A quarter million IKEA meatballs sold in a day

Posted on March 9, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Almost 250,000 IKEA meatballs sold at 10 cents apiece yesterday’, 9 March 2013, Today online

Almost 250,000 meatballs were sold by IKEA yesterday at 10 cents apiece, as it marked the return of its meatballs at its Singapore stores. IKEA had stopped sales of its meatballs last week as a precautionary measure as it awaited DNA testing to confirm that IKEA meatballs sold here do not contain horse meat. This came after meatballs were pulled off IKEA menus in many parts of the world when it was discovered that IKEA meatballs in a European store had tested positive for horse meat.

The 249,375 meatballs sold by IKEA yesterday earned IKEA Singapore a place in the Singapore Book of Records for the ‘Most Number of Meatballs cooked and sold in a day’, according to a statement from IKEA Singapore.

For the whole of yesterday, 96,250 meatballs, weighing 1.54 tonnes, were sold in IKEA’s Alexandra store, while 153,125 meatballs, weighing 2.45 tonnes, were sold in its Tampines store.

Crowding with a chance of meatballs

According to a 2012 report, the average number of meatballs sold per day is 39,000, which makes the near 4 tonnes worth of 10 cent meatballs a SIXFOLD increase in a single day. From only TWO stores. You could create a meatball landslide with that amount, so imagine the avalanche that would result if the promotion had been on a WEEKEND. Who says Singaporeans don’t have ‘work-life balance’ when thousands can afford to queue up for meatballs on a workday? Many seem to have also forgotten that they once complained about the new recipe last year, when the balls were no longer as ‘firm’ as before. Doesn’t matter if taste or bounciness is compromised so long as it’s dirt cheap, so goes the Singaporean kiasuism mantra even if the meatballs were indeed tainted with horse, which frankly, is an animal that many locals don’t mind eating anyway. Along with mutton, it is one red meat that just about everyone can probably agree on. I, for one, would rather eat horse over, say, dog.

If there’s anything with an appetite for horse it would be our big cats at the Zoo, which in 1985 were fed with racehorse from our Turf Club. I wonder if we’d still gobble hundreds of millions of meatballs if it weren’t an equine scare but something more microscopic. Like faecal bacteria for example. It’s also a typically Singaporean trait to track such events as national record-busters in the form of the ‘Singapore Book of Records’. Being tiny as we are, breaking an island-wide record by blowing up mediocre activities to ridiculous scales doesn’t seem like a big deal. Unlike more impressive feats like ‘World’s Tallest Building’ or ‘World’s Strongest 2 year old’ where one showcases incredible feats of engineering, talent or strength, you have stuff like ‘Largest Mass Crab Walk‘. All you need is an idea of doing something so pointless no one ever thought of replicating it and hundreds of willing volunteers in a bid for charity or dying for silly exercise.

Some records are stating the obvious, like the Largest Garden (Cue the Largest number of people saying ‘Duuh’ at the same time). It’s also the Most Expensive Garden in Singapore (strangely the billion dollar price tag isn’t recorded). The most inexplicable record in my opinion: The most number of NON-SIKHs putting on Patkas together. Is there a ‘Most Non-Indians flipping Roti Prata’ or ‘Most number of Non-Chinese hurling Hokkien vulgarities’ too?

This is a record.

I could lead an event for most people twiddling thumbs at the same time and still earn a place in the book. In the IKEA horse scandal case, all you need to do is mark down an iconic cafeteria foodstuff till it’s almost free of charge, and your record-smashing accomplices will come without any coercion. Just to show how obsessed we are with food and scale, here’s a list of actual eating records from the SBR website. I swear none of these are made up. Singapore, you’ve totally outdone yourself this time. At this rate, we can probably achieve not just a Singapore Record, but a WORLD record for Most Fat people Stuffing their Mouths at one time too. In the meantime, the records keep snowballing – or rather – meatballing.

  • Largest number of people drinking herbal soup at the same time (600 bowls)
  • Largest Taiyaki (5,555 pieces)
  • Longest Swiss Roll (89.5 m)
  • Most mooncakes produced in one location (15,915 pieces)
  • Most people eating ice cream at the same time (1558 people)
  • Longest line of Roti John (32.3 m)
  • Most people eating chili crab together (431)
  • Most people eating hot dogs together (652)

The last one looks set to be broken if someone finds horse in IKEA’s weiners. 10 cent hotdogs anyone?

