2011 Reflection

Some questions to ask ourselves as 2012 begins.

One of the things I noticed travelling around the city was its prevalence on what would be called ‘indie’ cafes in Singapore. Indie is cool in Singapore because we are so incredibly regulated; but in Vietnam, everybody’s indie.

But in this post, I will not focus so much on the coffee (just a little) as about some of my thoughts about how these cafes reflect in some small part Vietnam’s history and society.

L’usine Cafeteria

And so, in the middle of nowhere (though it does seem like an area with more art shops than usual), Paul brought me to L’usine Cafe, a name that sounds distinctly French. You would never guess what the inside of this cafe looks like just by the path leading up to it.

 Entering a totally different world.

 Not that I want Singapore to be centre of the world, but honestly this matches up to any cafe here. In fact, there is a merchandise/ shopping section and a cafe; much like Singapore’s new cafe Maison Ikkoku at Kandahar Street.

The retail section sells everything from Moleskine notebooks to shirts that cost about SG$90 (probably equivalent of the $400 t-shirts at Maison).

This place sells espresso based coffees, cupcakes and Western sandwiches (not Banh Mi), and around me I saw 4 people using Macbooks. Kinda tells you about the crowd that frequents the place, no?

Renovation & Reconnection

What I really want to say about this place is how it really is a reflection of today’s Vietnamese society. You see, in Vietnamese law (as I was told), you can’t own an F&B operation as a foreigner unless you also own a hotel establishment. That means, indie setups like these are definitely owned by locals. Yet, the average local Vietnamese would probably not have the necessary exposure to open a place as Western in concept as this one; where the tables are largely communal for serendipitous meetings, where retail and coffee co-exist, where cupcakes are sold more for their aesthetics than taste.

Places like these are usually opened by young ‘Viet Kieu’ (literally translated as 越侨, or ‘overseas Vietnamese’). These are sometimes first-generation, but mostly 2nd-generation young people whose families escaped during Vietnam’s turbulent years struggling for independence from the French colonial  administration and the subsequent civil war between the North and the South. The Northern Communists eventually won in 1975. Once they beat the Southern guys, they took over Saigon and promptly re-named it Ho Chi Minh City in honour (and to carve in stone the political positions) of ‘Uncle Ho’, the revolutionary leader.

These Viet Kieu’s escaped to any place which would take them in: France, Australia, Hong Kong (remember the ‘boat people’) and the US of A. Many of them would eventually receive a Western education, speak in flawless English, but choose to come home as much for the economic opportunities as for their reconnection to their roots. The ‘Doi Moi’ reforms, an economic ‘renovation’ policy adopted by the Communist party rulers in 1986 to open up the economy to market forces opened up Vietnam’s economy to its current boom. Vietnam remains one of the world’s fastest growing economies but also with a great income gap.

And so, a cafe like this is really a reflection of what has gone on in Vietnamese society for so many years. It really isn’t just a cafe. For some insight into the experience of a Viet Kieu, I found this piece of reflection on the Net that’s quite beautifully and poignantly written. And this American piece about Viet Kieu’s too.  By the way, by definition, Australian celebrity chef Luke Nguyen is also a Viet Kieu; and he has used this to good effect in marketing himself; writing books such as ‘Baguettes and Banh Mi: Finding France in Vietnam’.

Trung Nguyen Coffee

Think Ya Kun and you get the idea.

This particular branch is located right outside Diamond Plaza in HCMC; which is kinda like the ION of Orchard Road. Well, I don’t think Ya Kun is that big in Singapore as of yet; but you get the idea.

As compared to L’usine, Trung Nguyen is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Mass-produced, chain stores, little personal connection with customers. They sell coffee made from local beans, largely of the Robusta variety, roasted VERY dark with tonnes of butter. That’s what the locals drink.

But, for probably about a fifth of the price, you can get the exact same thing on the streets and at the roadside. Potent, dark stuff. Iced. 

