NTUC Xtra, 24 hour drive-thru McDonald’s, Ang Mo Kio Hub

Two big things have happened in year 2006 for the humble rather sleepy hollow of Ang Mo Kio – the 24 hour drive-in McDonald’s with free parking, should you choose to dine-in and the move of NTUC Fairprice into the new but ugly Ang Mo Kio Hub (AMK Hub) and its transformation from Plain Jane supermarket to hypermart.

To many the start of another McDonald’s is no big deal. It’s common to see an outlet popping up in your neighbourhood right next to a Chinese medical hall, taking over probably your old Econ Minimart.

Yes, those Econ Minimarts are a dying breed. The old-fashioned co-op that cannot compete with the supermarkets owned by a handful of supermarket and hypermarket giants – NTUC (Fairprice, Liberty Markets), Dairy Farm Group (Cold Storage, Jason’s, Shop ‘n Save, Giant), Carrefour and so on. It’s a sad day when the minimart or wet market stall owner has to shop at Shop ‘N Save for items to sell at his shop because he just can’t get his supplies at those prices.

The McDonald’s drive-thru’ is (I think) the second one in true heartlander district. The other is in Yishun. It’s the last thing I expected to see in Ang Mo Kio. The first drive-thru’s of fast food restaurants were in the Bukit Timah and town area. Back in the day when Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) actually served on real ceramic and you used real stainless steel flatware. It makes sense right? Where there’s a drive-thru’ there’s people who drive.

Drive-thru’s then disappeared and after a long while, the McDonald’s university in Albert Park got one.

The presence of drive-thru’s show people have more money (therefore cars) and is an indication that an area has reached a certain threshold that can support businesses that depend on fast turnover. If you drive through American towns, you can tell how big the town is by looking at the shops. More specifically, the fast food places. In Malaysia, it is the KFC. No KFC. Small sleepy town. KFC? Thriving town.

Now, with NTUC Xtra in the new but hideous Ang Mo Kio hub, you can feel a revitalised energy in Ang Mo Kio that has been missing for the last five years.

Along with NTUC (the union side. Yes, it’s confusing when they have their finger in every pie.) asking employers to restore CPF rates, announcements of bonuses, cash registers ringing away like nobody’s business this Christmas, the energy of good business, invisible money flowing from GIRO’d paychecks to signatures on VISA slips is throbbing. After two years of laying low, saving, spending less, it seems like Singaporeans are ready to burst the banks of frugality, forgetting the ever widening divide between the rich and (poor) middle class.

Today, I was ready to be washed away in this energy – the possibility of the good times starting to roll again. I went to check out NTUC Xtra.

First I visited the old NTUC Fairprice – temporarily constructed while the loathsome monstrosity called Ang Mo Kio Hub was being built – and found her shelves were half empty, a few customers picking up what was available along darkened half lit aisles.

It saddened me because I actually liked the layout of this supermarket. It had an open feel. It was good to have rolled trolleys down the aisles. It wasn’t the perfect supermarket, but I think it’s possibly the best Fairprice layout around. Maybe because it was built specifically to be a supermarket, it could really breathe and be supermarket. Tomorrow, the doors of this outlet close completely.

Goodbye NTUC Fairprice. Hello Fairprice Xtra.

One has to ask. Why Xtra? There’s an Extra hypermart in Malaysia. KL has the UK’s Tesco and some Tesco’s are called Tesco Extra. That’s just one too many extras around even if you drop the ‘E’. I think Fairprice Plus, Fairprice XL, Fairprice XXXL would have been excellent alternatives if you want to go with an all-out-there I’m-big-gotta-scream-I’m-big kind of name.

“Xtra” the way it looks and spells sounds more like something you’d put on a can of petrol. Shell Xtra. Mobil Xtra. SPC Xtra. Plus isn’t any better. Fairprice XXXL (Triple X L) might sound like a smut hypermart. I think Fairprice XL would be suitably large sounding, yet modest.

But I digress, as always.

So I head into the eye sore called Ang Mo Kio Hub. The building isn’t quite ready. Crevices and unfilled caves around the back, unplugged holes in the wall showing pipes that will soon let water slosh through and leave algae marks on the wall. I enter by the side and walk downstairs into B1 past an elderly lady struggling slowly. Why there’s no escalator or wheelchair ramp escapes me.

I walk through a length of boarded up shops. One is already ready for business – Bossini. Already this part of the building reeks of abandonment. Shops tucked in a forgotten corner. Where only those who seek in desperation will bother to come.

Where is the damn atrium and where is Fairprice Xtra? Finally, an unused information counter. This must be the centre of the hub. But I’m still looking at arrows pointing on and on to Fairprice Xtra. In relation to outside, I’ve no idea where I am.

The building seems unprepared for visitors like me. Lifts, not in use. Scratchable doors still wrapped in plastic. The smell of wet cement seems it’s still struggling to set in this monsoon season. The floor, wet here and dry there. Why these patches of moisture?

Finally I see more people. Coming up the travelator with purchases. Big boxes of stuff. Signals the departmental section of this hypermart catching on with people.

The travelator is painfully slow. It seems slower than the one at Carrefour. But maybe I’m already high on cement smell and everything is starting to blur. Enveloped and unreachable.

