Thursday, September 01, 2005
Bread and butter issues
Early morning lessons always require a cup of coffee for sustenance. Not so much for the caffeine, which I’ve become immune to, but for the act of sipping it, which somehow keeps me awake. Also, a warm drink helps ward off hypothermia from the ridiculously cold lecture theatres.
I was at LT3, so during the mid-lecture break I made my way down to Yusof Ishak House to get myself the cuppa. YIH had been recently renovated with spanking new chairs and tables, tiles, layout, stalls and given a facelift for a brighter, cheerful look, not unlike the clichéd looking food courts in town. I won’t even go into the quality of the food from those food courts.
But what really caught my eye was people enjoying a traditional breakfast of 2 half-boiled eggs, broken and mixed with soya sauce in a plastic saucer. The result is a curious-looking lumpy brown mixture with splotches of yellow and white. Doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it’s a heavy dose of protein most of us have grown to love. The accompanying kaya toast is another legend in itself. The thin slice of sinful butter, slathered in sweet kaya and plastered between 2 slices of nicely browned toast, are sure to brighten up your morning even if you woke up underneath your bed. All of this is washed down with a hot beverage of your choice. Tea, coffee, Milo, Horlicks and Ovaltine are the usual suspects.
This hearty breakfast was made famous by a little coffeeshop in a cluster of old shophouses, oddly nestled right on the outskirts of the downtown shopping area we all love and hate, also known as Orchard Road. This small road is known as Killiney Road, and thus the coffeeshop was aptly called Killiney Kopitiam. My very first memory of that place was in primary school, about 12-15 years ago. It was sparsely decorated, the once-white-plastered walls long since given way to a multitude of stains and the non-descript concrete floor worn smooth by many soles. The tables were solid, no-nonsense affairs, with white and black-streaked marble (or what seemed like marble) tops sitting on massive, carved wooden frames with an elephant skin layer of varnish. The tops invariably had cracks, into which many years of drink spillage would seep in and discolour permanently. The wooden chairs are memorable too, especially in this age of plastic-everything. They’re rather hard to describe without the aid of a drawing (perhaps the engineering education is getting the better of me), but those who were around then should know what I’m talking about.
The elderly folks running the coffeeshop weren’t particularly friendly, but their efficiency and incredible memory for orders was amazing, putting most of the service staff in Singapore today to shame. No one ever needed a menu to order. If you went there you probably knew what you wanted even before you set off, and when you did get there you’d be greeted by a familiar aroma, alternating between that of bread being toasted over charcoal and coffee being brewed. The din of orders being shouted and Chinese oldies blasting from a transistor radio did little to faze the customers, most of whom would be spreading out the daily newspapers on the huge marble tables to read, alongside their favourite breakfast.
Fast forward to today. The Killiney Kopitiam name has since been franchised and turned into a chain of profitable outlets spread all over town. Most of them are decorated in a pseudo-authentic coffeeshop manner which runs the gamut from tacky to tasteless, plastered with black and white pictures in an attempt to gain some historical credibility. Even the original venue has been completely sanitized in food-court fashion, and the haughty middle-aged lady who sits at the counter to take orders speaks only English, even if you address her in Mandarin or some dialect. Countless other places have also started selling this traditional breakfast (such as the abovementioned stall in YIH), so it is no longer just the domain of Kiliney Kopitiam.
Taste doesn’t vary that much, though perhaps the most abysmal will stand out. The sad thing though, is that while the Killiney name is being milked of its association with the traditional breakfast, few of those from my generation would know or remember the actual Killiney Kopitiam, before the forces of commercialization swept it up and tradition was hijacked in the name of marketing. The main venue (I wouldn’t say source, I don’t know for sure) for this breakfast that has fed many a Singaporean has become a part of history, and hopefully our memories.
Perhaps, this is the answer to the question raised in the previous post.
I was at LT3, so during the mid-lecture break I made my way down to Yusof Ishak House to get myself the cuppa. YIH had been recently renovated with spanking new chairs and tables, tiles, layout, stalls and given a facelift for a brighter, cheerful look, not unlike the clichéd looking food courts in town. I won’t even go into the quality of the food from those food courts.
But what really caught my eye was people enjoying a traditional breakfast of 2 half-boiled eggs, broken and mixed with soya sauce in a plastic saucer. The result is a curious-looking lumpy brown mixture with splotches of yellow and white. Doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it’s a heavy dose of protein most of us have grown to love. The accompanying kaya toast is another legend in itself. The thin slice of sinful butter, slathered in sweet kaya and plastered between 2 slices of nicely browned toast, are sure to brighten up your morning even if you woke up underneath your bed. All of this is washed down with a hot beverage of your choice. Tea, coffee, Milo, Horlicks and Ovaltine are the usual suspects.
This hearty breakfast was made famous by a little coffeeshop in a cluster of old shophouses, oddly nestled right on the outskirts of the downtown shopping area we all love and hate, also known as Orchard Road. This small road is known as Killiney Road, and thus the coffeeshop was aptly called Killiney Kopitiam. My very first memory of that place was in primary school, about 12-15 years ago. It was sparsely decorated, the once-white-plastered walls long since given way to a multitude of stains and the non-descript concrete floor worn smooth by many soles. The tables were solid, no-nonsense affairs, with white and black-streaked marble (or what seemed like marble) tops sitting on massive, carved wooden frames with an elephant skin layer of varnish. The tops invariably had cracks, into which many years of drink spillage would seep in and discolour permanently. The wooden chairs are memorable too, especially in this age of plastic-everything. They’re rather hard to describe without the aid of a drawing (perhaps the engineering education is getting the better of me), but those who were around then should know what I’m talking about.
The elderly folks running the coffeeshop weren’t particularly friendly, but their efficiency and incredible memory for orders was amazing, putting most of the service staff in Singapore today to shame. No one ever needed a menu to order. If you went there you probably knew what you wanted even before you set off, and when you did get there you’d be greeted by a familiar aroma, alternating between that of bread being toasted over charcoal and coffee being brewed. The din of orders being shouted and Chinese oldies blasting from a transistor radio did little to faze the customers, most of whom would be spreading out the daily newspapers on the huge marble tables to read, alongside their favourite breakfast.
Fast forward to today. The Killiney Kopitiam name has since been franchised and turned into a chain of profitable outlets spread all over town. Most of them are decorated in a pseudo-authentic coffeeshop manner which runs the gamut from tacky to tasteless, plastered with black and white pictures in an attempt to gain some historical credibility. Even the original venue has been completely sanitized in food-court fashion, and the haughty middle-aged lady who sits at the counter to take orders speaks only English, even if you address her in Mandarin or some dialect. Countless other places have also started selling this traditional breakfast (such as the abovementioned stall in YIH), so it is no longer just the domain of Kiliney Kopitiam.
Taste doesn’t vary that much, though perhaps the most abysmal will stand out. The sad thing though, is that while the Killiney name is being milked of its association with the traditional breakfast, few of those from my generation would know or remember the actual Killiney Kopitiam, before the forces of commercialization swept it up and tradition was hijacked in the name of marketing. The main venue (I wouldn’t say source, I don’t know for sure) for this breakfast that has fed many a Singaporean has become a part of history, and hopefully our memories.
Perhaps, this is the answer to the question raised in the previous post.
# posted by BloozeGit @ 8:05 pm 
