Lunch for today (IV)

I read a food review on Sunday Times and with immense swiftness and enthusiasm headed down today to try the food out. The place: Northern Thai Restaurant at Tyrwhitt Road. The food: Tom yum fried fish soup with rice. Calling it a restaurant may be slightly misleading because it's really just a stall in a coffeehouse. There are 3 other stalls under the same roof and the place is quite unremarkable as coffee shops go. It was written in the newspaper article that the area is tranquil but I beg to differ. It's tucked away along a small road, sure, but the traffic's still moderately busy, at least when I went at 1pm. There are more peaceful coffeeshops in Singapore.

That being said, it's still a pleasant place to have a slow, relaxed lunch on a weekday. Food I tried was so-so, better than foodcourt fare but not much better than coffeeshop fare. The best tom yum fried fish soup is still the one opposite Zhonghua Secondary School. It's shifted already, whereabouts unknown.


Here are some shots of the surroundings. The area is definitely a nice place to do some exploring, lots of small roads and traditional shops around. There's a swimming complex on the same road too, so a 10am swim 11am lunch would be great.

Was heartening to see some foreigners about. One of the beauties of Singapore lies in her quiet roads and coffee shops in the heartlands, and I've always thought it amusing how so many Singaporeans are smitten by overseas travels without first fully exploring our tranquil neighbourhood gems.

Dropped by City Square Mall too, which was in the area. A relatively peaceful mall in the midst of some residential areas. There's a pretty pleasant foodcourt at the 4th floor with lots of natural daylight and lots of space.

I feel cosy eating in large places with low human density. You can hear the faint tinkle of utensils and people talking around you while still be able to remain in your own world.

I've been watching Survivor: Heroes versus Villains. In this season selected good guys from past seasons are placed in the same tribe, selected bad guys in the other tribe. In the last episode both tribes were given a clue to the hidden immunity idol, which grants an individual (not the tribe) immunity to the person who finds and uses it at tribal council.

I think it's interesting how the two tribes responded. The Villains tribe set up an agreement: no one is to look for the idol by him or herself, or that person would be ostracized. The Heroes tribe responded by having a free-for-all search for the idol. Given the nature of the idol, it's most advantageous to find it without letting anyone else know you've found it. What I think is that everyone in the Villains tribe knew that everyone else is going to search for the idol discreetly. One may verbally agree not to look for the idol, but I think everyone knew everyone else would be tempted to break that verbal agreement, so they implemented a further deterrent: anyone caught looking for the idol would be a target in future tribal councils. The Heroes tribe, on the other hand, set up no such contract. Everyone just searched for it openly.

I'd say society operates more like the Villains tribe than the Heroes tribe. We enact laws and compel people to follow them because we know we would do condemnable actions if it were otherwise, and we suspect everyone else would do so too. Because we are cognizant of this, and because we are fearful of the chaos that may ensue, we say: Ok let's set up a truce. No one is to rob from anyone else. Anyone who robs is punishable. From this perspective a wrong action is wrong only because it was defined wholly that way by society, and not because there is something intrinsically wrong in that action.

Of course, there'd be people who choose to defect from the contract, which is why you've got someone like Russell who went to search for the idol discreetly, all by himself, and got found out in the end.

I witnessed a primary-school dance competition on Saturday. Young girls were dancing in a raunchy manner to loud hip-hop music. The sight was so depressing I had to go eat KFC for lunch.