Pale Porcelain Princess

Dear blog,

You will probably never understand the extent of my frustration and heartache but talk to you I must, otherwise insanity may well surely and truly take over.
Standing in front of the fire during times when we've got orders and standing in the unabating heat when doing our prep is almost nothing, I repeat, nothing, compared to the waiting. The long, painful stretches of waiting for people to come eat the food we've both toiled over the stove and chopping board to prepare.

They say that location is everything and I scoffed until I found our wee inn in its present predicament. Being at the far end of the East, specifically Pasir Ris (apparently considered the boondocks of Singapore), folks either complain about how far we are or how obscure our place is. Seriously blog, is Downtown East really unknown to the rest of the island except us Easterners? Am I uncool to be living in this part of the island where the sun beats down on us ceaselessly and green shrubbery flourish in abundance? It almost feels like it. I am positive that Pasir Ris has the most number of bicycles, shorts-wearing, flip-flop cladded men, women, boys and girls in all of Singapore. Not the hottest get-up in the world is it?

So apart from the disgustingly ulu location there can only be one other reason why people are not flocking here despite our awesome, drool-some Pad Krapow Gai/Moo/Nuer and fiery Tom Yum (that beats the socks off the other more established places so raved the Thai food-obsessed customers here), we simply do not know people in high enough places to create the hype and buzz that is crucial to any new food business. And it doesn't help that we don't have any sort of marketing arm to speak off. Most days after washing up the kitchen and cookware, all my body seeks is the comfort of my bed and solace of a cold shower.

However, in order to maintain some sort of order in my rapidly deteriorating mind I have come to the conclusion that there is only one thing for me to do. That is to embrace the all-encompassing, soul-soothing “mai bpen rai” spirit of the people that I so love. Together with this and being jai yen yen, I think I'm gonna be alright.

Oh and I know it doesn't help that our place is tiny and at any one time can only seat up to 16-18 people max. It's an uphill crawl and trying not to get disheartened can be so hard at times but my love for the food and culture is helping to hold it all together and I'm pretty sure one day folks will come to realise that if you want to have a more than decent Thai meal without breaking the n(seriously you can feed a family of 4 for under $30) and feeling like you're back in the streets of bangkok again, The basil Inn is the place to go. Then, there's also our amazing, amazing cook and I feel utterly blessed to be working alongside a person who has a palate that rocks so hard. Honestly, I haven't tasted a better Phad Thai than hers and even in Bangkok, the only one that comes close is the one on Thonglor Soi 38.

Gotta go make some Nam Prik Pao now for our Tom Yum (yea we pretty much do everything from scratch and don't believe in using pre-made pastes :p) so later dear blog. Muahz!