Yesterday was National Good Service Day Well, it was for us. And well, not quite “national”, but Orchard and Scotts Road make up 90% of Singapore, so can lah. And this is not just to “balance out” the posts about the horrible service we’ve been getting. At Orchard Ion: A security guard held the lift door for Naomi, myself and Kai in pram while we were 10m away from the lifts. She then asked which floor we were going so she could make sure the lift was going in the right direction, then she wished us a good evening. The waiter at TWG Tea Company offered to push Kai’s pram so we wouldn’t have to negotiate the aisles ourselves, then offered to give Kai some macaroons which we had to decline because Kai’s too young to have macaroons. (But we weren’t, so dammit, shoulda said yes), then gave Kai a couple of slices of brioche for him to munch on. And for a change, the waiters knew their menu well and could describe their offerings more than reading out what was in the menu. The staff at Prologue – an upmarket branch of popular bookstore Popular Bookstore were excellent – they found what we wanted in a snap, gave Kai a kiddy book to fiddle with while we browsed (and when Kai didn’t want to let go of the book and we had to buy it, managed to peel the barcode off it and scan it), and were generally very polite and helpful. At Goodwood Park Hotel: The doormen rushed to Naomi’s door and helped her out while she carried Kai, then later while I had to recharge my cashcard, asked if she would like to wait in the shade because it was a hot day out. OK now, the rest of Singapore, follow suit please. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Remove the “G” from Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus Steakhouse I wasn’t going to blog about this, but I saw Tuesday’s ST headline about bad service and realised that bad service was a national epidemic, and therefore had to be talked about, the same way we talked about SARS, and swine flu. Because talking about it spreads awareness, and when you’re aware, you’re less likely to suffer from it. Or something. Last Saturday, because we had Kai in pram and we were stuck somewhere near Forum Galleria (as you would when you have a child in pram), and because we were hungry and didn’t want to eat at California Pizza Kitchen again, we decided to chance our arm at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus Steakhouse at Orchard Parade Hotel. There, we were treated to the most bewildering display of the opposite extremes of service attitudes. When we stepped onto the premises, we saw that staff members were dressed in different uniforms reflecting their vocations – much like how the sarong kebaya on SQ girls have different colours (my brother once said the green one was for the staff sergeant stewardess) – and there were these two men dressed in dark coloured shirts, carrying and talking to each other on their walkie-talkies, I swear, within sight and earshot of each other. Like little boys play acting at emergency services, they continued their radio jargon-filled requests for chairs and tables while we waited to be seated. One of these fellows then asked if we wanted a table outside or inside, “but inside no more table already”. Naomi very kindly asked him why he would ask if we wanted a table inside if there were none inside already. He simply smiled wryly and then spoke into his walkie-talkie. His colleague, standing three metres behind him, responded with something equally unintelligible. After we had been seated, Naomi’s mum then asked for another chair so that she could put our giant diaper bag and her handbag on it, and one of the dark shirts told her brusquely, “ok ma’am, give me a minute”. Naomi’s mum didn’t hear him clearly, and thought he hadn’t understood her request and so repeated it, to which he repeated “ma’am, give me a minute!”, but with raised voice and an expression which said “I just said I’ll get it for you, didn’t you hear me?” Maybe it was the heat, maybe we had a long day, but we were seething by then. Waiters came and went, fulfilling our little requests – such as having one cutlery setting for every person seated at our table – they were harried because it was after all, a Saturday evening, and the restaurant was full of tourists and their companions from across the road at Orchard Towers. We ordered our food and the real show started when Naomi’s mum’s rib-eye steak arrived, and to her dismay because she was famished, it was too tough for her to cut with her steak knives, and we asked for it to be sent back. The really nice waiter who attended to us listened to our complaint and told us he’d take it back and tell the chef and manager. We thought all was settled, and that in a few minutes (how long does it take to make a rib-eye medium rare?) Mum would have her steak and all would be good in the world. But no. The same Walkie Talkie Dark Shirted Guy (whom we asked for a chair), Assistant Manager Mr Peter Ang came and asked Mum, “What’s the problem Ma’am?” “The rib-eye is too tough!” we cried. “The cut has too many tendons, maybe?” we added, helpfully. “We couldn’t even cut it without spraining our wrists”, I