Most of us wouldn’t be unfamiliar with this simple little coffee gadget the Vietnamese have invented. It’s essentially a drip device, but the grind-size and the structure of the device ensures that  it takes ages for the coffee to drip through. You get a coffee that is extremely viscous and buttery; almost the consistency of an espresso to be honest with none of the brightness. I mean, think about it. If I were a Vietnamese, I’d have no stomach problems taking in some roadside coffee. Why would any Vietnamese pay 5 times the price for the exact same thing? Sure, I could order a particular blend of ‘Arabica, Robusta and Excelsia beans’, but I doubt any other blend would have tasted very different.

My guess is that it’s the peripherals that make the difference. The impression that Trung Nguyen selects and uses only the best Vietnamese beans. The fact that even the drip device has their logo engraved on it. The fact that you’ll see a huge obsolete roaster placed right at their door like an artifact.

The fact that this store is huge, beside Diamond Plaza and has air-con and waitstaff. And powerpoints, and wifi. And my cup of iced jasmine tea (which the locals drink in place of water) gets refilled every 25 seconds.

And now, I’d pay easily 5 times as any other roadside stall. Wouldn’t you?

The Perfect Blend

I guess, what Trung Nguyen did was to convince its customers that Vietnamese coffee rocks. Though I think otherwise; it’s the same as how some think that Starbucks is the best coffee too. By appealing to roots, to the emotional ties of something old-school, something the locals grew up drinking but putting a twist to it; it suddenly became cool; and somewhat even a tourist commodity! Even Ben Thanh market sells 3-in-1 Trung Nguyen coffee. I guess their formula is quite simple:

What you love (Viet coffee) + What you want (perks) = What you will pay (good money)

What’s fascinating is that Vietnam’s local population has grown rich enough for the middle-upper class upwards to be able to afford Trung Nguyen coffee at SGD$2.50 – 4 a cup. It may be the occasional luxury (as MacDonald’s once was for us), but it still attracts enough customers for Trung Nguyen to expand overseas. This would never have been possible 20 yrs ago.

Not meant to be a definitive guide to cafes in HCMC, but this will have to do for now.

Until I go back again and trek the city on foot.

Grilled Pork noodles, Pho and Banh Mi, I’ll see you again soon!

And so I am sitting here right now (yea, you could call this ‘live blogging’) in Hoi An, Vietnam at a cafe overlooking a street. I’m quite literally people-watching after a lunch of Vietnamese noodles, thinking random thoughts while waiting for my custom-made shoes to be ready.

Hoi An, has Unesco World Heritage status. Which kinda makes it about as attractive culturally as say, Penang. Which means to say: not much. The attraction here is for those of us who come from middle-class backgrounds back home and crave for some bespoke attention. Yes, Hoi An is the town of tailors. Thousands of them.

 What do you think of non-Vietnamese (foreigners) who enter Vietnam and do social development work?

  Man selling baked sweet potatoes on a chilly evening. I don’t think very many would buy from him otherwise.

This dish really deserves half a Michelin star. Why can’t we get this grilled pork more often in Singapore?!

Taking refuge under the shelter of love. How real do we perceive poverty to be?

 Put on the sandals of Peace.

 The straight and the narrow.

 Bought these on impulse. Freaking delicious.

 Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! In Vietnam?

How do you think Lonely Planet has changed the face of the developing world?

]]> http://liren.sg/2011/12/21/hoi-an/feed/ 0 Let it snow tayliren OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Streets OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Streetside stall Sweet Potato seller Delicious grilled pork noodles 博爱 Peace Alleyway Grilled pork skewers The amassment Griller Let it snow Lonely Planet Guide http://liren.sg/2011/12/18/storyteller-food/ http://liren.sg/2011/12/18/storyteller-food/#comments Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:51:12 +0000 Liren http://liren.sg/?p=2793 ]]>

Not to mention of course the Panama Don Pachi Gesha. I let out a loud uncontrollable yelp as I smelt the coffee; the lady sitting opposite me got a shock. Hahaha. Currently the world’s most expensive coffee, this one blew me and all of the tasting participants away. It was full of deep, intense strawberries. None of us could have enough of it.

