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Recently, I went to a place that I had been meaning to go to for quite some time.
The place is called ‘Tsubaki-an’, a Japanese restaurant located just off Boat Quay (Circular Road). I have been to many Japanese restaurants, sushi bars, Japanese BBQs…. But I have never been quite so pleasantly surprised by the spirit of hospitality.

This place is run by Japanese who are from `Kyoto`, the old capital of Japan back in 7th or 8th century. So the food on the menu is Western Japanese (as in from the west of Japan) ‘Obanzai’.

I reached there at about 9pm on Saturday night, the place was quite small, fairly busy still, there were a few tables as well as a bar seats. There was another half of the place, it must have been the function room.

There was only one waitress who was juggling everything around on the floor at the time. She was a bit stressed but she cleared up the only free table & we were seated 5 minutes later. (By the way all the staff there are Japanese.) I had to wait for some time for her to come back to me after I decided the appetizer to go along with my Asahi beer. Finally she came and asked for my order and I ordered one jug of Asahi draught. After about ten minutes, she came up to me and said “This is complimentary, as we made you wait for so long and I am very sorry”. Then and she gave me an extra mug of Asahi draught!!

I wondered what made me a chef. My ability to cook or my undying need to eat. I always believed the latter suited me better.

I stumbled through Clarke Quay one night-mildly intoxicated. Tripped over the pavement outside ‘One Nite Stand’ and wondered if food was still being served? Got a really good look at the menu and with the assistance of a sober server did I realize that the kitchen was closed. My attempt at small talk and possibly a night of wild sex came crashing when I realized it was a guy I was talking to and not some voluptuous vixen my mind wanted me to believe he was. And there goes my thoughts of me being ‘mildly intoxicated’.

I desperately needed food. If I at the very least knew that my night held promises of mind blowing copulation, I would have skipped supper, and quite possibly breakfast and lunch. But something about that 3 am that day told me I was in for a very quiet night- morning and afternoon included.

I realized that I had to sacrifice my gold-plated ‘chef-tongue’ and eat like the rest of the locals-Got into a cab I did!

Just before Orchard Towers came rambling out, I managed to squeeze out ‘Lau Pa Sat’. Heaved a huge sigh of relief and buckled my seatbelt.

The place was jostling. It was probably the craziest crowd I have ever seen at a single food center my entire life. And after further investigations, I can safely say, the pricing of the food that were available that night would have made the Shangri La sound cheap. Had my 5 dollar chicken rice and 6.50 worth of rojak and (brace yourself) 18 dollars worth of satay all 9 skewers of them been any good I would not be penning my agony to you right now.

The food was shit but, I guess it did the job. Well I don’t really see much of a point in whining about it a week after being raped, but now I know where not to go.

So the lesson being is either get laid or find the nearest 7-11. You can’t really go wrong! Am getting laid now, so… Bugger off! Cheers.