exaggerated, demonstrating on a slice Mum had cut out for me, as she always does out of habit. “The rib-eye is a cut that has a lot of fat, so that is why it is tough”, explained Mr Ang The Assistant Manager. “We’re not talking about fat. You can cut through fat, you can’t cut through tendon and vein”, we countered. I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I lost it at that point, and became so incensed at the fella’s attitude that I felt the only way to counter an asshole was to be an asshole as well. I shouted at him, “Hallo, what’s your name?” Walkie Talkie boy looked unperturbed and came back with a business card with his name and walked away while I was still talking to him. It was too noisy for anyone else to notice that I was shouting “You walk away when I’m talking to you? Hah?” Except of course my family, and a smiling waiter who waited for me to finish my tirade, then said, “I’m so sorry about that. Maybe he’s under a lot of pressure from the manager also. But I am sorry this is a bad experience. Is there anything I can do for you to make it better?” We swapped Mum’s order for another, more expensive cut of steak that was not likely to be as tough, so that she wouldn’t go hungry. But by then I was too angry to eat anything. Naomi of course, soothed my jangled nerves by asking me, “so, what are you gonna do about it now that you have his name card? Send him flowers?” We got a free scoop of ice-cream later – probably the only thing the nice smiling waiter, an Indonesian named Yanwar, could do within his power. The bill came, and as we expected, nothing had been taken off it. We sullenly settled it before giving Yanwar a big fat tip in person – because we found out that the tip jar is never distributed to the waiters. As we left, two dark shirted staff members were still talking to each other into their walkie talkies, saying something like, “uhh…. table twenty two only got four chair, why only four chair, can put five chair there, over? yah, roger that, over” Quick someone give them a bone Because lately the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been sounding a like it needs a pat on the head and assurance that all is well: SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has said it is puzzled by comments made to the media by the former Romanian Chargé d’Affaires linked to a hit-and-run case here… … SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Foreign Ministry has expressed disappointment that Myanmar’s Supreme Court had rejected an appeal by Aung San Suu Kyi against her extended house arrest. Huat your head ah! That’s the name of the Facebook group dedicated to documenting all the ugly things happening at RWS. It’s kinda new, so maybe you might want to join and contribute. Win a pair of tickets to Kumar: Stripped Bare & Standing Up (Re-run) Update: The contest is now closed It was some time in the 90s, when I came back to Singapore for uni holidays and my friends told me there was an act I had to catch at this place in Bugis. It was rude, raunchy and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I loved it, and watched that act several times before the holidays were over. Almost 15 years later, it’s still as easy to be enthralled by Kumar’s performances, but this time the magic’s even better because I get to see him interpret and transform what I’ve put down on paper onto the stage. It really is a privilege being the writer for the show, and I am really glad some people (and the press) enjoyed watching it last year. The only problem was that there were only 4 shows last year, and tickets were sold out even before the show opened. So the producers have decided to run it again (4-7 March 2010) for the benefit of Kumar’s fans who weren’t able to watch last March. As I write, tickets are again selling very fast, and if you don’t get yours fast, you may not get them at all. Except perhaps if you leave a comment here saying why you think you should win a pair of Cat 1 ($78) tickets to Kumar: Stripped Bare & Standing Up. I’ll get Kumar to pick the best answer. Overheard at SMU Someone alerted me to a Facebook page called “Overheard at SMU“, and apparently, there are similar pages for NUS and NTU. Among the entries posted on that page are gems such as this: If this is true, Student 1 should be tried for sedition. Singapore’s last resort island So Resorts World Sentosa opened its many doors to 75,000 people over the CNY holidays, and judging from the things I’ve heard, it hasn’t been pretty. They’ve been charging Singaporeans and PRs $100 a day to get in, so that they’ll only get the right kind of people at the 500 tables. And I heard from a friend whose house we visited this afternoon, that these right kinds of people have been lying, sleeping on the cheap ugly tiles on the floor outside the gambling halls, waiting to be let in. Oh well. At least the air-conditioning works. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Singapore’s more like China than China It’s been as busy as we’ve expected this Chinese New Year, and with Kai nursing a new cold (how many do babies get in their first year?), we were expecting even less sleep than usual, and we were right. That’s not to say we haven’t been enjoying time with our families and relatives jetting in from all parts of Asia. Our sister-in-law from Shanghai tells us that the only thing about coming to Singapore for the CNY holidays is that when you want to do a spot of shopping on the first or second day of CNY, you’re probably going to be limited to Mustafa’s or a few other smallish shops. I said that was because Singapore is becoming more like China, as more and more companies seem to be observing more “Chinese traditions” as a result of employing more (Mainland) Chinese workers. But I’ve now been told that by our good sister-in-law that that’s bunk, and that in Shanghai, most of the shops are open throughout the New Year. The other WTO I imagined a joke about someone telling another person that he works at the WTO, and the other person asks, “Wow, how long have you been in Geneva?”, and the first person asks back, “What do you mean, Geneva? I work in Toa Payoh.” People laugh at our obsession with toilets – and how as a nation, we made all our public toilets flush themselves because we couldn’t be trusted to flush them, and now we don’t have to flush them so often because water is scarce, and how we actually have a national contest to see who has the cleanest toilets. Having cogitated on this for a bit (on the toilet no less), I have realised that it really is no laughing matter. Good sanitation means less disease, and we should be spreading the word about efficient waste management. Lack of public action and education has led to people defacating on street corners in Dhaka because of a lack of public toilets. And you really should teach some people that not everything can be flushed. So, don’t laugh, and be proud of the fact that Singapore hosts the World Toilet Summit (whose logo looks suspiciously like Standard Chartered’s), which was held last December. And the next time someone says s/he works at the WTO, ask him/her how things are in Toa Payoh. Our Ang Pow Collector is ready. Is yours? Kai, Naomi and me wish everyone a New Year of peace, joy and happiness. To help yourself along the way, don’t drink and drive, don’t overeat, and don’t gamble away your Ang Pows at the 500 tables open tomorrow at the RWS casino. There’s that R-word again No, the other R-word. I don’t really care about Pastor Rony Tan and his idiocy – he’s of the same cloth, as far as I’m concerned, as the evangelical pastor in the U.S. who once made his point against migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds by famously declaring that “if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!” I’m referring to our nation’s obsession with race. I was rummaging through our personal documents last night because I was trying to get them organised for Kai’s first passport application. On his birth certificate I saw something in Naomi’s details that made me chuckle and recall the little argument I had with the lady registering our details for Kai’s birth certificate. On the column for Naomi’s “race” is printed “Japanese”. Which is alright I guess if you consider Japanese a “race”. The box next to that, “Dialect Group”, I had left blank when we filled out the form, and the lady clerk had pounced on the blank box with her pen and said, “you must fill in dialect group. What dialect group is your wife?” She wouldn’t take “none” for an answer, and insisted that there had to be a dialect group for Naomi, whether she was Japanese or not. After around the 27th time I had said that I had no idea, the officious but helpful clerk looked at me like I was stupid and said, “ok, what language does she speak apart from Japanese? Japanese is her first language right? What else does she speak? Come on, I’m sure you know.” And so, Kai’s birth certificate shows that his mother belongs to the “English Dialect Group” of the Japanese Race. Singapore’s Oskar Schindler They either never taught us this in history lessons, or I just wasn’t paying attention. Thanks to a contributor on sammyboy.com, I found out that one of the heroes of the Japanese Occupation in Singapore was Japanese. Shinozaki Mamoru was a press attache with the Imperial Foreign Service and was assigned to Singapore before the Japanese invaded. He was jailed by the British for spying (a charge which he denied), and was freed by the occupying Japanese, and given a role as a welfare officer of the civilian administration of occupied Singapore. Among his heroic deeds included deliberate storage of food supplies in the Thomson area so that the Little Sisters of The Poor would have a steady supply of food; and his very liberal issuing of thousands of safety passes to members of the Chinese and Eurasian communities, an act which probably saved thousands of them from being rounded up and executed. Shinozaki eventually testified at the war crimes trials against his fellow countrymen, and later wrote a book – Synonan, My Story, which is apparently still a source of information about life in Singapore during the Occupation. You can read more about Shinozaki here. Don’t eat endangered animals this Chinese New Year Give shark’s fin a miss – you’re really eating chicken stock and