Nothing to shout about…

I was out with Melissa one evening when she was home for the holidays and we went browsing around the supermarket in the basement of the shopping mall near my house. They have one whole section selling products from Singapore including these…

…that I bought at over RM4.00 each. My friend bought some, over SIN$1.00 only in the island republic, and fried some mihun for her family at home and they were all praising it to the skies so I thought I’d like to give it a try.

Unfortunately, unlike her, I did not have any prawns and all I had to add to mine were some sliced tau kua (bean curd cake) and taugeh (bean sprouts) and egg,..and in my attempt to mix the paste thoroughly with everything, the mihun ended up all “broken” into tiny bits like this…

I did not think it tasted all that great – in fact, my own tom yam mihun would be a whole lot nicer but then again, I had prawns, sotong (squids) and a whole lot of other ingredients in the one that I cooked so it wouldn’t be all that fair to make a comparison. There can be no dispute, however, over the fact that it would be cheaper to use our own local products for this same purpose…or we can always cook the mihun in some other ways such as this…or this and it can be just as nice or perhaps even nicer.

Anyway, getting back to that supermarket, they have another whole section selling all the imported stuff such as SPAM and that is a lot cheaper there – only RM10.90 a can, any variety, as compared to over RM15.00 each at that other place in town. That is even cheaper than in New Zealand – I converted the prices there and found that they worked out to around RM13-14.00, definitely not as cheap as the ones at this place. My friend in Auckland said that is why they would wait till a sale and they would stock up with as much as they can grab – such things would be a whole lot cheaper then.

I was just looking around and did not intend to buy anything until I saw these…

Some of you may recall that I absolutely love those Marks & Spencer’s All Butter Viennese cookies and at RM8.99 a box, I thought that wasn’t as expensive as the Scottish shortbread from that same company…

…so I just had to grab one to give it a try.

Good grief!!! There were only SIX inside…

…and that would work out to over RM1.00 each! OUCHHHHHH!!!!!

And to add insult to injury, they did not taste anything like those Marks & Spencer’s ones…and one would be a whole lot better off buying their Scottish shortbread instead. These tasted like any ordinary cookies and if they had any extra butter fragrance, it was all drowned out by the strong orange essence. Ok, they’re quite all right, edible like all other biscuits imported or otherwise…but at that price, each bite would be something like a needle pricking into your heart! Real sakit hati lah! LOL!!!

Ah well! I guess we would not know unless we try, right? So now I know…