Char kuey teow is indeed one of the Asian cuisines favoured by many, whether Singaporeans or Malaysians. But when we order a plate of this dish, not all of us would like to include bean sprouts because, for some of us, it is not to our liking.
Recently, a Singaporean diner named Steven Wong was shocked by the additional charge of 50 cents when he requested “no bean sprouts.” He told the puzzled incident to Asia One on September 26, Tuesday when he was aware of a sign in Mandarin at a stall named ‘Wu Fu coffee shop’ located in Fajar Shopping Centre whereby additional ingredients like seafood, egg, and beansprouts would be for S$2 (~RM 6.88), S$1 (~RM 3.44), and S$0.50 (~RM 1.72).
However amusing it was, the confusing part is that you are still being charged an extra 50 cents (~RM 1.72) for the removal of bean sprouts, but why? Logically, when an ingredient is removed, there shouldn’t be an extra charge. But in this case, the 50-year-old female owner explained with her justifications that they only have 3 woks at their stall, and normally, they cook about 4 to 5 portions at once. So, when a customer’s order is without beansprouts, they ought to make a new batch for them. With that, it consumes a lot of their time as well as the energy spent.
Therefore, this clearly indicates that preparing bean sprouts truly eats up a lot of time when there are customers who demand to not have bean sprouts for their char kway teow.
Besides selling fried char kway teow, the owner, Madam Goh, had 20 years of experience in cooking carrot cake, oyster omelettes, and fried bee hoon.
Her stall has been operating in Fajar Shopping Centre for two months and she shared her experience that she did encounter a customer who ordered three packets of it – the first was pure noodles, the second was with pure kway teow, followed by the third with pure rice noodles. As such, the customers behind would need to line up in a long queue while awaiting their dish to be readily served.
Despite the extra charge seeming reasonable from the owner’s point of view, nevertheless, there are Singaporean customers like Steven who found it ridiculous that he felt it was not worth paying the extra price. He furthered on by saying that he would rather pick out the bean sprouts by himself than have his 50-cent pocket money gone.
Are Singaporeans trying to be more ‘kiasu’ nowadays?
Another customer named Tan agreed that the price should remain the same when a customer requests to exclude bean sprouts. However, Tan in an understanding manner explained that the reason behind the surcharge is due to them cooking it in bulk and when a customer wants to remove bean sprouts, they will be required to cook it separately at different times.
Regardless, Goh mentioned that the list of additional charges has been listed ever since the stall opened. So, it is up to the customers’ preferences on how they would like their money to be spent, and blaming the owner is like pointing fingers at others in regard to their own displeasure. She added that displaying the price list is a way of making things easier for them as well as for customers.
What do you think about the surcharge for bean sprouts, and would you rather include bean sprouts in your char kway teow when you encounter such a situation?
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*Sources: Visual and Reference Credits to Social Media, Asia One & various cross-references for context.
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