Weak and starving after a few rounds of shopping in Ayumi Hamasaki’s birth city,
Miss Loi stumbled into a traditional-looking eatery in a quest for some fine Japanese dining with a nice ambience …
Yes Miss Loi was THAT hungry.
Only to be subjected to an auditory assault of
IRASSHAIMASE!!!!!
ONEGAISHIMASU!!!!!
EH SAAAI!!!
Welcome to a Hakata Tonkotsu (豚骨) ramen restaurant at the heart of Fukuoka, its place of origin, where everybody from the chef to the kitchen assistant to the waitress strives to out-yell each other the phrases above whenever a customer enters or leaves the premise.
YUMMY!
With a typically Singaporean thinking of more customers = better food, the restaurant Miss Loi entered was literally packed to the brim.
EH SAAAI!!!
With customers entering
EH SAAAI!!!
and leaving every few minutes
EH SAAAI!!!
And Miss Loi had to sit next to the big burly chef, whose mouth was in direct line of … er … sound with her little ears
EH SAAAAAAAI!!!!!!
With her extremely limited Japanese, she guessed that IRASSHAIMASE means something like “Welcome!” and ONEGAISHIMASU means something like “Please!” but for the life of her she couldn’t make out what
EH SAAAAAAAI!!!!!!
means.
Maybe the chef was actually Hokkien and was taking the chance to remind everyone how EH SAAAAAAAI!!!!!! he was (this actually means “(I’m) cool/great!” in Singaporean Hokkien).
In an ironic twist, Miss Loi did eventually find her ‘fine dining ambience’ during dinnertime by the Nakasu River at one of the many yatai stalls that Fukuoka is famous for.
Whether the ‘ambience’ was actually a result of Miss Loi becoming deaf from the earlier lunch is a matter of open debate. But it was quite apparent that the Japanese are relatively quieter diners compared to say, us at Newton Food Centre.
Maybe they were just saving their energy for one of the biggest ‘entertainment’ districts in Japan right next door 😛
Whatever the case, Fukuoka ramen was indeed EH SAAAI!!!!!!
