Good food doesn't have to come from newspaper

How do you define good food? To me, it is something tasty, and worth the money you pay for. Only when you perceived there is value for the food, then you would keep visiting the stall/restaurant.

Singapore in recent years has evolved to be an eating country. Newspaper and media keep featuring the good food store, people flocking to the store based on recommendation. Believe it or not, not all are really good. When you walk past the hawker centre, there are many stalls with newspaper article. Some "famous" stall even penetrated the coffee shop, setting up many branches of their famous bak chor mee. To me, it is all hype, having many branches does not mean the food is really fantastic.

Today I tried the fish soup at one stall in Bedok area. The stall is just another stall in hawker centre, with no newspaper article. However, you can see the crowd waiting for their food patiently around the tables, sensing there must be something which draws the crowd, I also joined the wait. When the food is served, I realised the reason.

The fish soup maintains the sweetness as other stall. The key draw to the store is plenty of fish slices and vegetables. You can find many slices of fish and different vegetables like lettuce, chai sim, cabbage, all inside the bowl. It is really value for money - balance of taste, cost and healthy. So, the crowd knows which is good.

Eleven fingers curry rice at Bugis

The stall I visited this time is Hainanese curry rice stall at Bugis area.

At 11:30am, the Auntie told me the curry wasn't ready, I need to wait another 30min. By noon, when I came back, long queue was already in front of the stall. I guess this should be quite a good stall.

When it was my turn, I ordered these with rice - cabbage, braised pork and egg.


Curry rice with dishes, gravy and curry (of course)

Hmm... The taste is good. The rice is in perfect balance. The rice is just cooked, the individual grain doesn't stick together yet it is not too hard. The cabbage and egg with yolk not fully cooked were done right. The braised pork was good. All these were covered under the braised gravy and thick curry, it is not difficult to imagine how good it is. I would definitely come again.

The stall is found inside Rong Liang coffee shop which is opposite diagonally of Iluma.

Chili crab at Hua Yu Wee

Just went to Hua Yu Wee (华友园) at Upper East Coast Road with colleague. It was recommended by one of the colleague for seafood. The place is not so accessible if you are not driving. However, looking at the building which is an old colonial house, it gives a refreshing feel. The restaurant seems old enough just by looking at the signboard.

We ordered few dishes like baby kailan, roast chicken, steam prawn and deep fried small sotong. All the dishes taste good, prawn is fresh and roast chicken is crispy. The climate of the night is the chili crab and black pepper crab. The chili sauce is just nice, balance between sweetness and spicy, dip the bun inside to enjoy. Black pepper got its nice fragrance. The crab is big and fresh. Both are good.

Good food come with reasonable price. We spent average $25 per person for this meal

Misleading label on food packaging

I just saw the advertisement of one famous fresh milk brand. On the pack, it is stated that "Trans fat Free". Maybe consumer would think that this brand is healthier and buy their product? Do you know that very little trans fat exist in natural product?

Transfat is produced by hydrogenating the oil to make it more stable. In this way, the food could last longer, e.g. baked products. Only in these few years, more people pay attention to the danger of consuming product with trans fat. I think the manufacturer is trying to gain point by stating their product is free of cholesterol, trans fat etc, despite the fact that these substance might not exist naturally at all. Same situation happen for peanut butter with "no cholesterol" label. It doesn't exist in the first place.

Singtel win EPL telecast right for next 3 years, the implication

Looking at the response on the news so far, I guess not only I am surprised and worried about the incident(although I don't have starhub cable). The consensus is it is bad for consumer.

On the hardware,
You have to install both starhub cable set top box and mio tv box. You also have to juggle between the remote controls.

On competition,
It is definitely bad competition. A competition that does not benefit anyone, except the EPL telecast owner. Starhub would lose subscriber, Singtel lose money to lure subscriber, consumer pay the extra cost. Because they got the exclusive right, consumer is held to ransom, maybe not now but in the next few years. Somebody has to pay the bill right

On regulation,
MDA says they would look into the matter, but I doubt anything would be done on this. This is ultimately commercial decision, and it is free competition world. But, really, consumer would not benefit.

On future,
Judging at the public outcry, Singtel would keep the cost on par with old starhub fee for the moment. Then, gradually increase the price over the years. Another way is they use other way to milk the consumer. At the end of the day, somebody has to pay for it and it would be consumer. The overall cost would go up slightly, if you still want your existing starhub and you have to pay for the mio tv also. Of course, if you don't watch soccer, then congratulations, you are not part of the equation.

Overall, something has to be done to stop this unhealthy "competition".

When competition causes price to go up

Singtel won the right to telecast English Premier League (EPL) for the next three seasons. The soccer fan can look forward to some price increase, despite Singtel saying the price would be kept affordable and comparable to last time.

Over the years, EPL has grown as a money spinner. The club keep splashing money to buy star players and increase the attractiveness of their game play. This help them to sell more shirt and TV broadcasting right. More fans are attracted to the EPL which keep up the demand for live game telecast. The pay TV operator buy the exclusive telecast right to lock in the subscriber. However, at the end of the day, it is the soccer fans who are financing all these.

The two pay TV operator compete for the exclusive right to air the live soccer match, so they raised their bid. Once they won the bid, the fans are made to pay for it. This is a special case where competition does not introduce cheaper service. The more intense the competition, the more you need to pay for future viewing right.

HTC Hero hands on at Starhub

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Starhub Plaza Singapura roadshow to have a look and hands on for HTC Hero. The handset on the booth seems not working, you have to get it from the promoter. While you are playing, the promoter would also explain the features and answer the query.

First impression, it looks snappy. Although the promoter said he got the handset few weeks ago, but I suspect it is with the updated ROM already. The scrolling and menu selection looks fast and without lag.

The important part, it is all about the Sense UI. Yes, really. You buy the HTC Hero because of the customisation they put, that is Sense. You have have up to seven pages in each Sense, where you add all the widgets. In different Sense, for example - work, play etc, you can configure the widget that suit the purpose. Other than this, it got all the rest of android handset features.

On screen keyboard, it would take sometime to get used to it, if you are coming from the normal handphone user. Very often, you would touch the other key wrongly and need to backspace. I suppose after a while, your eyes and hand would be more coordinated.

The chin, yes it got a unique look. But in my opinion, the chin actually adds to the usability. It make the phone easier to hold on hand. So, this "feature" actually serve some purpose.

Other areas, camera function look so so. The image quality is respectable, but I don't think it is really that fantastic. The touch is close to iPhone, you don't have to press hard in order for it to recognise.

Bottom line is you need to try it out for a while to decide whether it is for you. I guess the sms won't be faster, but the tight integration to online service make it easier to use.