Hawker stall with a queue number

This is the first time I have seen a hawker stall that comes equipped with a queue number display. Imagine, business can get so good that you need to get a queue number and get beeped when your order is ready.

This one is at the make-shift food center at Old Airport Road. Another funny is that it’s named Toa Payoh, but located in Kallang. It’s all to confuse the foreigners who come to Singapore in search of good food. This has to be a fun thing to do in Amazing Race.

Angmoh1: “Next clue, locate the Toa Payoh Rojak stall. There you have to make your own rojak and serve 10 customers. If a customer is not satisfied, he’s not counted. Once you have 10 satisfied customers, the boss will give you the next clue. Where’s this Toa Payoh Rojak stall?”

Angmoh2: “Let’s ask the locals.”

Singaporean1: “Aiyah, so simple. Clue already told you Toa Payoh, so it’s in Toa Payoh lah!”

Angmoh1: “Oh, ok. Taxi. Toa Payoh Lah please!”

Taxi Driver: “Toa Payoh lah? No Toa Payoh lah. Got Marikita. But National Day over already. You want Marikita, can go to nearest Primary School. But only in the early morning. You want to go primary school?”

Angmoh2: “Ok ok, just be fast! We are in a race!”

Taxi Driver drives them proudly to the nearest primary school. It is late evening. School has already closed. Angmoh1 and Angmoh2 camped outside school, wondering where the customers are. Next morning, the Disciplinary Master woke them up.

DM: “Wei! No camping at school premises!”

Angmoh1: “Curses! Did we miss the Marikita? We are in the Amazing Race, you know.”

DM: “Amazing Race? In Singapore? So what are you doing at a primary school? What? Show me the clue. Aiyah, you are supposed to go to Toa Payoh, a town in the middle of Singapore, and find this rojak stall. You are supposed to… blah blah.”

Angmoh2: “Enough enough! Singaporeans are way too helpful. Taxi! To Toa Payoh, please! Argh, you again!”

Taxi Driver: “Yah, I hanged around to see what happens next. So good, can be on Amazing Race. You see, I didn’t leave the meter running. So nice, right? I just want to help. So you actually want to go to Toa Payoh ah?”

Angmoh1: “What’s with the lah and ah?”

DM (thinking): “Wait till you hear the “hor”.”

Taxi Driver: “Har?”

Angmoh2: “Ok, ok, let’s go to Toa Payoh. You know the way right?”

Taxi Driver: “Yah yah, no problem. Singapore not very big.”

After driving around Toa Payoh for another 1 hour, and asking too many Singaporeans, they finally found one who obviously knew his food.

Singaporean2: “Toa Payoh Rojak? Not in Toa Payoh lah. I think they moved to Jurong. You go down by CTE hor, and then exit at … hor, then head towards … hor, then you see … at your left hor, turn left … hor. You see … hor, turn…”

Angmoh1: “How do you write hor?”

Angmoh2: “Ok, Mr. Taxi Driver, can you go to CTE hor…”

<News Flash!>

The latest segment of Amazing Race had come to a stand-still in Singapore. All teams did not reach their next checkpoint, and there are a few furious taxi drivers over the rental fees incurred by the teams. As the teams could not pay the taxi drivers and were hopelessly lost in Singapore, police were called in. They are now sitting in the police stations, pending mediation.

Toa Payoh Rojak stall owner, whose stall was the next checkpoint, said, “I waited and waited. I asked my customers to wait too. I told them today special day. Got Amazing Race coming. Got 10 teams. So I got 100 customers waiting. Everybody excited! So I also fix this queue counter, so that everything will be orderly. But in the end, no one came. All my customers are angry now. Now they don’t come. I don’t know what to do with these yellow letters.”

…

I am not sure how to describe the food quality. My friend ate most of it when I went to get coffee. So I guess it’s so good that he threw friendship to the gastromatic gases. He owes me one more order of rojak.