cartilage anyway. Don’t listen to people who say all those stories about fishermen cruelly slicing off fins and dumping the shark back in the sea are false. You tell me, what do they really do with the rest of the shark? (OK, fish and chips, fish fingers, cat food… yes, I looked it up. But still!?) I’m not sure what else we eat during Chinese New Year that are on the protected list, but please pause and ponder, because even if we Chinese are not the only ethnic group that thinks along the lines of “the more endangered it is, the more prized the delicacy”, we certainly are the largest ethnic group on the planet. There’s a Facebook Group called Project:FIN and it aims to stop the consumption of sharks’ fin by debunking and questioning the very reasons we consume it. E.g.: It is questionable why we are paying so much for a “delicacy” that we don’t even know what it actually taste like. Simply because the fins are tasteless. What we are actually enjoying, is the taste of chicken / pork stock, alongside other ingredients that gives flavor to the dish. And to think that the insistence of buying tasteless food and paying for them at ridiculous prices, is a mockery on its own. Join it, spread the word, and help finish the fin trade! The Better Toy Store needs better English There’s a wonderful toy shop in Ngee Ann City and Tanglin Mall called “The Better Toy Store”. You can find great toys which are generally eco-friendly and non-toxic, which is a good thing, because Kai’s at the age where he tries to eat everything including the foam mat we’ve assembled on the floor of his play area. But cute lah, our boy. Anyway, The Better Toy Store has an online shop, which for some reason, is full of surprisingly bad copy and a standard of English you’d expect to find on labels of Chinese foodstuff and not sensible, educational products for children. For example: Playtime Ideas * Children can use the mallet to pound the different colored pegs as they like and continue playing by simply turning the board; this develop fine motor skill and eye-hand coordination. Pounding also helps children release tension and teach them regarding disciplinary action. * Parents should specify the color to hammer; this will help children learn to differentiate and recognize colors easily. * Parents should praise children when they can do it and advice if they are not able to do so. Children can use the mallet to pound the Parent’s head since the Parent already has a headache trying to figure out what the website is trying to say. Children can disregard disciplinary action in this instance. I think maybe the copy might have been written by Jamie Yeo cos I have no frikkin‘ idea what she’s on about. Our World Cup runneth away Seriously, we’re really not going to get the World Cup on television? MSN did a survey recently, and out of over 5,000 people who participated, 69% said they weren’t willing to pay a single cent to to watch a game. I guess that’s the national stance that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s alright by me, cos I’m happy sitting at home watching the rugby on several channels on Starhub. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Southern Italy is in Bukit Timah Somewhere on the Amalfi Coast, some schoolchildren are sitting on the floor because the bench they used to sit on was used to hold the massive serving of antipasto we had last night at La Braceria Pizza & Grill. As far as Italian restaurants are concerned, we’ve lucked out with two good locations in a row – both in the Bukit Timah area – the other restaurant being Valentino’s. Both are family-run establishments, and both have gigantic dining tables on which to put school benches containing your hearty portions of home styled food. Just the sort of place last night to have a dinner with Naomi’s brother, his wife, and Kai’s 21 month old cousin Yasutaka, visiting from Shanghai. OK, not quite. Because the transition from the relative cold of a Shanghai February to the al fresco of a Bukit Timah neighbourhood might have been a bit too drastic a change. On a side note though, I was a bit peeved when I read some reviews on HungryGoWhere.com that I tweeted my displeasure, and this prompted a response from the site’s owners. I’ve got nothing against the site, and I think it works great as a directory of restaurants. It’s just that some users post things that are not exactly useful. Take for instance this excerpt from a review of La Braceria Pizza & Grill: Pizza – Pizza was nice, thin crusted. Seems to be the main choice for most diners! But to be completely honest, it’s really because I’m just a grumpy diner who cannot understand how people can rate Ajisen Ramen higher than Ramen Santouka. Phoenix Park We brought Kai to a trial class at a child learning centre (that’s what they call playgroups here) at the old Police HQ at Phoenix Park, but we’re not so sure about signing on. Not because of the location, of course. It’s pretty and quaint, and bears no traces of the old usage of the Internal Security Department and their powerful air-cons. It’s really nice that they’ve upgraded and moved the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Police