Lunch with Ashwini Kumar at Ministry of Crab

I had my regular lunch with Ashwini yesterday. Ashwini is the Head of Chancery at the Indian High Commission and we have been meeting regularly over the last 2 years.

First the actual discussions we had. We talked mostly about the Middle East war and the folly of Donald Trump. The consequences of the war have affected countries differently and according to him, India would see some effects, though not devastating. The inflationary effects will of course be felt worldwide but the impact would be felt keenest in countries which lack foreign currencies to pay additional sums for the higher oil prices. Especially if their governments have been subsidizing oil prices for their domestic market consumption.

Next the food. The choice of the restaurant was his. I have been to the original restaurant in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2016. There was a lot of hype about this place. I tried it and I wasn’t impressed at all. The food was expensive and just above average.

I haven’t been to the Singapore outlet and neither has he and so he wanted to try this out.

Unfortunately the food quality was below average and the prices high. The chicken curry we ordered didn’t have any curry at all and the rice and chicken were dry. The street bread was just dry local bread. We had ordered a crab. After a while when we realized we had finished our lunch and the crab still hadn’t been served. We called over the waitress to check our order. She had completed missed placing the order. I was happy to just stop and leave at that point but Ashwini wanted to try the crab. So we waited another 20 minutes for the crab dish. Again very average quality.

I think this is becoming symptomatic of Singapore. High prices, poor quality both in terms of food quality and service. Why would anyone want to visit Singapore and put up with this?

We both agreed that food quality and service in KL and Bangkok were far superior to Singapore and that it was only a matter of time before the tourists realized this.

He will soon be posted out of Singapore as his 3 year term is ending in July. We agreed to meet for another meal soon, this time my choice.