Note that this post is about me making a Sapporo Style Ramen from pre-packed ingredients bought at a Supermarket while at the same time incorporate a dissing section about Ramen Play's outlet in JEM at Jurong East. Probably contains more dissing than I can possibly imagine, I think..

Personally, I've been a fond lover of Ramen, especially Japanese Ramen. Although I found that the choices in Singapore are mostly centered around Ajisen. Hence, a few years back, I was pleasantly surprised to find that NTUC in Singapore was starting to stock up on Japanese Ramen. Just right before the K-crap wave took over Singapore with an unrelenting storm.

I saw this Sapporo Style pre-packed ramen pack in the supermarket and has been constantly and consistently buying this on a regular basis. Until they suddenly stopped bringing it in. I think it's probably because of poor sales but I like to simply blame it on the K-crap wave instead. Ironically, the moment K-crap became more and more popular in Singapore, there seemed to be less and less J-drama and more and more K-drama instead. They even stopped broadcasting the After Dinner Mysteries in favor of showing more K-related crap on television. Let's just say, I was so disgusted with the amount of K-crap on television that I've actually stopped watching television for a good 7 to 8 years now. And will continue to do so until they split 50-50 between J-drama and K-drama.

Anyways, I went worth and brought the ingredients I wanted in my Sapporo Style ramen. These include those pink-and-white Japanese fish cake, which strangely enough didn't exactly taste fish-like while the Singapore/Asian-based fish cakes tend to taste more like fish. And not forgetting prawns. I've been eating prawns with a vengeance ever since knowing that my prettier, luckier, and married earlier than me cousin is allergic to prawns. Muahaha?

And not forgetting the hard-boiled egg, of course. The soup was marvelous, the ingredients made my feel like I'm eating ramen fit for a king despite looking lacking in appearance. Oh the soup~~

Fast forward to a few years ago, when Ramen Play had it's first flagship store in Singapore. And more outlets followed since. And I sort of made a promise to myself how I would one day try the ramen in Ramen Play and luckily for me, there was an outlet in JEM Jurong East.

As shown in the photo above, this is how the Ramen Play store in JEM Jurong East looked like.

So, one fine day when I was off-duty from work, I decided to pop down to JEM at Jurong East for some window shopping and with the possibility of trying at least 1 ramen from Ramen Play. But I was sorely disappointed through and through and didn't even get to step foot inside the ramen shop at all. I even purposely chose the after-lunch timing so I won't have to jostle for seating space with those office crowd people, whom I like to believe are leftover ghosts and spirits who have forgotten to went back through the Gates of Hell after the Lunar Seventh Month Hungry Ghost festival. The reason for such a description? They come out in troves, hogged all the seats available and take their own damn sweet time to eat. And to top it off, sitting on an office chair for close to between 8 to 10 hours a day are so tiring that their feet will break and snap like twigs if they so much as stand on a crowded bus on their way home after work.

Which ultimately makes retail staffs, be they part-time or full-time superheroes since they stand between 8 to 10 hours a day at work, probably only get 1 off day to rest per week, which happens not to fall on weekends and public holidays. And yet can still maintain a smiling face to greet obnoxious office workers who acted like they are as rich as the Queen of England when in fact, they still have to pay their credit card bills plus interests towards the end of every month when they get their paycheck.

So, back to the topic at hand.

It was past lunch-crowd hour, when there was not a single office worker lurking around in the ramen shop. I was standing at the entrance, looking at the menus on display, wondering which ramen should I buy and try. And I purposely took 10 to 15 minutes in doing so. And while I was doing just that, the cooks were busy preparing their stocks for the upcoming dinner crowd, which was normal since I used to work in an F&B environment. There is just so much to prepare, and yet so little time to ensure everything is sufficient. Oh, the irony of "time".

The lone cashier was staring at the empty wall, at least 3 metres away from her. It was as if she has an invisible friend standing at the exact distance away, playing "peek-a-boo" and "see-me-if-you-can" games. I'm pretty sure that JEM isn't haunted, no matter how much I thought about it. The space which JEM occupied used to be an empty patch of green field during the 1990s, and was only recently bought and built into the existing JEM around this year.

The 2 servers working there, were simply too engrossed in chatting with each other. Oblivious to the fact that there's a human standing at their shop's entrance, obvious thinking what ramen is best. Servers, sometimes I hated their existence. They have to presume the fact that not everyone has been to their shop before and hence the patron will not know whether they have to wait at the entrance before being showed to a seat or that the patron can simply waltz in like a clumsy gazelle and chose a seat of their liking.

In short, the servers should actually try to make contact with me, a possible paying consumer. And by doing so, make me go from a "maybe" to a "definitely" customer. Or to put in simply, "maybe I would eat at this place" to "I would definitely want to eat at this place" kinda concept. But noooooooooooo....

All of them were desperately trying their hardest to pretend I wasn't standing in front of their entrance. Cooks were very engrossed in preparing for the dinner crowds so much so, none of them could point out to the cashier or servers that I was standing at the entrance, wondering if I should wait to be seated or something.

Cashier was desperately staring at an empty wall 3 metres away, refusing to turn her head in any direction to see if a patron is in distress of some sort. Such as wondering if she should wait to be seated or something.

And the servers! Damn servers were desperately trying to be engrossed in a conversation that is probably lame, since one of the servers was facing my direction and could see that I was at the entrance, wondering if I should wait to be seated or something.

In short, I felt disgusted with the staffs at Ramen Play. Note that during lunch crowd, you have obnoxious office workers who just don't give a shit whether they should wait to be seated. They can simply play dumb and barge in the the hopes of finding an empty seat fast. Dinner crowd mostly consists of families, who will pretty much behave exactly the same way too. Proper customers are left standing at the entrance, unsure of the shop's culture in whether one should wait at the queue line to be seated or just walk in and grab an empty seat.

Ramen Play obviously fails in a lot of department anyways, they should probably close up shop and stop their business in Singapore if your staffs cannot be bothered to "care" for a "maybe" customer and trying to turn him or her into a "definitely" customer. Fail!