HQ away to spunkier, more modern digs at New Phoenix Park – the Home Team is not here to be creative with names, we’ll just copy Scotland Yard and New Scotland Yard – on Irrawaddy Road. I can’t imagine the civil servants and cops doing even an hour of hard work at the old location. I’d be putting my feet up and lazing under the canopy of an Angsana tree with a gin sling and a newspaper. Put Tamil back on public signboards Where there are other languages apart from English on them, to be precise. Does anyone know if they’ve put back Tamil on the directional signage at Changi Airport? Or are they still in three of our national languages plus Japanese, as they have been so since 2007? And how true is it that the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, which runs the airport, replaced Tamil with Japanese on advice from the Tourism Board, whose rationale for doing so was “English is the 2nd language of India”? Apparently, the Tamil directional signage at the Botanic Gardens have also suffered a Japanisation, according to a message left by a member of the Facebook Group “I Want Tamil Back in Changi Airports Signboards”. If that is true, then the people working at some of our statutory boards have very, very little respect for our national customs and languages. If you’re Singaporean, you should feel affronted. So, I urge you all to join that Facebook group, and sign a petition when they do set one up. I want to see all four of my nation’s official languages back on signboards. Gold 90 FM, Home of Brian Richmond I was slightly offended when I turned on the radio and heard, “Gold 90 FM, Home of Elvis Presley”. It was read out by Brian Richmond, the doyen of radio presenters. Then I realised that they really should have a promo/announcement that says something to the effect of “Radio Singapore – Home of Brian Richmond”, for he is nothing less than a living legend, an institution, and a life story that mirrors this country’s own history – an Englishman, an orphan of Empire, adapting to local climes, flourishing, maturing and evolving into the voice of Oldie Goldie Radio, with his slow, deliberate sentences and flat vowels that bely his enthusiasm when he introduces Glenn Campbell’s and other country songs. If I had a hat, I’d tip it to you, Uncle Brian. Brian Richmond sings Elvis The salty salesmen of the Dead Sea The sales tactics of Vardi & Migdal – the Israeli company with pushcarts in malls all over the island – used to work. They use pushcarts instead of renting a shop space because if you were a salesman in a shop, you wouldn’t be able to roam a mall’s thoroughfare and accost passers-by. We have some nail buffer thing we bought about two years ago thanks to a salesman who insisted on buffing Naomi’s and my nails. I agreed to buy the item just so he’d stop holding our hands like we were conducting some seance. One of their (presumably Israeli, I don’t know for sure, I’m just assuming based on my racist profiling of what they look and sound like) salesmen struck again yesterday with the same aggressive approach. Well, not quite the same. He approached Naomi and startled her by declaring, “Your skin has a lot of blemishes!”, followed by an enquiry, “What skin care product do you use?” Thankfully for him, before I could smack his presumably Israeli head with my shopping bag, Naomi brushed him off, telling him she didn’t use any skin care product and didn’t care for his Dead Sea mineral-enriched jars of mud and crap. Vardi & Migdal, your time is up. Pack up your pushcarts and traverse back to whence you came! (After you wind up your local registered company and pay your taxes). Female circum… whaaaaat? I was shocked to learn from Naomi yesterday that female circumcision is practiced in Singapore. I had no idea. You learn a lot from motherhood forums, where Naomi stumbled upon discussions on whether to circumcise, where to circumcise, how to do it and how much is done and how much is charged. I’ve always thought that female circumcisions were only carried out in some tribes in Africa, and that there was never any religious basis for doing so. Further googling the subject: In Singapore’s small Muslim community, female circumcision involves nicking the prepuce, the skin covering the clitoris. It is markedly different from the practices of some Muslim communities in Africa and the Middle East decried by human rights activists as female genital mutilation. In those cases, a young girl’s clitoris is clipped and burned. In a few communities, all the external genitals are cut off and the remnant tissue is sewn up to leave only a small opening. Those practices originated 1,400 years ago, before the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, says Noor Aisha Binte Abdul Rahman, a professor at the National University of Singapore. Singapore’s milder form is viewed as symbolic of this tradition. But anyway, I’ve always known male circumcision to be ‘compulsory’ among Muslim males, and I’ve a story of a friend of mine who’s Muslim, but whose mother managed to hide him from the circumcisor’s (is that what they’re called?) scissors until he was about eight or ten years old, when he was found out