playing the Wii that night, but the thought of driving to Malacca on a whim thrilled me, so I gamely went along with the plan.

We didn’t drive up right away. Of course. What did you expect? Nanny Wen had to take a shower first. Morte and Wang2 had to drive home from somewhere to grab their passports. There’s always someone who has unfinished business that can’t wait.

By the time we were all set to start our journey from home, it was past seven.

More waiting when we arrived at the Shell petrol station near the Second Link. Morte and Wang2, although they live in the west and are therefore nearer to our meeting point, weren’t there yet.

Next time check:

Arrival at Johor Bahru!

Wen entertained me in the car by mucking aorund with Mushroom (mine) and Penguin (hers).

The last time she left Penguin in our car (remember she’s always forgetting stuff?), we found the two stuffies in a compromising position when we next saw them. She accused Mushroom of raping Penguin (so totally not true). So she made Penguin take revenge by raping Mushroom back.

Crazy.

After she got tired of manipulating the stuffies, she decided it was a great time to study for her coming exams. In the dark.

Crazy.

From JB to Malacca is 200 km. I don’t know how but it took the boys a whole two hours to get there. Maybe because Morte felt the need to take a rest stop when we were only 40 km away from our destination.

Duh?

Next time check:

Arrival at Malacca!

It then took us another 20 minutes to reach Jonker Street (where the food and action is) and another 10 minutes to weave through the crowd and get to the particular spot we wanted to eat at.

IT WAS ALMOST 11 PM BY THE TIME WE STARTED EATING.

You see now how Porky’s suggestion was crazy? And how the rest of us were crazier for taking it up?

We finished eating in half an hour and toyed around with the idea of staying for the night so we could eat bak kut teh in the morning. But it was a no go because the Goonfather and I had stuff to do in the morning.

We left Malacca at 11:30 pm. Took a leisurely rest stop on the halfway point, where we drank stuff to wake ourselves up while Nanny Wen slept in the car.

Last time check:

Home sweet home.

Trip damage:

Petrol – S$45
Highway Toll – S$28
Food (for two) – S$9
Total – S$82

Summary: We spent eighty bucks and eight hours to have a dusty dinner of street hawker fare. (But yummy, of course.)

Totally insane!