The Dying Art Of Old School Service
11 a.m. at Tong Ah Eating House, Keong Saik Road
It’s 11 a.m., the lull period after the breakfast rush. At Tong Ah Eating House on Keong Saik Road, a few uncles enjoy kopi, conversations and newspapers under the shade of the yellow canvas — a meagre protection against the 31-degree heat.
The entire street is quiet, save for a few delivery lorries and cars. There’s a hush of anticipation before the crowd barges in at noon, demanding to be fed.
In this window of opportunity, I approach the lady boss of Tong Ah to ask if she’s ‘free for five minutes to chat’.
She gives me a confused and somewhat suspicious look at first, but her expression softens after she realises I’m not here to cause trouble.
I hang around the counter, chatting with her as she multitasks in the way only people with years of experience can.
“If you’re selling traditional food, people think you’re low class. Sometimes they’ll scold you,” Ru Hui says.
She tells me about people who complain that a cup of $1.40 kopi is ‘too expensive’; those who demand more for less; the Facebook Review Writers; the ones who kick up a fuss when they’re stopped from using Tong Ah’s backdoor as a shortcut to other fancy restaurants along Keong Saik Road.
Keong Saik Road’s catapult to fame after being listed among Lonely Planet’s 2017 top 10 travel destinations in Asia is a little of a joke to locals.
Not that the quaint road isn’t already a tourist destination, but it feels as if the ban mian stall in your neighbourhood kopitiam was awarded a Michelin Star.
Known nostalgically as a prominent red-light district in the 1960s, Keong Saik now houses modern cafes, restaurants, and bars, all screaming out to be filled up.
Like other historical streets in Singapore that have been taken over by contemporary food and beverage establishments, Keong Saik has lost that vibe of organised chaos that’s still seen in Geylang.
The cherry on the top is the presence of co-working space Working Capitol — the ultimate testament to Keong Saik’s makeover.
All the while, Tong Ah watched the street evolve from a dirty prostitution road into a sleek and chic stretch, where people now expect great dining experiences with exemplary service.
How do they keep up with the times?
As Ru Hui is chatting with me, someone shouts out a Kopi O Siew Dai order.
“TAKEAWAY PLASTIC BAG OR DRINKING HERE?” she yells back, in Mandarin.
Her voice is shrill, feels like a hundred decibels, and would be completely out of place in anywhere else other than traditional hawkers and Tze Char restaurants run by the older generation.
It’s loud. Like, really Hokkien, if you know what I mean.
Especially when it’s right smack in the middle of modern-looking, contemporary restaurants and bars.
Some may call it brusque and uncultured.
But is it true that at eating houses like Tong Ah, one can expect the food to be tasty and cheap, but ‘don’t expect much from service’?
Because to others, that’s how authenticity sounds and feels like. And the sort of service Ru Hui embodies comes from a totally different era.
It’s the typical way older people who are used to hard labour communicate — rough around the edges, loud as hell, but no offence taken, thank-you-very-much and come again okay!
Most of us in the younger generation will never get it. We are too self-conscious, too aware of the power of social media, too prideful, too easily embarrassed.
But like what the founder of Shake Shack and restaurateur Danny Meyer wrote in his book Setting The Table:
“Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side.”
Ru Hui may not know who Danny Meyer is, but she sure as hell is a living testament to this statement.
It’s about that twinkle in her eyes that shows she’s genuinely happy to serve. That voice that gets a little shrill when she’s talking about something she’s irritated with or excited about. That loudness which breeds familiarity and endearment.
And her customers get it.
The truth is, traditional places like Tong Ah are stewards to a dying art of hospitality that the younger generation will never be able to master.
So who are we — this tech-savvy generation of self-professed food experts and restaurant reviewers — to tell the older generation how to provide service from the heart?
A customer, an old man clutching a newspaper, heads out and waves to Ru Hui.
“Bye-bye! Thank you ah!” she practically screeches at him, her smile stretching to the sides of her face.
