Quynh Giao Quan An Viet Nam Restaurant No. 149 Joo Chiat Road : HAVE IT COOKED THEIR WAY OR GET RUDE STARES & VERBAL ABUSE!!

Anyone whos been to Joo Chiat knows a couple of things about the place. The Peranakan Food, the cultural heritage and of course those sleazy vietnamese hangouts where our local men enjoy patronising. Of course in accompanying with these hangouts comes a vast booming chain of vietnamese restaurants each copying one another to offer the best possible 'signature' dishes, which everyone in Singapore seems to know: soup based noodles and translucent spring rolls and massive pile of vegetables leaves to stuff yourself to death! So my girlfriend and her beau, and myself decided to drop in at no. 149 Joo Chiat Road,Quynh Giao Quan An Viet Nam Restaurant, so called Vietnamese Delights, late last night. Looking at the shop front, with the exception of a very very few but extremely noisy but dead sexy ladies, presumably vietnamese with their distinctive loud halo gap below their nose, their usual sitting positions with crossed legs on chairs usually gave them away, the very enlarged menu with pictures taken hastily and presented in 5R photos and handwritten pricings, there is nothing much to deduce the nature of a proper restaurant. Standing near to the rear of this place, a rugged looking man in his 40s with a cigarette in his mouth (obviously, oblivious to the 01 July No-Smoking ruling and the one before that which depicted restaurants are not allowed to have smokers inside the staff compound, let alone the kitchen area, that applies to him and his bouncer looking menifestos). Just behind my girlfriend and me while we sweetly and anxiously plan our orderings, a black bespectacled looking tanned and small thinly built man in his 30s, invites us to sit down and in some ways turn to hint that they had won some 'WORLD CULINARY FOOD AWARD' which we could hardly make out the organisers or awarding company who gave them this certificate. Anyone who are proudly displaying their achievements would in my own rationale world be framing them and mounted high up the wall in the direction of walk-in customers. Well, as alien as planet Mars this is, the loosely laminated award was displayed on am eisel stand, like in a artistic manner to say 'You will see it better if you are seated down here'. Seated down, we made orders for food and drinks from this Vietnamese boy, God knows if he is legally working here as he does not even speak English or Chinese or any Earthly language cos he usually gives us the 'look' when we request for something. Bespectacled manager in his polo and bermudas with a pair of flying sneakers came to his rescue. Our suspicion will always be these illegal workers seeking a proper wage cos anyone in Singapore seeking a waiter's vocation must have a minimum requirement of English comprehension due to the nature of our economy. Ministry of Manpower may like to re-educate these fellas at no. 149 Joo Chiat Road. Anyhow, so we ordered spicy beef noodle soup, fried honey-baked BBQ pork rice with eggs and rice, and the infamous (my favourite) fried Vietnamese spring rolls which is unique to the Viets cos the texture of it is different in looks (as displayed on their billboard menu on Eisel) as well as to the taste. When our food came, impression was a very usually silence. The BBQ honey porked looked like its been there since Viet Cong took over the south, with taste of honey reminding me that charcoal still exist. The spicy beef noodle came delightfully under the chef's obviously recommedation that chilli oil is not a standard issuance in vietnames SPICEY noodle soup. Reminding me of my primary schooldays are the deep dark brown spring rolls, hardened to perfection to the bite, seemingly impossible to go beyond the deceptively thin layer of skin! Interestingly is how the real deal differs completely from the ones displayed on their HUGE BILLBOARD menu. So, being conscious customers and hoping they improve, we sorted their thoughts out for them by reminding them we have eaten these dishes many times and usually SPICEY dishes comes with chilli oil (as shown in their picture of that BOM MUN). Midway through, the tough looking bouncer with his signature cigarette in his mouth came out to the front of the restaurant where the no. 149 unit number proudly displayed their Vietnamese heritage in Neon above our table, just to have a look at whats going on with the fuss over the dishes. When we gotten tired of our adventure in explaining our disappointment, we asked for the bill. As quickly as the wind, the black spactacled man who speaks both Mandarin Singlish and to some degree a good amount of Vietnamese (cos we heard him making kinky chit chats with those scandily clad ladies sitting outside his no. 149), came to do a settlement of the dishes we ordered. My girlfriend asked for a bill, but he refused us and said, why do you need a receipt cos I am already counting and verifying infront of you. My girlfriend replied that he is not operating a hawker stall but a restaurant, that is the least he can do for us after the horrible servings of Vietnames Singaporean fusion food meant for the metal blogs in TRANSFORMERS. He replied in very PROPER Singlish, sorry we run out of paper. I immediately offered him the roll of toilet paper which the restaurants commonly use as mouth cleaners, he told me off in an extremely stern and gangster like manner : ' PLEASE DONT PLAY WITH TROUBLE HERE BY SAYING THESE WORDS OK? ' He stared at me for a few more seconds, seemingly mistaken that I am used to his Joo Chiat gansterism manner. From the corner of my left eye, the man in his 40s threw his cigerette on the floor and started walking towards us, only to stop a few steps away. His chest expanded in a way you are reminded of the SilverBack Gorillas when they are in heat over territorial dispute. The only differences are that the primates threw drumbeats on their chest, while this elderly homosepian threw his cigarette bud into an obvious no-smoking area. We stood up in a calm but anxious pace, walked back to our red sedan car which was parked right infront of their No. 149 signboard, and drove off hurriedly. Knowing our 'spider-sense' told us there could more gang-bangers waiting in the alley looking forward to practise their kung-fu chop-suey butt kicks. Back home and recalling the ordeal in a neighbourhood which the authorities are heard saying 'Joo Chiat should be cleaned of its tarnished image' where I occasionally dine to the fragrance of Vietnamese Soup-based dishes, I could not help but breathe a sigh of relieve that my company does not operate from there, a place where having a decent meal reminds you of the black hawk down movie where small time mob pockets uses the last few matches to rekindle their loss pride of 'vice-like' operations. I now understand the reason behind those hand written food dish prices and those tracks of erased black inks cunningly to disguise as decor for the poor hand writings. I would keep on changing my price if I dont have to print them and use the same pair of hands to rub off ink blogs and to serve customers their food without the need to wash them off, when no one can tell me what to do and how I treat those who question my brand of food because the proper authorities are so far away! Afterall, its fair to say that I am being humane about this particular no. 149 restauranteur wannabe and many others just like them. If they dont come to realisation that squatting flies and using the same towel to clean our plates is unhygenic (my lengthy abbreviation of their tactics to sit you down and make you consume the food they would want you to, without any feedback nor complaints or else the boogeyman comes forth!)and bad for business, the authorities should consider come in to educate and improve their understanding of proper restaurant management! Sam Leong would be pissed BIG TIME and walked out from the TV programme had he been there. Oh, by the way, does restaurants in Joo Chiat need bouncers in their 40s smoking cigarettes inside the confined area too? Strangely I am used to seeing them only at clubs but in rather perculiar but properly dressed up attires instead! As we drove straight on and to turn right to Dunman road, I notice the NPP is closed for the day. These 'restauranteurs' are definitely opened for business, no doubt about it!