An alarm is ringing away but no one seems to care. The shutters are half down at Fairprice Xtra but it is open. And there are hundreds of people. It’s only 9am on a Sunday.

I walk in easily but my father, who is taller has to duck to avoid the shutters. The first thing that welcomes you are the men’s shirts. $2.90 a piece. It already feels like a night street market. I see electronics in the distant. Prams piled up high you can see them a mile away. Why can’t women carry babies on their backs like before?

But this whole area is of no interest to me. Not today at least. I want to get some fresh produce. I quickly see that the supermarket side of things is right over on the other side.

On the way there, I am distracted by the wine section. I don’t know how to appreciate wine. But I’d like some for my ribs. And I won’t spend more than $15 a bottle for white wine for my meat because I can’t taste the difference. The wine section seems larger but yet, doesn’t excite me. A little plastic tacky note tells me the temperatures the wines are best kept at. So why are these out in the open? I’m keeping my 15 bucks today.

I move on. Past not so crowded aisles. At the fresh food section, another huge crowd. No one seems much interested in the noodles, chilli sauce and canned foods in between here and the $2.90 shirts, electronics and prams. But here, here is where the real crowd is. Fresh food.

The new Fairprice Xtra now has a real beef and lamb section. But it’s filled with vacuum packed stuff. Yuck. Some distance away, the thawed beef section, now stuck with halal stickers and placed where the Muslims get their meat. At least there’s a beef section now. In the former premises, beef was only sometimes stocked.

There’s fresh organic mushroom placed in baskets. $18 / kg, don’t think anyone will touch them. The fresh mushroom section has grown, but I think there’s a better selection at Sheng Siong in Serangoon North. Brown enoki, white enoki, short white enoki, lingzhi, oysters, some with huge trunks and small tops I don’t know the names of.

There’s more deli stuff – hams, sausages, but they all look rather plasticky. I think it’s the glass fridges. They’re too high. Check out Carrefour, Cold Storage. We like to look down on our hams, bacon slices, olives and olive oil soaked dried tomatoes. Not that there are any olives or dried tomatoes here.

The floor is stained and blackened already. A floor not quite dry overwhelmed by dirty soles.

This is new, yet not fresh, not refreshing.

I move disembodied and unengaged through this area. This is not me. Such a disconnect with food is strange and I want to feel something for this place, but I feel nothing. Maybe it’s the newness. Maybe it’s the crowd. Honey pineapples are 40 cents a piece. They were $1 for three at Sheng Siong a few days ago. Minced pork is $8.40 a kg. Pricey. We leave with NTUC branded eggs and a $2.85 Dole pineapple from the Philippines.

I live in this area. I will be back. To give it another chance. Or maybe I’ll just get used to it. And it’ll seem normal.

My father and I take the travelators all the way out this time and find ourselves in front of this unimaginative building, plonked in the heart of Ang Mo Kio with absolutely no regard for the look and feel of the surroundings. This is the vibe this building is giving me. That has neither heart nor soul. It makes me want to scream at these forms streaming in and out. Who are supposed to be people. But maybe they’re just robots. Maybe we all are.

We head on a few meters away to Shop ‘N Save. Minced pork, my father tells me is the cheapest here. $6.90 a kg. Small, cramped and tired looking. Business is slow. Can it stay the course in the shadow of that behemoth? I hope so. Because although I do not know the name of the cashiers I recognise them. They don’t recognise me, for I don’t shop here frequently enough. But they know the customer in front of me and share a joke in Chinese.

There’s also one thing that Fairprice Xtra doesn’t have. A fresh pork counter.

There’s nothing like talking to the man who cuts your meat. Between my broken Chinese and his broken English, we’ve talked about cuts of pork. He’s always saying prime rib is the best for grilling, but I’m certain it’s not. There’s always this dry rough piece of meat right at the top. I think it’s part of the loin. I’m not sure. But it’s too lean. I want him to cut it off, but he doesn’t get me. Our Chinese/English terms don’t match. We rarely understand each other. But we connect in our love for pork.

I sometimes just stand and look at the pork on display while my father does the actual shopping. He doesn’t bother me. He knows I’m imagining the possibilities with these hunks of meat.

We drive on to Sheng Siong. Just a street or two away. It’s always cramped here. Filled 110% with goods to sell, 1.8% aisle space to squeeze in between. The cashiers here know every price off the top of their head. They still do it the old way. Using brain cells. Not bar codes. (Okay, some of it is in bar codes.) These old aunties would beat me at any memory game.

When training new cashiers, the older more experienced one packs. The new cashiers sometimes trip over prices and the experienced one, now packing the groceries will call out the price if the newbie’s fingers hover unsure over the numeric keypad for longer than necessary. They’ve got to move people here and they move ’em fast.

Candidates from The Apprentice should make a visit here. They know collecting money fast is good business sense. Impatient customers stuck in a long line are not.

I don’t think their handling procedures are always top notch (no proof, just a feeling) and think hard about buying fresh fish from Sheng Siong, but hey, they care for their customer. Where else can you still see signs like these?

Just look at that. Becarefu. One word. Two exclammation points. Three underlines. That’s heart. That’s soul.