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Suggestions For Christmas Dinner For 2


Buaya

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Budget ah? Eh... I think I am willing to go to 100... But think he would not be too happy... We dun take alcohol... And I prefer Asian while he is open to Western. No Indian and Vegetarian, though...

And... Dun need candlelight bah... Quite easy to draw attention to have 2 guys eating under candlelight... :P That's why we seldom dine at Jack's Place... :B)

:)

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food wise, i have no complains on Shashlik, their russian steak and soup are great. however their service attutide are nothing to boost about.

mainly made up of older folks (think teochew)

i have nothing against older folks, in fact i have received a few best services from older staff, but the waiters in Shashlik gave the impression that they served you because they have to, not coz they wanted to.

:thumb: When I Think It, I Do It, I Win It! :thumb:

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Yes oralB, u are right. i forgot to add the part about the wait staff 's attitude... Sometimes i ask myself if it's really worth it to "see their face color" just to have a nice steak and soup... But i gave in! i think it's really worth it to pay $30 a steak for such quality...

Koh Samui, I need u...

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normal days, i dont mind paying $$$, tolerate their attitude and have good good. but Xmas i would rather go to other places to have a feel of festive mood.

pardon my dig on them, but looking at their grumpy groomy face, you would have thought you are having lunar 7 month dinner instead of Xmas dinner :ph34r:

:thumb: When I Think It, I Do It, I Win It! :thumb:

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food wise, i have no complains on Shashlik, their russian steak and soup are great. however their service attutide are nothing to boost about.

mainly made up of older folks (think teochew)

i have nothing against older folks, in fact i have received a few best services from older staff, but the waiters in Shashlik gave the impression that they served you because they have to, not coz they wanted to.

OB it is not Teochew lah. It is Hainanese.

Basically, Hainanese are the very few Chinese migrants that works for the foreigners in Singapore. Most of them open coffee shop/restaurant etc and they are among the early settlers to run such business, although it is rather mixed now.

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food wise, i have no complains on Shashlik, their russian steak and soup are great. however their service attutide are nothing to boost about.

mainly made up of older folks (think teochew)

i have nothing against older folks, in fact i have received a few best services from older staff, but the waiters in Shashlik gave the impression that they served you because they have to, not coz they wanted to.

OB it is not Teochew lah. It is Hainanese.

Basically, Hainanese are the very few Chinese migrants that works for the foreigners in Singapore. Most of them open coffee shop/restaurant etc and they are among the early settlers to run such business, although it is rather mixed now.

This is a venerable institution in itself. I have been patronising this place on and off, the last time perhaps 10 years ago.

This place started in Serangoon Gardens in the mid-1970s and I think they moved to their present place in the 80s.

GM is right, the waiters and owners are all Hainanese.

A little history lesson for the younger folks here. Among the major dialect groups in Singapore, the Hainanese were among the last to emigrate here. By that time, most of the trades were already taken up by the other dialect groups and one of the trades that they famously get themselves into was working as servants/waiters/nannies/gardeners for the British.

They did their jobs so well that their off springs (usually males) were often inducted into the same kind of jobs working primarily for the British.

A good example until recently was most of the waiters and car park attendants at the Singapore Cricket Club were all Hainanese. They were also found in abundance at the Singapore Island Country Clubs and other older golf and private clubs that caters primarily to the British colonialists.

These service staffs were well known for their honesty, hard work and pride.

There is one trait that is common amongst these Hainanese. They always carry a dour expression with them. Many many years ago, I read an article that tries to explain why they are like that. The article claimed that they were just trying to behave like an English butler. there is probably some truth to that as some of them were requested to be hired by their British employers and brought back to the UK when they returned.

After Singapore gained independence, and after the ANZAC forces were pulled out of Singapore some years later, a lot of these Hainanese service staffs became unemployed. Some of them teamed up together to set up the Shashlik Restaurant as we know it today.

Always always wearing a dour expression, these old waiters are never rude or impolite. These people come with the territory when you dine at Shashlik.

=================================================

Below is an extract from http://myveryownglob.blogspot.com/ about his review of the Shashlik restaurant.

I am thankful for a lot of things, really. Like having enough money to give myself a treat after a reasonably crappy day at work. And what treat did I have enough money to give myself, you may well ask? Well, I went and had dinner at that venerable Russo-Hainanese institution that serves the best borsch bar none: Shashlik Restaurant.

If you've been there, you'd know the food's real good, and you'd immediately forgive the late 70s lighting, the late 70s furnishing, the late 70s crockery and the late 70s waiters. I've heard before about how rude and brusque the waiters at Shashlik were, and I'd like to clarify one thing: the waiters aren't rude, they're just Hainanese.

They'll stand around the bar and talk loudly in Russian because they think they're the best Russian restaurant in town, and they'd be right. And one of the fabulous things about the brusque borsch serving waiters is that even when there's a bunch of them talking loudly in Russian at the bar, there's still a couple of them brusquely pushing borsch, shashlik, and all manner of flambé on squeaky trolleys around the restaurant.

If you were to go there, on the 6th floor of the Far East Shopping Centre (not Far East Plaza, which is the cool and funky place with the funky clothes and the funky people selling funky clothes to funky people), I'd recommend you have the borsch to start with, then the shashlik beef/lamb, and then the flambéed banana/cherry/alaska for dessert, topped off with the best Hainanese Russian kopitiam coffee this side of Ya Kun's.

I really think this is the best Russian restaurant in town, and I'm not saying this because I'm afraid the Hainanese waiters might flambée my backside if I said otherwise. Dinner was good enough for me to want to dine there again soon, which is significant in itself because before tonight, the last time I dined there must've been twenty years ago.

Please play safely! Use a condom if you are having anal sex.

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lunker, thanks for the insight into the restaurant.

like i have said before, the food there is great, but the service...

normal days, no problem, eat pay and FO, but during Xmas, i would rather have a nice dinner in a cosy environment.

:thumb: When I Think It, I Do It, I Win It! :thumb:

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