Tahukan kamu bahwa Askar di Jkt sempat lihat Rani sedang bincang2 dengan KD. Mungkin itu disorot kamera tivi pas Fay sedang interview KD. Mungkin Fay ada di tivi juga. Canggih!

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I met the friendly bus driver when I boarded 191 bus from CSC to Hang Jebat. Apparently he still remembers me as a frequent rider of his bus on my way home. He insisted that i need not pay for the bus fare! I'm touched by his friendliness, and we started to chat a bit!

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This weekend Fay Mahdzan come to Singapore to watch Krisdayanti's concert. The concert organizer offered Fay an opportunity for interview, and they would give free concert tix provided Fay publishes the interview in her website. Who would reject such a good offer! Indi and I decided to tag along and introduce ourselves as Fay's photographer. At the end, Fay, Santa, me and Indi got the chance to chat up close with Krisdayanti! The concert was fantastic, and I have to give my commendation to Erwin Gutawa's orchestra for the great music (despite the electricity glitches)!. See the photo below: Santa, Fay, KD, and me. Indi took the picture. I use this blog as a chance to try out the Photoblog service offered by Hello

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If I am undefined by the mainstream, then I have to set out to define myself, and present myself to existence.

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Lemme just quote a paragraph from Absolut Badalu on the place called home.

,Indonesia isn't without flaws either. The endless problems with discriminations, pollutions, poverty, corruption, hipocrisy, political turmoil, education, etc. (still a long list to go). But what makes a difference is the people. They are so warm, welcoming, nice, friendly. The landscape is gorgeous. So many untouched beaches around. And I can do whatever I want. I can do more significant things. There is always a way to reach the comfort level if you fight hard (really hard, I mean!). Indonesia is considered "a developing country" (according to the western term) and it's growing. There are spaces for changes. I'd like to grow along with it. Europe is too established. No more real challenges to encounter.

I would like to agree with him on this one.

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Lidah asap...

Suatu hari, kita merasa sangat kepengen makan lidah asap.. Tapi, dimana
bisa belinya sebab di singapur orang gak makan lidah?

Walhasil pergilah kita ke pasar Tekka yg terkenal cukup lengkap.
Untungnya mereka di sana jual lidah tapi masih mentah! Nah gimana
caranya supaya lidah itu dimasak jadi lidah asap? Yang jelas apartemen
kita gak mungkin ada tempat untuk ngasepin lidah, atau tetangga nanti
pada protes!

Jadi, ini yang kita kerjakan, gampang aja..

Bahan2:
-Lidah (terserah berapa banyak)
-Air secukupnya
-Garam rada banyak
-Gula utk ngimbangin garam
-Merica yang banyak (kalau peppercorn lebih asoy lagi)
-Rempah2 macam basil, oregano, thyme dan kawan2nya..
-Bawang putih secukupnya..
-Liquid Smoke (Hickory) Concentrate secukupnya, barang 3-5 sdm untuk
aroma asap..
-Pressure cooker

Masukkan semua bahan2 ke pressure cooker dan masak di atas api sedang
selama sejam atau lebih. Makin lama makin lembut lidahnya! Abis itu,
keluarkan lidah dari cooker dan kupas kulit luar lidah. Buang kulitnya,
terus potong2 tipis lidahnya. Simpan lidah bareng dengan air rebusannya
selama semalam dua malam di lemari pendingin, terus tiriskan, dan bisa
langsung digoreng pake blueband.. Untuk dimakan dengan roti atau nasi
atau kentang, terserah!..

Air rebusannya bisa dipake untuk bikin sup.. Misalnya sup tomat atau sup
buntut..!

Enjoy!

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After months of searching, we finally bought cow tongue. It is quite xpensive, but we managed to bargain with the seller, reducing the price from $18 to $15 perkilo. We'll cook cow tongue stew tonight, and we will invite Wicak to come & enjoy the delicacy!

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To continue with our previous posting of "mediocre service" in singapore, somehow this week we were all cursed with getting bad service all the time.