About these ads

Filed under: 2012, 2013, Local food, Long Queues | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

K pop fans queuing for a week before SM Town

Posted on November 25, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Fans who queued overnight for SMTown concert usurped by latecomers’, 23 Oct 2012,  article by Rachel Boon, ST.

Unhappiness ensued among tired fans going for K-pop extravaganza SMTown Live World Tour III in Singapore, which is happening tonight (Nov 23) at The Float @ Marina Bay. Fans out to get the best positions in the moshpit had started queueing in the area as early as last Friday (Nov 16), despite the concert organisers’ advice not to do so.

But some of these fans lost the lead of their days-old queue to other fans who started arriving at around 5am this morning to join the official moshpit queue, which the organisers had scheduled to start at 9am. Although the early birds were upset to have been usurped by the latecomers, their unhappiness was subdued. Some of them looked too tired to protest at the apparent unfairness of the situation.

The fans who had started queuing in the vicinity long before today did not know where the entrance for the moshpit queue was. The organisers did not tell them in order to discourage them from queuing overnight. When the location of the official moshpit queue was finally announced after 8.30am, there was a rush towards it among all fans, whether or not they had queued overnight.

Super Junior fan Vanessa Lee, 18, managed to get good spots in the official queue this morning after queuing since yesterday. She said: “There wasn’t a big fight, and they tried to reason with one another. Those who have been queuing for long or overnight told the newcomers that it was unfair, while the newcomers returned the look with glares.”

Eunhyuk and whose army?

SM Town is like the ‘We Are the World’ of K-pop. A 14 year old queued for 100 hours only to lose out to those who came in the morning. A 17 year old stopped school to pursue her obsessive K-fascination. Fan club members threaten bloodshed by tweeting about how they’re bringing their ARMY to cut overnight queues. Some risk FAINTING in line before even seeing their Gods in the flesh. For $5 an hour you could hire a ‘queuer’ to chope your place on your behalf. Some would be desperate enough to buy $398 moshpit tickets from online touts. That’s more than TWICE the amount you pay for a top dollar Kenny Rogers concert ticket! Kenny Rogers!

All this in addition to the thousands some would spend on tickets, merchandise, rad clothes, light sticks and maybe even Korean language courses, even if they can’t order kimchi to save their lives in South Korea. I think a legion of K-pop crazy fans can beat down a platoon of BMT recruits anytime. If we were ever threatened by urban terrorists, don’t send in the boys in green. Deploy a troop of K-pop groupies and tell them Super Junior Eunhyuk gave the order to KILL. You can put the non-kamikaze ones on nightwatch sentry duty with a Big Bang CD on repeat mode.

Some local businesses would be thankful for the K-pop frenzy nonetheless; 7-11, fast food joints, sellers of portable fans and portable phone chargers and outdoor adventure stores. Yes, you see more TENTS, mats and lamps being set up in overnight queues than in East Coast Park. According to this infographic, 240 cans of RED BULL and 192 CUP NOODLES were expended.  If you place the start of an SMTown queue at the end of a 100m dash you’re likely to see some diehards giving Usain Bolt a run for the money. You could also start an agency (THNXQ?) of professional queuing services, except that instead of calling your employees ‘queuers’, the position could be ‘Line Acquisition and Maintenance Executive’. Or LAMEs. Parents would be so grateful, that is, parents who aren’t the ones securing queues on the behalf of their kids to show how much they love them. Or those without maids.

Some people just never learn; last year the same ‘unfair’ system of ignoring kiasu early birds was already in force when GG/SNSD performed here. It’s ironic that the organisers for K-pop extravganzas call themselves Running Into the Sun, because that’s what happens when fans who wait for 100 hours rush into ‘official’ queues; they get burnt. K-pop fandom being compared to CULT worship is nothing new; in return for their rain-soaked loyalty, pocket money and undying patience, supporters get accepted into social circles, treatment for broken hearts and the life-changing gratification of a Super Junior responding to their Tweet. You could turn blind idolatry into a force to be reckoned with. Some MPs, for example, are already taking pains to learn Gangnam style dancing. I’m sure many others are considering secretly tweaking their Favourite Bands on their Facebook pages to f(x) or EXO. Well, anything to help our kids appreciate differential equations then.

To see how HUGE K-pop has become, you’d just need to Google search the following (.sg domain):

- Boa (first search tag). No it’s not Boa the Snake

- Lucifer, SHINee single (second). Not the devil.

