Address: 406 East Coast Road, Singapore
What is the purpose of our existence? Ok…this would seem to be a heavy topic for a food related blog…but bear with me on this.

So..what is the purpose of our existence? Is it to procreate so that our planet is continually populated with more of our kind? Is it to do good and provide happiness and service to our follow mankind? Or is it to serve as contented labourers for some predetermined overload/master thereby ensuring a measure of peaceful living for the labourer and a bountiful harvest for the master?

My thoughts above were generated with the recent announcements from our dear government that they would be looking at increasing the minimum retirement age of Singapore citizens. I think our current retirement age is set at 62 years old. Hints from the announcements suggest that a increase to 65 years old is being considered.

Some of the reasons thrown up were that Singaporeans were not able to support themselves during their old age thus necessitating a possible increase in the retirement age to prolong their working life.

It was at this point that I got a clearer inkling of the meaning of my existence on this planet (ok…I generalise, at least on Singapore). I had basically been given rather big clues as to my future …and they don’t look very bright. Cue scenes of myself working at the neighbourhood coffee shop or MacDonalds…coughing and sputtering my way through serving the young brats that could be my great grand sons and daughters. Sigh.

And that was when I looked at my grandmother at Chun Kee, where we were having a celebratory dinner for her, and envied her for avoiding the above mentioned fate.

On to less depressing topics. We started with the Shrimp Paste Fried Chicken (S$9). It was the house specialty. Slap on some packaging, fancy commercial and marketing, have it served at an air-conditioned & brightly lit functional eatery and it will rival any of the big chicken fast food joints we have nowadays.

The Hot Plate Venison (S$14) wasn’t that bad either. The Seafood Tofu on Hot Plate (S$8) was spicy and had quite a bit of ingredients - squid, prawn, mushroom, carrots, etc.

The array of dishes continued with the Kang Kong with Chilli (S$8), the Frog Legs cooked with Dried Chilli (S$16), the Flat Noodles with Fish Slices (S$12) and a bowl of Fish-Head Soup Noodles (S$6, a special request from my mum)..

And on with the Fish Head (S$16) cooked in un-identifiable gravy which was nevertheless quite palatable.

The total cost of the dinner was only S$84.40 after discounts from using one of the preferred credit cards (I think it was either UOB or Citibank). If all celebratory dinners were in this price range, maybe I would no longer need to work from cradle to grave.