by his mosque mates, presumably when they went to the loo together. My friend was dragged kicking and screaming to the circumcision table and given the sunat. His mother, heartbroken and guilt-ridden by her only son’s wails and pleas, bought him an Apple computer to help soothe him as he recovered. A few years ago this friend and I were talking about computers, and he was complaining that his laptop was on the blink. He couldn’t afford a new one at the time, and said that he thought about asking his mother for a loan, but decided against it eventually, because “I think my mother will sunat me again”. Inappropriate children’s songs Now that Kai is beginning to learn and mimic, we are starting to be more mindful of the songs we sing to him. Especially children’s songs. On our banned wagon now is the French ditty Alouette, which we thought was about a skylark. It is about a skylark, and the cruel thing (plucking its feathers) the singer does to it. The song gets really awful at the end, when the singer goes: And your neck And your back And your wings And your feet And your tail O-o-o-o-oh Alouette, gentille Alouette Alouette, je te plumerai Skylark, I shall pluck you The other song we’re considering either banning or changing the lyrics of is the Chinese children’s song called “Ke Ren Lai Kan Ba Ba” (There’s a visitor to see Daddy), in which the child sings: A visitor came, To see Daddy. Daddy was not home. I invited the visitor in and asked him to sit And gave him a cup of tea I know, right? WTF? You’d smack your kid if he did that. He could’ve let in Jehovah’s Witnesses, debt collectors, travelling salesmen, NEA inspectors even if he didn’t let in criminals or something! So we’re changing the lyrics to something (I’ll get Naomi’s mum to translate it back to Chinese) like: When a visitor comes And says he’s looking for Daddy And Daddy’s not home I’ll tell him Daddy said get lost See this cup of tea? It’s hot and will scald your face If you don’t step away right now. Now that the homeless families have been housed CNA reports on HDB’s 50th Anniversary with an opening paragraph which would have been an outright clanger if they hadn’t found lodging for the park-dwellers: SINGAPORE: Is there a role for Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB), now that the entire population has been housed? Congratulations on 50 years of housing the nation! The music they play in hell We had to go out to Paragon today because Kai had to see the doctor to get some medication for his cold. We’re all a bit under the weather, but we managed to soldier on because Paragon’s common areas didn’t play that infernal racket known as Chinese New Year music. The individual shops and the supermarket were another matter. We had instantaneous severe migraine to add to our flu the moment we stepped in to pick up groceries for dinner. President Obama, I give you the solution to the war in Afghanistan: just send your humvees and choppers into the mountains blaring this the music they play in hell, and I guarantee you, the Taliban will be flushed from their caves, surrendering in shock and awe. Click here and bleed from your ears Unthinkable Singapore So we might not get to watch the World Cup. They say you can feel the pulse of the nation on sammyboy.com, and yesterday, a heartfelt plea from “Rogue Trader” summed up the disbelief and desperation among soccer fans around the island. Dear singtel and starhub, i writes to you as a football fans. Please show us all world cup matches this year. Please note that I write only “matches”. We don’t needs any other channels like: 1) “bench area” view for the both sides’ substitute bench and managers, 2) the “tactical” top-down view where we can only see which player is balding. 3) “Beckham” view to show him for full 90 minutes (or “Christiano Ronaldo” view etc). I know singaporean telco/ISP very high tech can show all this. probably last time you can charge us more for these channels we didnt choose to subscribe. Just show us the Live game from the match camera view. This way your bid can become cheaper. And then we can all watch the world cup this year. Thank you! The other unthinkable thing I read about was how Sassyjan and her family were harassed by loansharks who struck – the usual paintjob, phonecalls and ripping her front gate out – with apparent impunity, because her calls to the police resulted in merely ineffectual advice (install a CCTV) while she and her family cowered in fear, half-hoping that our Home Team would be on the job, and that the Investigating Officer had a very, very good reason not to return her call for an entire week. Maybe they should change the name of the “The Home Team” to “The Go Out and Protect Our Citizens Team”. That might do the trick. Shame! Vegetarian food can taste this good Once in a while I hanker for a steak, done medium-rare, and I used to think I wouldn’t survive a day without meat. I also have a sensitive stomach, about which Naomi loves to talk with some glee to her friends and relatives. We read somewhere awhile ago about ‘eating for your blood type’, and that because I’m type A+, I should avoid meats, especially red meat. And though