The Bizad Canteen

Alright I admit. I do miss NUS, although I was delirious with joy after my last paper at NUS. The nostalgia seems to have hit a few notches up as my convocation draws near.

In case all the memories fade, Being plain bored, I decided to reminisce about the times spent at the Bizad canteen, known officially as The Terrace, but plainly to practical Bizaders, Bizad canteen. In fact, I doubt any NUS student would even address their respective canteens by their affectionate names. A bit funny leh!

I love the Bizad canteen. Although we have to share it with the Law people! But, from my friends’ and my observations of these aspiring lawyer wannabes, we gathered that most do not sit down and nua the whole afternoon away (like us Bizaders) while indulging in a proper lunch (sandwiches and coffee not included!) In fact, we wonder if they ever eat! The very rare occasions they are eating, they are probably discussing some court case or debating over a particular clause in some law! The canteen is airy and there are plenty of seats. Even if there is a seat shortage (which is rare), we can bring our food to the study benches and continue with project discussions at the same time. The main grouse is probably the presence of disgusting crows that are on standby to pounce on your food once you leave the table or leave it on the clearing shelves. Yucks!

The Bizad canteen is famous for its Chinese dumplings (jiao zi) and Western food. With regards to the jiao zi, one can smell the overpowering vinegar smell come Thursdays and be prepared to join a long, long queue for your food. It is so popular that the assistants do nothing but make only jiao zi on Thursdays. The situation seems similar to a mass production operation in a factory! Personally, I have only eaten them once and even then, I shared the plate of jiao zi with a friend. No offence to jiao zi lovers, but the vinegar smell combined with seeing many people (especially PRCs) indulging in one whole plate of jiao zi alone totally put me off them for the rest of my time in Bizad. I don’t even want to find out the quantities that are being sold! I couldn’t imagine seeing someone finishing 15 jiao zi on his own! *Shudder*

But the Western food gets my two thumbs up! Not considering the first semester of Year One, where I was frightened pissed off by the uncle’s Edward's stern looks and army-like “Next, please!” or “Fried fish to go”, I am a very regular patron of the stall, to the extent of us striking up conversations! But only when he is not busy! I still don’t have the guts to ka jiao him with special orders during peak periods! As seen from my “extreme likeness” for this stall, I do have several regrets about leaving Bizad and this stall.

Firstly, being not very adventurous when it comes to eating, I have not tried all the food that is available, partly also because his menu is so freaking extensive!! And he does introduce new items once in a while! If I had the opportunity, I would try the Atlantic salmon, lasagna etc. anytime!

Secondly, the taste of the Fusilli (the twisty and screw like pasta) with chicken and mushrooms still lingers in my mouth. This item is not available for sale but my IA class had the privilege to be the first “critics” of the food because Prof Low requested for it to be prepared during our IA make up class! The dish definitely pleased most of our taste buds because it received such rave reviews. And the turnoff of it all, this dish would only be available next semester! Boohoo! NUS students better try this dish or they would be missing out on so much!

Lastly, the stall has some items that are only available up to 10am. During my 3rd semester, I had the horror opportunity to experience attending four 8am lessons so I had the opportunity to try this dish. It’s called Cheesy Farmer and basically, it is egg omelette with cheese and mushrooms. 2 slices of toast complete this divine meal. For the benefit of most Bizaders, can the uncle sell this item full day or at least extend the timing? Afterall, Bizaders are notorious for being slackers late-starters. Most lectures start at 10am and the place is virtually like a ghost town before 10am, save for the people with 9am sectionals. Even then, they would be stuck in class and would only be “released” at 12!

Besides the Western stall, the café is my “saviour” during the dreadful 3-hour sectionals. There is cheap Milo and Teh-O to tide me through the difficult times, and various varieties of pastries that are cheap without compromising on the “professional café” quality as well. I have one grievance of the café though. The aunties are all super inefficient! Sometimes they seem to look through you and continue chatting although it is very obvious that you want to make payment. And the proverb “Too many cooks spoil the broth” is perfectly epitomized in this situation.

