Address: 100 Beach Road #01-26/28, Shaw Leisure Gallery, Singapore 189702
Tel: +65 6299 3773
Visited On: 18 March 2008, 23 Nov 2007

This post will be a study of contrasts. It might also provide an insight into how the world works…

The date was 23 November 2007. My friends jio-ed (dialect for invited..but with a more casual connotation) me to try out Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant.

The restaurant is one of those with the huge ass aquariums where clients choose their seafood straight from the gallery and into the kitchen, thereby ensuring freshness and quality of the food dishes. The selling point of the place was that their seafood was going at 50% off the rates indicated on the tanks. We assigned one of our comrades to the aquarium to survey the stocks and finalise the items for our seafood meal.

We were then presented with the fruits of his labour. Prawns boiled in a chicken soup stock. Shellfish also boiled and to be dipped in the condiments available.

Fish cooked in light soy sauce. Frog done up with spring onions and ginger. And on special promotion, their Peking Duck. First served with the delicate popiah skin.

Then with the duck meat chopped and served (we rejected their offer of having it served with noodles and fried rice..thereby saving about $20..heh). And a plate of vegetables to go.

All in, it was a very enjoyable and straight-forward meal. The serving staff were efficient, business-like and generally left us to our own devices. The expenses came up to about $30 per person for a party of 6. Rather affordable.

…

Fast forward to 18 March 2008. The place was recommended and quite a number of colleagues and a sprinkling of our senior management decided to congregate there for a meal. The place was decidedly more empty compared to my last visit. I thus did not think much of the fact that the waitresses started to hover around us as soon as we set down. One of the more senior staff (in terms of rank…not age..) stepped forward.

She quickly zoomed in on the members of the senior management. Now..most of us were in normal office wear - shirt and pants.. I was thus quite impressed at the accuracy of her judgment. Another view point could be that the bosses exuded some form of Alpha Male Scent that can only be picked up by waitresses, salespeople or women with an eye for tai tai-dom.

She was charming. She was smooth. She was fast. She rattled off recommendations after recommendations. She exalted the merits of each dish to the bosses. The bosses correspondingly displayed decisiveness in agreeing with her.

She thus had rather more exotic dishes of Crab Meat and Roe Soup served individually to everybody.

The blurry dish in the foreground would be the Geo-duck. An exotic dish of shellfish that was fried with Ginger and Asparagus. The mess of stuff in the background would be the Soon Hock Fish fried.

This shot of a hand grabbing some un-identifiable objects (Sweat & Sour Pork Ribs) is one borne not out of artistic intentions but rather the limitations of my camera-phone. In response to any comments that the pictures in this blog are of inferior quality compared to the blog of Chubby Hubby, do note that my full time job requires me to slog about 10 hours a day as compared to a jet-setting life of lifestyle consultancy work and a rather more privileged background. Sigh..

This mess of shells and carapace is that of the Fried Mantis Prawn. I kept commenting to my neighbour that this item bore striking similarities to that of an insect. I got a stony stare and comments to shut up for my insight…

Well…when I saw this photo for the first time…let’s just say that it did not inspire any gastronomical desires. Despite its turd-like appearances, this dish was supposed to be the highlight of the meal. Our Senior Waitress appeared at the introduction of the dish to explain to us that she had requested for the chef to specially prepare our Alaskan Giant Crab with black pepper and Foie Gras. Wah…such a nice gesture…I thought.

The other half of our Alaskan Giant Crab was done Chilli style. The chilli did not have enough spice in it.

After the meal, the waitress returned and made some small talk. She started distributing her name card and assuring us that we can have a table at any of the Ah Yat outlets if we just give her a call… Wah…such good service.

Our bill arrived and was directed to our boss. It came up to S$1,200 for a table of 12. The Geo Ducks costs S$400 before the discount of 50%. The Mantis Prawn was another S$100. And the Crab came up to  S$700..
Morale of the tale… It’s all about money.