Here are some materials online about him that I’ve gathered from Google.

Yunnan-Singapore Doctor: Straits Times

Feature on CNNGo

Dr Tan as featured on CNA’s ‘Asians of the Year’ feature 2009:

Dr Tan in a 1-hour talk to NUS.

Enjoy!

And so in an institution I am in contact with recently, I had heard that the auntie who helmed one of the stalls has to close down her tiny business which has been her source of income for the past 29 years. I’m guessing, from the fact that she is probably in her mid to late 40s, that this has pretty much been her only source of livelihood and work.

In the days of old, people were the pillars in institutions. Some of us might remember legendary 校工 (literally ‘school general worker’) in our schools, basically the man who is the cleaner, the jaga, the security guard, the Operations Manager, the informal student disciplinarian, the gardener all rolled into one. He was the only one who had the right the wear singlets, shorts and white-with-blue-straps Tat Sing slippers. Days have gone, times have progressed. Starting from the time I was in Secondary School, schools started hiring retired Warrant Officers as OMs, and cleaning and security services were outsourced to companies.

These people then became purely job-performers, service-providers; they were no longer considered a part of the school’s culture and makeup. We started to view them more in terms of roles and less as people. The personhood became lost in the process. Role-performers are easily dispensable and replaceable, people are not.

And so in the name of Singapore Inc., in the name of market efficiency and optimum allocation of scarce resources to handle unlimited wants, the auntie was presented with a chance to keep her stall, but only if she managed to win a tender to continue running her small business.

I guess it is no surprise; that in capitalist societies, there are always going to be big fish and small fish. And of course, in a tender like this, unlike in the proverbial David vs Goliath stories, David doesn’t often win. This is the corporate business world, often so merciless that sometimes even God’s grace is not enough to win.

And so this auntie has lost her job, her livelihood and her emotional investment (she probably doesn’t realise this, but I think her lack of plans for the future to feed herself is as much about helplessness as it is about grief). In her place is the local stationery equivalent of a MacDonalds or a Starbucks, buying in bulk, gaining economies of scale, undercutting rivals and gaining even more market share. And the small fish has no resources to compete anywhere else. But for now, her concern isn’t even about the future; it’s about clearing as much stock as possible to reduce her losses. She can’t sell the PE shorts with the logo anywhere else.

In her place are 2 sales assistants from a neighbouring South-east Asian country, merely employees with no stake in the institution, no stake in the company they work for and definitely no stake in this country. And that makes me really angry. We have literally taken away the job of a woman who wants to work, and replaced her with cheaper, better, faster workers from elsewhere for no reason at all.

To her, that business was literally her everything. To the company, it is nothing more than another branch; another expansion, another location to deliver some goods too. And probably one of the smallest and least profitable ones too.

And for me, this really represents all that is wrong with Singapore today. Needless competition, floodgates open, wages suppressed, local jobs lost. All slaughtered and sacrificed at the altar of Economic Growth.

We have sacrificed Everything, for Nothing Very Much.

Indie ice-cream has had the run of its life in Singapore the past 4 or 5 years; Island Creamery, Daily Scoop, Udders, Salted Caramel, Ice-Cream Chefs. Each, I find, did one up on the other by offering ice-cream in another flavour, crafted in a different way, eaten with a different cup. Some offered additional ingredients which u could choose, some added alcohol, others taught you how to make it yourself or offered you buffets. Many started to open branches, or factory-made to keep up with the demands. I guess, when indie opens branches, it becomes mainstream. And so while I won’t say it lost its gloss, somehow indie ice-cream seemed to become quite run of the mill. 

I’ve always had to travel at least half an hour to get a nice ice-cream or a good coffee. The nearest one was Udders at Novena, but even that place soon became so crowded it was a little bit of a turn-off to think of having to fight for seats. That changed when I saw a friend check-in on FB at this new little cafe Creamier located just 5 minutes by drive from my place! I had to check it out; and so I embarked on yesterday’s solo coffee hunt.

