Shashlik Restaurant

My lamentations of some 5 years ago continue unabated. Our street food or hawker food is dying. Why would I want to eat something that comes from the same factory. Please charge me more for less but the quality must be good. You may have read about 27 year old young man who was told to sell his bowl of handmade fish ball noodle for $2.70. Why can't we be more reasonable in other ways like the rent? Why deny the man for his hard work from day to night and why don;t we let the free market decide. If his food is so good, let him sell it for $5. I see people drinking a cup of coffee for $8 at some hip coffee joints and no one complains.

Lately, Singaporeans have a new fetish and trending. One by one, the good old hawkers and restaurants are closing and whenever they hear of it, they start to visit the places and make a long queue. Good food places are closing for a variety of reasons. Ageing hawkers or restaurant owners/chef, higher rental and shortage of manpower. That is why whenever I saw our cardboard policeman, I would be thinking if this was due to manpower shortage or simply because Singapore is such a safe place, we just need a cardboard police.

One day, on a Saturday, I decided to go to Isetan at Scotts to shop for some foodstuffs. I was looking for a car park and was on the 6th floor going up to 7th when the car in front stop and did not move. Then the husband and wife came out to say that their car has gone dead. They obviously needed help as their vehicle was right in the middle and would block everyone.

So my son and I got out and together with the man tried to pushed the car to the side but the man's wife may be less experience at the wheels and it was an upward elevation going on to the next level, she could not get the car parked properly by the side. We had to let the car row down again and try to push it to a corner.

By this time, the cars behind were all jammed and while they watched nobody came to help. The lady driver right behind me kept asking what happened and she even suggested why don't I shift my car one side so they could past. Can't she even use her common sense to know that the car in front broke down and I was trying to clear so that while helping them the rest of us could go through.

There I was having every sinew stretched to the max, panting and dying and you get this woman babbling away. If only she could put her mouth and energy to better use, she could go to all the cars behind and get more guys to help, would it not be better? So everybody, please learn to be a useful person. When you are selfish you prolong a problem. If not for the fact that I was struggling for breath, she would have deserved an earful from me. But as I age, I find myself not wanting to waste time with people. When we have finally managed to push the car to a side and driving off, the couple were busy talking to a mechanic perhaps. They have no time or basic courtesy to thank us. So much for gratitude. You would have noticed that I did not mention the nationality of the people involved but let me say that all people in Singapore whether you are born here, work here or live here - please wake up your idea and learn to be more gracious.

So we were by then late so I suggested lunch first and wanted to bring the family to Shashlik Restaurant. Good but wrong choice. It was because they have just announced that they will be shutting its doors at the end of the year and the place was a full house with people waiting outside.

Shashlik Restaurant is special because the management and staff were mostly from Troika - once Singapore's most famous and popular Russian restaurant. When Troika shut down, a group of staff came together to start Shashlik.

They are now in their advance years. I think with rental always going up and the ongoing labour shortage, it is meaningless to continue for them. Anyway, the uncles and aunties deserved a good rest.

Simple menu, simple everything. I like it because it is old fashioned.

So too its ambience. They serve your food from a trolley. In normal times, expect the service too be casual and slow as it is old fashioned. Perhaps with a lack of manpower and the old folks. Now with news with the closure, expect bigger crowd and longer wait. If you cannot understand it, do not come. I heard a man at the next table complaining loudly that his food took so long and threatening to cancel his order as if Shashlik needed him to survive. If you bother to understand people or situation, you will hardly complain. Learn from such people who hardly or never complain because they understood everything. They are advance in knowledge and empathy.

I wanted to complain too because by now I am famished because I had to push a car earlier and I know the next two days my muscles will be aching. But because I learnt that people who knew everything and are advanced in knowledge and empathy do not complain, I refrained.

The borschch soup here is fabulous. Throw in a little sour cream and you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Even if you have eaten the best bread in the world, you can't touch this. So soft and tasty and even the butter they use brought back lots of memories. In the old days, this SCS butter was highly popular and they came in a paper wrapper. When you go to the kopitiam and order bread and wanted this kind of butter you must say ''cold storage gu yu''.

Just having this simple bread with butter alone made my day. All is forgiven. Thanks to the ''ah kor'' who served it.

Packed to the brim as it was that Saturday.

I was fortunate to have a table. A window seat even where I stared out to million dollar houses along Orchard Road. I marvelled at them when young and still marvelled at them now. Why do people lived in million dollar houses and want more?