no chili please

                        
 

Day 2 was food day. We started off by eating a true and hearty breakfast the Singaporean way, which meant going down in sleepwear to the local hawker and eating out. Hawkers or carinderias as we pinoys would call them, are literally everywhere. Apparently the culture around here is that people genuinely do not like to cook at home. Why would you when there is cheap newly-cooked food right around the corner. It was like they had food courts everywhere, specializing in each type cuisine, Chinese, Malay, Indian, Western etc. They even have beverage booths separated from the stall that sell food.  Everywhere we went you’d see these Kopitiams, food courts, food express stalls, and mostly it’s the cheapest and most convenient way to eat.

 As my stomach was really the discerning type, we stayed away from spicy food. Apparently the default taste was spicy, and servers would literally put chili sauce everywhere on your food lest you pre-specify that you don’t eat chili. My very first Chinese words learned was “Bu Yao La Jiaou” which means “No chili please” on my food.  And apparently they all assume it’s for take-out unless you specify that you will “eat here”. They’d put in on a wax paper on a tray if you were to eat-in, and would pack it in the same wax paper  if you were to bring it to go. Talk about convenient and economical and cheap.

 
The thing I like is you can eat roasted chicken and peking duck anywhere. It’s always on the menu and it’s much cheaper than if you ordered it back home. Here’s my first breakfast meal:

 

I will try to eat and experiment later, but right now we must go for the safe food.  And yes, I found cheap coffee I like. It’s hawker coffee, looks like mud but unbelievably tastes great. They call it coffee C and costs about a dollar. I figured that C stands for Carnation condensed milk  I figured that because it’s a bit sweet. It’s like drinking Milo with a caffeine punch. Oh well.

 

For some reason, Western food is insanely expensive. Fast food meals are 3x the price you would pay back home. Hmmm, to illustrate, Burger King Jr. Whopper Meal, in Pinas is PhP 70, here it’s SGD 8 which is PhP 280. So going to the local Starbucks is literally got to be a pain in the pocket, which is kind of sad. The normal Grande Latte you’d get for a PhP 140 would be about SGD 12-15 here. Sigh.  That means I have to go and settle for cheap coffee for the meantime. What is a bum to do after all? I’ve been living on my savings for three months now and I hope it would last me another long while.
 

Funny thing is Italian restos like Tony Roma’s are insanely expensive too at SGD30 a plate. And the line at Suntec City where we went is unbelievably long. It was like people waited in the queue for 30 minutes to an hour and that really kills the dining experience. With SGD30, I could go on a mildy, classy date at a much finer recto back home. And it meant food for 2 people, and not 1 measly set on a plate. Not that’s it likely to happen, I realize now that if I ever I had to go out on a date anytime soon, we’d eat Chinese or Japanese food for the meantime. I have to impress with my chopsticks skills by default. Hahaha.
 

Goodbye to Starbucks, and putanesca. Hello to Koufu coffee C and dim sum ramen. The good thing is that I feel like the much anticipated weight loss is well on its way.