- EXO (first). Not a prefix used in physics

- Big Bang (first). Yes, a Korean boy band has overtaken the origin of the UNIVERSE on Google.

- f(x) (first). How am I going to finish my Maths homework like this?

- Beast (first). X-men Beast comes in second. Beauty and the Beast somewhere midway on the second page.

At this rate, you’re never going to know whether RAEKWON is a Wu-Tang clan member or a K-pop megastar.There’s even a K-pop band dedicated to their fans in Singapore. They’re called SG Wannabe.

The closing song of the SM Town concert was ‘HOPE’. I think that describes the K-pop product to a T. Or should I say to a K. I foresee a SMTown Xmas 2012 CD ready to be launched as we speak. Somewhere in the world during Xmas, I can guarantee you  there will be a man dressed as Santa Claus going ‘Opp, opp, opp, Oppa Santa Style’, and you will hear the collective Groan of Disdain echoed throughout the planet.

Filed under: 2012, Kids, Long Queues | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Overnight queueing for Lim Chee Guan Bak Kwa

Posted on January 15, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘S’poreans queueing overnight for bak kwa’, 15 Jan 2012, article in insing.com, translated from SM Daily

…Singaporeans are even queuing up through the night to get their bak kwa this time round. Well known bak kwa store Lim Chee Guan saw its stock sold out within 75 minutes of its opening at 9am this morning.

…The prices of bak kwa has also risen from $48 per kg yesterday to $50 per kg today.Each person was limited to buying 30kg yesterday, and the limit lowered to 20kg per person today.

Bak kwa prices are expected to rise further as Chinese New Year, the biggest day of the year for the Chinese, inches closer. One of those in the queue, Ms Chen, told reporters that she had taken a taxi from Hougang to New Bridge Road at about 6am to get the bak kwa. Together with five others, the group queued for four hours before they managed to buy their bak kwa.

The group planned to spend $6,000 to buy 120kg of bak kwa for their relatives and friends, and to give out to company employees. They had even arranged for vehicles to help carry the bak kwa back.

Many in the queue also appeared prepared for the long wait as some came with portable chairs while others were seen leisurely reading the papers. Reporters spoke to some folks in the queue, asking why they would spend so much time queuing for bak kwa. They explained that this is because the bak kwa here is delicious, and they get to feel the festive vibe by joining the queue.

The festive vibe is Bak

More than a week to go to CNY and the price of Lim Chee Guan bak kwa has already escalated to $50/kg. Last year, according to KeropokMan’s blog, it hit $52/kg on Jan 30 at LCG Chinatown, and an anecdotal forum complaint in 2011 cited $54/kg at the LCG in Ion Orchard, both prices surpassing the ‘Big Five-O’ which bak kwa lovers  feared in 2008.  There’s even a Bak Kwa Index to monitor ‘sizzling’ prices over the days leading up to CNY. According to a 2007 report, LCG raised its price to $44 from $38 a month earlier, more than 2 weeks before CNY on Feb 18 that year. The 2007 $2 increase per week seems conservative in light of how the same rise occurred A DAY this CNY.

A writer to the ST called the bak kwa companies ‘oligopolistic’, and swore to avoid the fatty snack altogether. Such profiteering was apparent in the early 2000′s, when $48/kg bak kwa was already in existence. But what’s curious about the CNY-bak kwa phenomenon is despite the hike, or BECAUSE of it, the queues have taken on similar characteristics to the HnM line last year; overnight camping and bak kwa lovers treating what appears to me is a sheer waste of time as some kind of ‘occasion’. 6 to 8 hour queues were unheard of when people first began jacking up the prices, and counter-intuitively, the higher the price per kg, the longer the wait. I’d rather spend the time spring cleaning my kitchen fridge, cabinets and all windows in my house.

Even more puzzling is how bak kwa can be taken for granted when it’s readily available throughout the year, when other seasonal goodies like pineapple tarts and love letters fail to take on the allure of scarcity to justify a price increase. A common argument is that prices of pork and oil have increased, but hasn’t everything else? Like flour, eggs, pineapples? The economics of bak kwa price hikes aside, there could be other human factors behind the absurd success of bak kwa, that people are willing to wait for ages and fork out such money for a few slices of dried BBQ meat, which in the Western context, is something you can prepare at home by simply plonking pork jerky over a weekend grill.

