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

I have never been to City Square Mall but I knew the areas around there intimately. I was schooled nearby, played soccer at Farrer Park, eat around there, have relatives living nearby and friends around but when I drove over, the entire place has been transformed. Singapore is to me perpetually an enigma. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The place was renewed and modern, you welcomed it but yet you missed the originality from where we grew up.  The pavement that we used to walk and run on, the old fences and railings. Sometimes, I asked myself - do we really need to keep changing and so rapidly? Oh? we have no choice, we are a small island with limited space, we have to reuse, renew, blah, blah, blah. Many of us were born there at the KK. So here we were at the most eco-friendly shopping mall. They used to say eating Japanese food is an acquired taste. It is true. You may not like it at first, acquired it and then you love it. It was so many ye...

This is getting popular in Singapore. Izakaya dining. What exactly is an Izakaya? Its is a Japanese restaurant that is like a tapas bar. Is it a restaurant that serves a lot of alcohol or a bar that serves a lot of food. It is really a drinking joint that serves food. Izakaya was derived from "i" which means "to stay" and "sakaya" meaning "sake shop". Japanese men like to drink beer and sake after work and in modern day even women and students. Some started offering more types of food and drinks to increase their clientele. You ought to be more adventurous in an izakaya where you can find a lot of sochu or sake. The common sense rule of eating is that when you have more people with you, you can sample more things but still you can go in alone and it is not a problem. I found myself in one which was often crowded during lunch time. This one is called "The Public Izakaya". The setting is rather casual. In our modern day...

There are all kinds of Japanese restaurants out there these days. Some very reputable ones of the past were gone. In the modern day, we are talking about commercialism much more than just the food. You find a certain business model which is successful meaning that you rake in your moolas. The service industry here in retail and F and B is indeed a very challenging one. How do you get workers? Are locals interested? What about service staff attitude? Can they be rewarded more if they are to improve their service? Will Singaporeans pay for better service? Do customers think that service staffs are slaves? Do workers think that being in service is being subservient? How to take pride and ownership in service? I used to take customers, friends and family to Orchard Shopping Centre those days to a small family oriented Japanese restaurant at the basement level called Tomoe. Of course they have since relocated to 263, Thomson Road at a row of shop houses where there are also a ...

Orchard Road is a glittering place. I have always wondered if there were so many people walking all over Orchard Road during the day then who really is working? And that is before we counted the people playing golf and those shopping elsewhere, others on vacation leave or on medical leave. The area around Scotts is just one of the those where the landscape has changed through the passage of time. Metro was gone. Scotts Picnic no more. Anyway, in Singapore, you do not go to a place for a few months and they could be gone. That's how frequently we have been pounding away. I found big changes at Far East, trendy clothes for young people. Oh yes, a small Christmas tree reminding me of the time of year. Festive seasons are here again. That was fast. A year older for everyone but none the wiser for the world. Pacific Plaza was where the old Holiday Inn stood. Are you familiar with Tropicana and the Tree Tops Bar? The Gypsies?   The makeover at Sc...