First, when we were having pizza hut in Jurong East. The waiter forgot to get his notebook to take down our orders, and even that, he still repeat our orders three times, and never get it completely right! Then when the meals came, he did not put it in front of us. He just put the food on the edge of the table and expceted us to pass on the plate to the right person. Then when we were running out of water, he did not immediately fill out our glass until we ask him to do so.

Second time, when we were having lunch in Cafe Galilee, Jurong East Regional Library. First, the food is expensive, relative to the quality and the quantity of the servings. Second, the service is damn slow. It is so slow, so that Indi decided to cancel his order. And the response of the waitress was, "Oh you can't cancel your order, we have made it, and it will be ready in no time. Please understand, we are having a lot of orders right now, that is why your thing takes a long time". Oh Cmon! if you can't handle the orders, don't set up a cafe! What a lame excuse for bad service..."having too many orders"??? Better close business!

And third, in a taxi. We were so tired working overtime, so we decided to take a cab home. When we arrived, we paid the fare accordingly. Few seconds later, we decided to ask for receipt. To our surprise, the cabbie started to grumble, "Next time, ha, when you want receipt you better say it quickly! I almost press the button to cancel your receipt, because you take so long to ask for it!" Wah, amazing isn't it? A provider of service who get angry and blamed the customer? Hence me, being too tired, freaked out immediately. I blasted out at him, roughly like this, "Don't you talk like that to your customer! What is wrong with asking the receipt only later? What a bad service you are providing, you should never blame a customer, because customer is king!". Of course i added some swearwords to it too. But, i mean, what is so difficult of printing a receipt? Moreover, the problem is so trivial, that you would not need to be angry at your customer! What a pathetic service. I wished I took down the cab number so I can put it on the web for everyone to see.

What is wrong with people here, why is it so difficult to provide a good and courteous service? we are always amazed to find good service here, because it is a bit rare in here.

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Last weekend we experienced two contrasting treatments as customer.

The first instance is in Akashi Japanese Restaurant, Citylink Mall. It's an upper-middle-end type of restaurant ($20-40 perperson), so we kinda expect the service to be up to par, or to have Japanese kind of friendliness and politeness. To our surprise, the service turned out to be really crappy. All the girls who works there, seems to be very depressed with their job. They do not provide service with smile. Smile, is a basic thing that should absolutely be available in service industry. When we enter the door, they screamed some kind of Japanese word that I presume it means "welcome!". However, it was not done with any smile, friendly gesture, or eye contact. When we sat and start to flip through the menu, they were not responding well to questions we posed on the menu items. When the food were served they were rushing to put the trays on the table. They spilled the green tea on the floor and did not even apologize. We had to ask them to mop the floor, and when they do, they did not even ask for permission.

It is not that they are not doing their job, but it seems that they just want to get their job done and over as soon as possible. They don't have the sensitivity and friendliness towards their customer. For this kind of upper-end restaurant, I would expect the service to be more than fulfilling orders. However, we were disappointed to see that the service was... only mediocre. Even though the food served were high quality, we were not compelled to return to this place due to its bad service.

On the other hand, Maison de Fontaine was a reflection of excellent service. And it's more affordable compared to other French restaurant in Singapore! The food was excellent, I can say, it was work of arts. I was having pan-seared escalope of foie gras with tomato timbale, port wine, & balsamic reduction as entree, continued with grilled beef tenderloin (160y) with sauce bearnaise & pot gratin (which tastes great, but i am not really into the sauce bearnaise), and was closed with freshly baked apple tart with vanilla ice cream. Indi was having baked oysters w/ cheese (really tastes great!), whole spring chicken w/ madeira wine sauce (the chicken was amazingly lean, fat-free), and for dessert he was having creme brulle with berries. We came to the restaurant a bit late at night, and we stayed there until past the closing hour. Amazingly, the restaurant manager did not try to kick us out of the restaurant even though we stayed there until half an hour after the closing hour. The manager was really courteous. We are looking forward to having another great dinner there!

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