Surprisingly, it’s not so much the actual TASTE of Lim Chee Guan’s meat that draws the crowds. In a 2009 blind taste test, Lim Chee Guan was rated similarly to Bee Cheng Hiang, though both were chosen as top picks. BCH, of course, is the Sakae Sushi of bak kwa. I might as well buy a lot of bak kwa from the nearest mall, remove the packaging, trick my guests with a miserable tale of how I queued in the rain for 6 hours in Chinatown, and they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. In fact, even if they COULD tell the difference (which would rank them above the experts), they wouldn’t dispute and embarrass their host in the spirit of CNY. Perhaps the brand name helps too, since naming a bak kwa company after an actual person has a ring of authenticity to it, bringing to mind images of its founder (who happens to be NOT called Lim Chee Guan) sweating over the flames, stoking his moist, sweet hand-cut meats to crispy perfection.

What about  auspiciousness then? According to food guru K.F Seetoh, bak kwa is ‘long yoke’ in Cantonese, which means a ‘robust fortune ahead’, though true only for bak kwa sellers rather than those eating it  (more like robust ‘myocardial infarction risk’ ahead). Steeped in tradition and a ‘die-die-must-have’ staple aside, I’m hazarding a theory that it’s not the taste, or the ‘meaning’ behind bak kwa that drives people to camp overnight for what’s possibly the unhealthiest, most carcingogenic containing CNY goodie of all. Buying bak kwa is a gesture to show how much you’re willing to splurge and sacrifice for your guests, and the more expensive it gets, the longer the wait, the more generous and altruistic it makes you look, no matter how it ends up tasting like marinated cardboard.  Nothing scores more points than a gift of expensive bak kwa to your boss, or a prospective parent-in-law. It also helps that queuing happens to be a Singaporean pasttime, which pretty much explains everything.

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, 2012, Chinese New Year, Festivals, Local food, Money, Public holidays | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Singaporeans queuing overnight for H&M freebies

Posted on September 3, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Overnight queue for Singapore’s first H&M store opening’, 3 Sept 2011, article by Feng Zengkun, ST

SINGAPORE’S first H&M clothing store will throw open its doors only at 11am on Saturday, but by Friday evening there was already a queue outside the Orchard Road store. At 9.45pm on Friday night, about 15 people were patiently sitting outside the store at the Orchard Building across from Cineleisure Orchard.

Some were fans of the Scandinavian brand but others were there for the freebies – the first five to enter the store today will each get a $250 gift card, with the next 300 receiving $20 cards. Singapore permanent resident Rita Nguyen, 28, was at the head of the 20-strong queue that had formed by 7.30pm on Friday

Coming up next: A & F Q

Forget planking, Singaporeans are undoubtedly the masters of queue endurance, a national trend matched only by magician David Blaine’s ‘locked in a box for days” performances. The opening of a flagship store isn’t exactly the launch of a revolutionary gadget like the iPad, or the last Harry Potter novel, but pull a gimmick like gift cards for ‘first  five customers’ and you’ll have excited fans preparing for store entrance camp as they would a jungle expedition in search for the Holy Grail.

Merchandisers can draw this level of anticipation whether they’re selling novelty books (free bookmarks!), movies (free popcorn!)  groceries (Free vouchers!), or even fast food (free side garden salad!), and sad to say Singaporeans have become hardwired to rush and wait out what we would perceive to be a good deal.  This meme has penetrated our psyche to the extent that we use the long queue as an indicator of how good a hawker or restaurant is, and I’m certain most of those in the H&M line were roped in by sheer instinct, like migratory salmon heeding nature’s call to spawn.

Queues pique our interest like a mangled car would attract motorists on the highway, only because they signal to us there’s something out there worth waiting for, regardless of whether we need it or not. The wait itself makes the object desirable, whether it’s a gift card, a coffee mug or woolly earmuffs. Or you could just call us kiasu, cheapstake, ugly Singaporeans who would cut off an arm or a leg to get hold of limited edition collectibles as long as we’re among the first in line, even if these trophies are, for all practical purposes, rather useless. This is phenomenal patience gone untapped, and despite all the pent-up energy and short attention spans of our people today, imagine the world of good we could accomplish if we applied this inexhaustible knack for queuing to things normal people do for a living.

