Customer Service desks needed at local supermarkets

I realise not a lot of suburban supermarkets like NTUC Fairprice and Cold Storage have a Customer Service desk where customers can go and enquire about something or requests for exchanges or refunds. So it is rather inconvenient when you need to do either of the above and you don't know who to talk to and end up having to join the checkout Q and hold up the other people trying to checkout behind you. Seems only the big hypermarkets like Carrefour, Giant and the Fairprice at AMK Hub have a separate Customer Service desk.

Today when we went to Cold Storage at Kovan Mall, I had bought something that had been marked down and I guess unfortunately the mark down sticker must've fallen off. So after hubby had paid the stuff, we walked away from the supermarket and I went over the receipt to check if everything was correct since I wasn't with him at the checkout. When I realised that we had been charged the full price of the item ($2.15 difference) I made him go back to get a refund. I know it's not much money, but the way I see it is, I wouldn't have bought the item if it hadn't been marked down in the first place. We went back into the supermarket to double check and sure enough all of the same item had a markdown sticker on it and I was still sure that when I picked up the item to put in the basket it too had a markdown sticker. So we joined back to the Q of the cashier that served us earlier. We told her of the situation and you know what, she made us feel like we were cheapskates for trying to get our money back. Furthermore she made it feel like we were troubling her so much and she even proceeded to make it seem like we were stupid by saying, 'next time you have to get the item with the markdown sticker or else you don't get markdown price'. Like hello! We did that in the first place, we're not stupid! She still wasn't convinced that we were entitled to the markdown price.

Anyway, eventually she went to find a superior to help her (and so we held up the Q of people behind us). The superior then came over and we had to go through the whole explanation again to her and even she treated us with suspicion. It's not like we're trying to shoplift or cheat them! Eventually she just offered us to take 2 of the item to even it out so she wouldn't have to write out a credit note for the $2.15. We reluctantly agreed because we understood that it was troublesome to write a credit note for a measly $2.15. Still, what I'm saying is I'm not trying to be a cheapskate, I was just trying to stand my ground and I really feel that the supermarkets here still have a long way to go in providing proper Customer Service. I don't even know if we can exchange or return stuff here at the supermarket if we change our minds. My Mum was telling me that at Woolies in oz, if they don't charge you the right price for an item, they will give it to you for free.

On a side note, I am now reading all the labels of my food products to see where the stuff is made from. Steering away from all China made food products as much as I possibly can just to be on the safe side. I do feel sorry for the bad rap China's getting on their food safety, I wonder if that trust will ever be able to be rebuilt.

Korean Instant Noodle Variation

I'm a big fan of those Spicy Mushroom Korean instant noodles. For variety, try adding some miso paste, corn kernels and dried seaweed into your soup mixture. Yumilicious!

This dried seaweed sells for $2 at daiso and goes a long way. It's great to add to your miso soup.

My Home Made Sushi

Last week made sushi for lunch. They turned out fantastic. My favourite fillings for sushi is avocado, tobiko (flying fish roe) and raw salmon. This time however I only used avocado, tobiko, egg, crabsticks and cucumber. Wish avocado was cheaper here, then I'd eat more of it, but at $1.95 (when it's not on sale) per piece, it's a rather expensive fruit to eat.

So what do you like on your sushi?

Desaru Beach Weekend Getaway (Malaysia)

While my Mum came to visit us, we decided last minute to take her to Desaru Beach in JB Malaysia for a weekend family getaway. Little did we realise that the place is so Ulu that our GPS didn't even have the exact route to our hotel. We only roughly guessed where we were going based on the bigger map of JB. We had no idea how remote this place was. It took us roughly about 2 hours to get there, but only an hour and a half to get back. The roads were pretty narrow and only one lane for each direction, got a bit scary at time when other cars were tailgating us.

We picked to stay at The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort based on pictures that showed a nice swimming pool and it being right on the beachfront. The place is so secluded and so peaceful. It almost felt like you were on another island. The hotel itself is pretty good, 4 star quality resort. We tripled shared with my Mum and requested one King Size bed and one Single bed. Both beds were really big. What's more, the room was huge! It was probably the size of my living room plus kitchen. The room had a small tv, a walk in wardrobe with a safe box, a sitting area, and a separate vanity area and bathroom area. In the bathroom there was a bath tub and a separate standing shower area. The resort does show a little wear and tear but I'm not one to be too bothered by it. The swimming pool was great. It had a slide and a mini waterfall. And just over the pool wwas the beach. A very clean beach at that. Tho not exactly the white sand type, it was nice all the same.

The hotel breakfast buffet isn't very nice tho. We've had better at other hotels. The one thing that really irked me was in the wee hours of the morning, someone came and rang our doorbell like 6 times between 4am-7am! We're not too sure, but think it has something to do with the ramaddan and them letting people know when it was time to eat or to pray since there wasn't any mosques around to call the prayer. But for light sleepers like me it was definitely annoying especially since I had no idea what was happening. I even thought someone was playing a trick on us or even the bell was faulty or maybe a ghostly visitor! (ok maybe the last one might be a little crazy thought from the interrupted sleep).

For dinner we ventured out to another town that was 'supposed' to be nearby called Sungai Rengit for cheap seafood. I had read on the web about this seafood restaurant famed for its lobsters called Jade Garden Seafood Restaurant. It was rather scary driving to this town because again the road was just one lane in each direction and practically nothing on our left and right except bushes. Not even street light posts. My research before we left paid off because I could tell Edmund roughly where the restaurant was near. After driving around the town for like 15 minutes we found the restaurant we were looking for. The restaurant was crowded with families and Singapore cars in the driveway. In front there were tanks filled to the brim with lobsters big and small. There are different prices for big and small lobsters. We ordered 3 lobsters cooked in special gravy, bamboo clams, squid in sambal, soft shell crab and fried noodles and 3 cans of coke. Guess how much our bill was? Only RM175!!

On the way back, we stopped by Holiday Plaza and had lunch at a Wong Kok Char cafe. It was a great weekend getaway. 

Thai Fish Cakes

Another simple dish to make. I know that Thai Fish Cakes are usually flat and round, but I made these sausage shape so that I could poke a satay stick thru them to tempt Caelyn to eat it. Great way to eat fish I say!

In a food processor combine the following: white fish meat, Thai red curry paste, fish sauce, egg, corn flour, sugar and pepper. Pulse until it all comes together. Add some chopped up french beans to the mixture. If you want to check on the flavouring, put a little bit in the microwave for 20 seconds. Shallow fry or deep fry the fish cakes, drain and serve.