it’s been rubbished by some people, I decided to give vegetarian diets a try about two years back. Wouldn’t you know it, the tummy aches and explosive diarrhea more or less disappeared. You’d think it’s as simple as converting oneself right away to a completely vegetarian diet, but when you’ve got meat eaters in your family, it’s hard not to put some meat on your plate. Plus, I like my steak, roast pork, charsiew, and sometimes, I feel like it’s worth the tummy ache. But Naomi and I have decided again, whenever we’re at home – because it’s usually just Kai and ourselves, to eat as much of a vegetarian diet as possible, with just a little meat on the side, instead of the other way around. If you’re omnivorous like us, and you’re considering switching to a vegetarian diet, don’t think of it as having to give up good tasting food, or having to suffer Chinese vegetarian horrors as “mock duck”, “mock abalone” and “mock pork” at some vegetarian eateries. I think it’s ridiculous that vegetarian dishes are made up to be facsimiles of meat ones. It’s not supposed to be a sacrifice. We’ve been fortunate to have friends who’ve given us tips on where and what to eat – and the restaurant we lunched at yesterday is one of the places we’d recommend highly. Naïve is at 99 East Coast Road, opposite Katong Mall, and when Naomi called to make a reservation, she was told not to worry about that and just walk in. Walk in we did, and stand and wait we did for a table for about 15 minutes before we over-ordered, overate, and then lugged our full vegetarian stomachs around for the rest of the afternoon. If you were teetering on whether to turn vegetarian (for whatever reasons – to save the planet is a good one), a meal at Naïve could tip you over the edge. The food is that good. It’s even more amazing that not only are their dishes meatless, they’re also MSG-less, egg-less, onion-less and garlic-less. If you over-order and over-eat, expect to pay about $30+ a person. Mac the Dog’s visit to the vet Mac the Dog’s chronic itchy paw problem may have a solution. Thanks to a tip from our super doggie mommy friend, we visited Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre at Sunset Way, where the vet told us that almost everything Mac’s previous vet told us was bunk. Mac probably doesn’t have a thyroid imbalance causing skin problems. Nor is he likely to be having hormonal problems caused by food allergies caused by chicken and meats. Nor does he need long term steroid and thyroid medication. A sigh of relief all round, you might think. But knowing how dogs understand what we say even if they don’t quite speak human, Mac has mixed feelings about yesterday’s visit because the new vet also says that there is no issue with him being neutered because there is no hormonal imbalance, and even if there were, it has nothing to do with his reproductive organs. Oh well. Why Tanglin has a Halt Yesterday, someone tweeted something quite innocuous – about food and about how she was about to eat food – but the locality she tweeted about – “Tanglin Halt” – piqued my interest. I’ve always wondered who Tanglin was named for, and why there is (or was) a “Halt” in Tanglin. It isn’t exactly a burning question, so I’ve left it aside for the best part of three decades, until now. Googling “Tanglin Halt History”, I found the NHB site, “Heritage Trails“, which explained: This area, bordered by Stirling Road, Queensway and the Malayan Railway, derived its name from Tanglin Road and the Malayan Railway, which used to have a stop (thus the word ‘halt’) near the junction of Tanglin Halt Road and Tanglin Halt Close. ‘Tanglin’ came from “Tua Tang Leng” (Hokkien: Great Eastern Hills), a name given by the Chinese to the hilly area around Tanglin Road. Tanglin Halt was also known as ‘Tanglin Halt Chap Lau’ (Hokkien: Ten Storeys), after the ten-storey blocks which make up the estate. Today it is called Tanglin Halt Green with three new 40-storey blocks towering over the original Chap Lau which are still standing So now I know: The Ten-Storey Blocks on The Great Eastern Hills where The Train of the Land of the Malays (Keretapi Tanah Melayu) used to Halt. In perspective “Spanish mobs firebomb National Stadium in protest against ICJ ruling allowing the use of the word “Ole” in Singaporean football supporters’ chants.” Actually, it’d be a good way to get rid of the National Stadium. And one other thing about the word “Olé”: From Wikipedia: olé: The most famous expression of approval, support or encouragement, possibly comes from wa-llah ? ???? , by Allah! Sunday raclette Thanks to our Double-Barrelled-Race Swiss-Vietnamese friend, we had raclette last night and stank up the house full of grilled bacon ham and cheese. Mac the Dog went berserk as well. It is all the more amazing we had friends over for dinner because the inevitable has finally happened – we took delivery of Kai’s plastic playpen walls on Saturday afternoon. His play area has now taken over the entire living room floor of our apartment. There’s no room to move without stubbing your toe on something. Mac the Dog’s been having trouble finding his way back to the bedroom from the kitchen as well.