I took a brief look into the history of the ‘overnight queue’, a trend which I speculate to have evolved from 70′s primary school registration, giving rise to the kiasu parent syndrome. It does make evolutionary sense; parents who were kiasu by nature had the advantage of putting their kids successfully into schools of choice, who themselves grow up to produce kiasu children. Here’s a list of the things we Singaporeans are willing to spend more than 12 hours waiting for, and you can see how the kiasu syndrome has spilled over from life-changing events like education, housing and marriage to Hello Kitty toys and marathons. Personally, queuing up for marathon registration is a more punishing ordeal than running the marathon itself, and why people would pay money to suffer twice is beyond me.

Kiasuism born in 1970

Queuing for flats in 1987

Hello Kitty Goodbye Sanity in 2000

Queuing to run in 2011

 

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2011, Long Queues, Orchard Road, Shopping malls | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Doctor was selfish for eating his dinner

Posted on October 23, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘A discourteous practice that should be stopped’, 23 Oct 2010, ST Forum

(Tan May Sian): MY COMPLAINT is not new. But it is relevant as it is about something that is inconsiderate and discourteous: Why is it that patients inevitably end up waiting to see the doctor or dentist, regardless of the circumstances?

A doctor kept me waiting at his clinic for half an hour on Monday night because he was having his dinner.

While I understand that doctors need breaks as well, I would think such breaks should not be part of a clinic’s operating hours. When a clinic is open, shouldn’t the doctor be on hand?

…Such behaviour is unprofessional and shows scant respect for the valuable time of others. It creates the impression that a doctor’s or dentist’s time is more valuable than anyone else’s and borders on selfishness.

Perhaps the schools catering to these professions should include a course on basic courtesies for medical and dental students.

The reasoning is so simple I don’t see how people like Ms Tan here just don’t get it. One doctor, many patients, wait your turn.  On the one hand, we have patients complaining about doctors not being polite and caring enough, on the other they complain about long waiting times which, other than number of sick patients on hand, also factors in time taken by the doctor on each patient. Visiting a doctor is not a quickie lunchtime manicure for busy, on-the-go women like the writer comes across as, it’s an agonising ordeal but for good reason: Doctors need to be observant and cautious when patients’ lives are at stake. And that means taking time. You can’t cut short waiting times by attending courtesy courses alone, and your time is as precious as anyone else’s. Every GP clinic is running a business whereby one can’t afford to close the clinic for half an hour dinner breaks and lose patients to nearby rivals. Even if they do close for dinner, there’s bound to be people running in with a profusely bleeding paper cut 5 minutes into the break complaining about clinics denying them treatment when they’re about to haemmorrhage to death. With the haze mounting and more people reporting ill, it’s expected that doctors will have their work cut out for them and waiting is a given, as it’s always been. I wonder what ailment befell the writer to trigger such hostility, but judging from the baseless deriding of the doctor’s basic need to eat food and the collective accusation of doctors and dentists lacking professionalism, suggests that it’s more appropriate, and less of a waste of her precious time, that she should have seen a psychiatrist instead.

Filed under: 2010, Customer service, Long Queues | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

RWS CMI

Posted on February 25, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From The good, the bad and the ugly at Resorts World Opening 17 Feb 2010 posted online Singapore Business Review.

Whilst it’s true I did make the trek to Sentosa, and the almost 400 metre trek from one end of the carpark to the escalator, I did not, in fact, manage to enter the casino halls. The queues were just too long. In fact the double queuing system, where people had to wait upstairs for an hour, only to descend the escalators and find there was another queue of an hour about which they were not pre informed, left many a bad taste in punters mouths.

Now to the foreigners. We spent a good hour in the queue so got to see pretty closely who was going in. Mainly it seemed to be mainland Chinese tourist families here for Chinese new year, who would have made up at least 90 per cent of the foreigner queue. There did seem to be a number of foreign workers also lining up, as well as the occasional angmoh. There were also a lot of Kappa branded polo shirts.

I wonder if this shot would win ST picture of the year. Published on the front page, it smacks of disquieting irony.

Filed under: 2010, Casino/gambling, Dress sense, Long Queues, PRCs | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

3 hour standing in the sun

Posted on February 8, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From Three Hours in the Sun 19 Sept 1950 Letters to ST

I went to the Food Control Office in Orchard Road to enter a few names on the ration card. I joined a queue and waited in the hot sun for a long time. The queue did not seem to move.

Some time later I had a terrible headache from having stood in the sun for nearly 3 hours

Filed under: 1950s, Long Queues, Weather | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 171 other followers