Yay or Neigh?

Horsing around in the Singapore Media

Some Singaporean wit to start the day.  I am grateful to a friend for sending it to me.  It also reminds me that we often dined at IKEA in Alexandra Road.

IKEA had to recall its meatballs and other products as the'beef' turned out to contain horse meat as well.  To top it off, some of their cakes in Europe were found to have been contaminated by faecal matter -  not a good look.

Addressing the situation in true marketing style they have now re-introduced their meatballs to the Singapore menu at ten cents a piece.  I wonder what discount you can get on the cakes?

Stop Press:  IKEA has set a record in Singapore when it resumed selling its signature meatballs here, it said Saturday.
The furniture chain said it sold 249,375 meatballs in a single day on Friday, which is believed to be the Singapore record for largest number of meatballs cooked and sold in a day.
The 249,375 meatballs are estimated to weigh four tons in total.

Related articles

• IKEA elegantly returns meatballs to our dining tables, at 10cents a piece today!
• Just Say Neigh: Why Some People Are Disgusted by Horsemeat
• IKEA meatballs return with a record in Singapore

Bottle Blonds and Kim Chi

The nearest I've got to Asia this past fortnight is through the copious consumption of instant noodles; a poor substitute I would readily agree.

We have been buying these pots at various locations and each brings back a memory.  Today's lunch will have kim chi noodles as a base with some added vegetables and fresh ham.  They remind me of the brief but very pleasant trip I made to Seoul a few months ago.

The weather there was brisk as it is now in Auckland at time of writing.

I found the streets of Seoul  to be clean and the city a bustling hub of earnest Koreans going about their business.

Our local supermarket is also bustling and pinched-faced retirees spend their pension money on the tantalising specials.

"Die Frau" served us again today.  She is a checkout operator who stands out from the crowd with her ample proportions overflowing the seat beside the till.

I confess that I have not yet got used to the bovine action of her jaw as she nonchalantly chews a large wad of gum, pausing briefly to to dab her finder into the sponge finger bowl as she counts out the change.

The Germanic appearance is largely due to bottle blond locks that are platted of either side of her parting. A brown centre streak breaks the peroxide monotony.

The visible body piercings and tattoos suggests that, as with icebergs, there is more below the waterline than visible above it. A collection of white plastic and faux silver jewellery dangles from her ears and neck but it is her movements that fascinates the most.

She displays the motive delicacy of a bull elephant in musk, casting produce from the counter into the shopping trolley with reckless abandon.

Not that she is unfriendly, far from it. 

After we have completed our payment the parting greeting of "You's have a great doy" rings in our ears as we head for the car.

Hot Diggety Dog

Just when you thought the age of mass consumerism had peeked, along comes a product that is so profoundly useless it almost defies definition.

Introducing the Ocotdog Frankfurter Converter (I kid you not!).

This mindless piece of plastic converts a perfectly good frankfurter sausage into something grey with splayed 'legs' that straddles your plate.

I marvel at man's ingenuity; imagine the hours of design process that went into this marvel of creativity.

It is apparently is not a new device, so there must be a factory in China still churning them out.

As an aside, I also learnt that hot dogs are identified as a health problem for young children by John Hopkins University. Evidently they choke on them. Imagine what they will do with the Octodog.

Whole design departments address the American fixation with this humble weiner as the Hot Dog Redesign Exploration (below) bears testament,

Why would anyone in their right mind want to eat something that looked like this?

Franfurter sausage buns are popular in Singapore although most a made with chicken sausages to meet halal standards and appeal to the Malay market.

If you want to sample good sausages at a reasonable price in Singapore, try Marche's restaurant in the 313@Somerset mall in Orchard Road.

One final word about useless contraptions that are associated with 'bangers'.  Try the iPhone Sausage Stylus.

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• Behold the Octodog! (wired.com)
• In The Doghouse: Frankfurter Danger To Kids (news.sky.com)