After hunting down the block, I was surprised to find this unmistakable ice-cream cafe with no indication that it was Creamier. I guess, one can’t go wrong. The only other ice-cream in the area is paddle-pop.

I love the fact that the place has a window-side long bench that looks out onto a nice little playground for the kids. To be honest, no other kids seriously go there to play like most of the Estate Upgrading facilities (do YOU actually use the foot reflexology pebble path downstairs?!), but this is almost like having your own private playground to attract the kids while visiting the ice-cream shop. I love the family-friendly feel of the place. It’s not one of those places thronged by teenage kids post-school, but not exactly an atas, to-be-seen kind of cafe either. Kids have ice-cream while adults have coffee.

Killer combination.

First up, the coffee. With claims of handcrafted coffee in an ice-cream shop, I didn’t dare to have my hopes too high up initially. Ah, but spotting a nice little Giotto Rockett in the corner, I had my hopes up just that little bit more.

And with good reason too. I know that the Giotto Rockett is a machine sold by Papa Palheta, and so I had good reason to suspect the people here have at least some exposure to good coffee making. No reason they would buy a small machine like that if they didn’t. Could just get a $200 Krups one. And I was even more convinced when my coffee arrived.

Yes, just like a good Long Black should be. With all that beautifully aromatic crema on top. Crema is the oils that are extracted from the beans in the process of the espresso extraction, and they are the most aromatic part of a well-pulled espresso coffee. A good Long Black should have the espresso poured over the hot water, not the other way around; or the crema would be broken and all that lovely aroma would be dissipated. This was a very good Long Black, made with (again) the Terra Firma beans from Papa Palheta. No wonder it tasted familiar.

Having said that, Papa Palheta’s baristas make many more cups of coffee every day than this ice-cream joint; and those guys are pros in any case. If a Long Black at PPP’s rates a 10/10, I would say this rates a good 8/10. Not 100% mind-blasting, but I guess the simpler machine does make a difference. But you know what? I don’t have to hike here.

Okay. This is going to just be a quick and simple post on a new cafe that just came up in the CBD a few shops down from The Muffinry on Telok Ayer Street. Sarnies (Brit slang for sandwiches) is opened by a brother and sister pair who have a distinctly Aussie accent. I have no idea if they relocated here or just came here to do business.

BUT I HAVE TO SAY THEY MAKE THE MOST FREAKING AWESOME STEAK SANDWICH!!!!!

Haaa. Really, da best. Never had anything better. Steak, mushrooms, caramelised onions, rocket. A sandwich so big I have to take it apart before I eat it. And even then it was delishous.

Coffees here are made with Papa Palheta’s Terra Firma blend. Oh so familiar. And on one of those Synessos too. Very well-made coffees, this guy is good with the milk coffees. Need to say more?

Interesting use of poker cards as your table number.

The guy on the pic is the barista making your coffees. He is really super enthusiastic about his cafe; he literally greets you when you enter the cafe like you’ve been his best friend for 10 years. And he’s constantly jocking around with his cafe staff. Very fun guy to watch, really. 

Easily the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten; and easily one of the best coffees in the CBD. So friends, if you work there, pop down for a visit!

]]> http://liren.sg/2011/10/22/cbt-sarnies/feed/ 1 Sarnies tayliren Steak Sandwich Coffees Barista The menu http://liren.sg/2011/10/16/cbt-tobys-estate/ http://liren.sg/2011/10/16/cbt-tobys-estate/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2011 08:46:06 +0000 Liren http://liren.sg/?p=2679 ]]> My own emotional journey with Toby’s Estate started when a friend brought back an entire kilogram of their house blend for me from Perth. They were good beans; but alas, a kilogram is way too much for my consumption and some of it ended up as decor in a pretty glass bottle in my room.