One typical scenario would be this: One auntie serves the main queue. Another queue is forming near the soft drinks dispenser and another at the sandwich department (sandwiches made a la Delifrance). All this while, the two aunties would either be (1) continuing to take the croissants out from the oven, or (2) just hanging around the dispenser, wiping God-knows-what. It seems as if she is just trying to act busy. Easy! Go and attend to us! We are pathetic souls! Sometimes we only have measly break times of 10 minutes so it won’t be wise to waste our time in this manner!

There used to be a Kyros Kebab stall and it closed down this semester. My guess is their business wasn’t good and they probably received less than complimentary reviews. Because their service is yawningly slow and they are, in my opinion, the pioneers of the “Too many cooks spoil the broth” theory. There are also several assistants, in fact more than sufficient to handle the traffic. My friends and I once contemplated focusing our Operations Management project on them. I don’t know the exact Logistics term but their workstation layout was hampering their service efficiency. They had the biggest stall space but this was no excuse. For example, they could be walking to one end of the stall to get the fries and then walking to the other end to collect their kebabs. I can’t really remember the exact details but it was along that line. I used to get so frustrated just looking at how they work. But they have a redeeming point though. I love their fries!

I also patronized the Malay food, Indian food stall, the Chinese rice stall, chicken rice stall, Chinese noodles stall and the Yong Tau Foo stall, albeit not very frequently.

Yong Tau Foo: The stall used to be one of my favourites until they changed vendors. I prefer to go over to the Arts canteen for Yong Tau Foo now. And the stall has rather orthodox items that doesn’t quite qualify as traditional Yong Tau Foo. Luncheon meat? Carrots?

Indian Food: The Indian food is good; the menu does not totally cater to the Indian palate, they have introduced more local-like food as well. I tried the naan once. I like! Service speed could be improved though! And it won’t hurt if prices could be less steep! After one meal, I feel so heart pain…

Chinese rice: I started trying out the Chinese rice stall this semester because I was finally convinced by my friends’ testimonials of the good food and more importantly, the quick service speed. I never liked the stall before because the queue was always very long, all days of the week!

Chicken rice: I quite liked the chicken rice in the past and I even pitied the owners when the bird flu broke out. The business became very bad. I still patronized it, but I can’t make that great a difference mah! You can’t expect me to eat chicken rice everyday! I don’t know if the declining business dampened their morale and affected their food quality. It just did not taste as good as before. Once, my portion of cai xin had turned all yellowish! Business never really recovered from the virus attack and the queues are no longer as long as before. However, it took me too long to discover their hidden gem: the duck guo tiao. Tastes heavenly with the chili!

Chinese noodles: This was another stall which I initially patronized out of “sympathy” due to its bad business. Also, the stall belonged to a friend’s uncle so I thought just give some mian zi (aka 'face') and just shang lian (patronize out of good will). My “compassion” soon ran out because I found the noodles too sticky and “clumpy”. And, they gave pretty stingy portions that were ill fitting of the price paid. So, a no-no for this stall too.

And, the perfect place to quench my thirst after the plethora of food choices available besides the café, is the fruit juices stall! They have fresh cut fruit and I suppose, many, many combinations of fruit juices available. But being the boring old me, I have stuck to the same old combis: apple + guave, orange + guava, honey lime. That is how boring I am.

I think I have tried honey dew + guava before but it was too sweet and I didn’t like it. Also tried blueberry juice, but tasted far too synthetic for me to qualify it as fresh fruit juice. In fact, no one would believe that all their juices are freshly squeezed. I don’t think guavas produce so much juice that is so green in colour and consistently tastes sweet. Must be the concentrate version. Besides juices, they offer desserts as well and I like their grass jelly and almond jelly.

The herbal soup stall just opened this semester but I have not tried it before, save for little mouthfuls here and there from friends. And my verdict? The menu, with stuff like water cress soup, chicken ginseng soup and lotus root soup, does remind me of home, my Grandma’s wonderful soups, but that is where the similarity ends. The soup tastes a tad too MSG-ie. Enough said.

Sigh! My stomach is growling in hunger already! What a glutton I am!