www.Go To The Mountain - Musings of a Potential Guru

After two weeks, there have been more revelations. A few are marching on, some experienced reversal of fortunes, others have gotten worse. You may also say the same of the players and the managers. Based on two matches Manchester United should be champions. Eight goals scored with two clean sheets plus Ibrahimovic is back and now will have to fight for his place. He has predicted a six horse race and included Everton but omitted Tottenham.  I shall be out and probably miss the early games on Saturday but two stand out games should not be missed. Chelsea v Everton at Stamford Birdge and Liverpool v Arsenal at Anfield. Good luck to you and all your teams! Bournemouth v Manchester City - Eddie Howe and Bournemouth have been a revelation themselves in the past few seasons having created their own fairy tale. Two matches gone and you are asking what went wrong? Two matches does not make a season but with two defeats and playing City and Arsenal next does not make for good reading...

Nowadays, every restaurant has stickers on their glass panels from Trip Advisor or hawkers with newspapers clippings or stickers from Makansutra. It seems like everyone has them so you do not need to look for anything anymore or perhaps you are more curious to try those without. Famous xxxxxx Laksa, Famous xxxxx Beef Noodles, Famous this and Famous that. Famous food written by famous pen - urgh, famous food pen, pen famous.   Add the Michelin Guide, Bib Gourmand, etc. and you even have hawkers who paid a tidy sum for being featured. You know I used to have my Tai Wah Pork Noodle (Bak Chor Mee) and Hill Street Char Kway Teow at Hill Street without much fanfare. Just a slightly earlier lunch and there will be a short queue of 5-8 people, enjoy the food and off I went. Nobody comes from all over Singapore or some part of the world just because they read it in the news or some food guides. Both were already that good if not much better those days. Then Tai Wah moved on to Marina Squ...

What a season opener! It is hard to deny the Premier League is the most competitive in the world. Just look at the results, analyse each of the opening matches and you will have a good sense of what is to come. Maybe not, no one knows what holds tomorrow. Only the bravest dare to predict EPL matches for fools rush in when angels fear to tread.  Manchester United have sent their title warning with a thumping 4-0 win. Champions Chelsea crashed 2-3 at home to Burnley. Arsenal won 4-3 by the skin. Tottenham typically won 2-0 away and Liverpool tripped out with only a point to show and gave away two away from home. Huddersfield, everyone's favourite to drop back to the Championship landed in second position with an impressive away 3-0 win and this was the greatest result of the weekend! A flurry of goals, a few surprising results, big teams with title ambition struggling against smaller teams. My team of the week must surely be Huddersfield Town. Even the name is humble. Someth...

The transition of hawkers from street peddlers to hawker centres and the renewal of hawker centres is intriguing. My generation saw all of its making and some are from family whose parents were hawkers. The first hawkers I knew was when I was a young child was where at my paternal grandmother's place there was a push cart stall with wooden tables and stools that sold Yong Tau Fu and they always stayed at the same spot. Then there was a man peddling braised duck and pork and he carried two big pots of it balanced on a pole across his shoulders. He even has a bowl and dice and customers could gamble with him for some duck or even a pig's ear. I wonder what happened when he lost?  Next, there was a motorbike man who sold pau (or bao/meat dumplings), siew mai, mai kai and fan choy. He carried the typical wooden tray at the back of his bike with steaming hot bao and this was where I would have a char siew bao with chilli dripped on it. So too the siew mai. Today's chiili sa...