And it was when I read Suhaimi’s blog earlier on in the year that I found he had left CuppaChoice and joined another company which he didn’t reveal yet. After a few months of following them on Facebook, it emerged that Suhaimie had joined a new setup and lo and behold, Toby’s Estate was opening in Singapore!

I had walked past the in-process Toby’s some months ago, and even then I was astounded at the sheer size of the place. Hole-in-the-wall places are common in cramped ol’ Singapore, but to find a huge space like that right beside the Singapore River is astounding. I think there’s only one word to describe this place: AIRY. I can almost feel the breeze on my face..

Fronted by a huge black and white draw-up depicting a whole coffee journey from bean to cup, I can’t help but feel that this is a representation of the entire coffee philosophy of Toby’s.

Alvaro, the main man for the operations in Singapore, is not in his first coffee venture. He’s the  big man with the ponytail you will see in the cafe, and I’ve previously bought coffee from him when he was with The Society Group. Alvaro has now gone back to where he started his coffee adventure with.

The other main man fronting the cafe is Suhaimi. 2nd runner-up for SNBC 2010 and 2011, you know this man is damn good and serious with his coffee especially when he hailed from a relatively small set-up previously.

Suhaimi is an extremely affable young man, and incredibly enjoyable to talk to. I had never spoken to him before except on Facebook, and it was certainly an honour to meet him. Here is a self-made man who started humble, worked hard and rose to the top of his professional passion. If you have a chance to be served by him at the Slow Bar in Toby’s, you would never guess that this young man is already a father. The joy on his face and the sheer effervescence as he talks about coffee almost makes him sound like an excited boy on a playground with a new set of toys

Toby’s has truly assembled a great team to helm this huge new coffee operation. Besides the frontage of the cafe, there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that they need a team that is truly passionate about the work. I recognise a few of the faces, Terence (previously from Joe & Dough, who came in 4th in SNBC 2011) and I think Nizam. The guy on the left is familiar. He’s Andy.

I think Toby’s Estate is out to truly kick some ass in the coffee scene here. I have doubts as to how any other operation could top this one. They have every single coffee brew equipment you can imagine: from the towering roaster, to a small one, to all the gadgets including a Clover machine and Ice-drip. Stunning.

In that space of about 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon, I had three coffees there. A long black, which was good but not outstanding. I think, as with all new cafes, they are still taking their time to tweak the espresso blend (also known as the Rodyk St blend, in a tribute to their location).

I had also Guatemalan bean on their Man vs Machine set; which is the same bean brewed on a manual method of your choice and on the Clover machine (above).

The Clover, while quite dramatic in its emergence of big round cake of coffee grounds, produced a somewhat cloudy coffee. It was very light in body, and almost tea-like in the lightness of the flavours it produced.There are only 50 (?) machines like that in the entire world (the company was bought over by Starbucks), and the only other one in Singapore is at Loysel’s Toy.

The same bean, with the same bean-to-water ratio on the V60 pourover yielded a potent, fruity coffee with a bit of herbs. Paul, my kopi buddy, had a Colombian bean on the same brew methods.

I really enjoy these comparison sessions, particularly when the explanations and guiding is done by a barista like Suhaimi. For non-professionals like me, it’s only on these platforms that I truly get to experience the nuanced differences in coffee. In fact, anybody can taste it. If you always felt ‘a coffee is a coffee is a coffee’, do head down to the Slow Bar at Toby’s to enjoy being proven otherwise.

This bunch of people are truly passionate about coffee. Not only a frontage for a F&B business, Toby’s is also committed to paying good prices to the farmers, sometimes through their own sourcing of great coffees; and also through bidding for numerous COE (not Certificate of Entitlement, but Cup of Excellence) coffees. For me, what truly differentiates them is not a niche, artisan kind of a set up, but the comprehensiveness of it all. Everything that you could ever want to experience about coffee is here in this bright airy space. Everything.

And that for me, is enough to blow me away and keep me coming back.