Ah Boon will turn in his grave

Same ole chicken, but what the heck is up with the potato chips?!

I went to BTK chicken rice tonight, and boy was I in for a surprise.

They re-did the entire fricking place. It wasn't so much the obvious in-store changes that surprised (and disappointed) me. They screwed with the essence of the BTK brand: the chicken.

I don't get it. What's wrong with serving your chicken the same way you have been the last 15-20 years? Why do you need to put it on a fancy platter (which elevated the chicken 3cm off the table) and put POTATO CHIPS on it?!?!

CHICKEN VERY LONELY AH??

The strongest thing going for BTK is it's heritage. Along with Loy Kee and Johnson Lock Duck (which, coincidentally is located next to the bt timah outlet we went to), BTK must be one of the most recognised and loved truly Singaporean food brands around.

The tables now sport gaudy (in my humble opinion) pseudo-leather table-cloths with gold trim. Service staff are dressed in spiffy all-white uniforms. Cutlery is encased in a pain-stakingly creased piece of paper made to look like banana leaf.

It.doesn't.work.

Ok, so their style of shaping their rice like a pyramid,

Like so.

so, so only lah. Nothing special

Has helped to differentiate the BTK brand, but really, Singaporeans are better than cheap tricks like these. Or so I thought. The queue that built up in the 1/2 hour we were there was quite impressive.

Bah.

Oh, right. One more thing. Because Nawaar said the Godiva chocolixir was "better than..." I thought I should try it, especially on the back of having Starbuck's signature hot chocolate yesterday.

So, it was with a view of comparing the two that I parted ways with $8 to the grumpy girl over the godiva counter.

I was presented with...

(the middle one, Dark Chocolate)

Chey.

Eh, nawaar, go and drink the Starbucks one lah. No fight.

(Cheaper also)

Anyways, Vivocity rocked! so big, I like.

Hot chocolate the way it should be done

Woah, the new Starbucks hot chocolate is every bit as good as it says it is. Each sip feels go damned decadent it's good.

You see those fake-looking peaks of whipped cream?

Well, they really look like that. They don't use the regular strawberry face whipped cream even. It's some special one that comes out really firm and cold. I kinda like it.

But the star really is the hot chocolate. I realise I've used the word really three times now, but I really don't care.

Each sip of the chocolatey brew deserves its own moment. I guess that's how I ended up taking about three-quarters of an hour to get through a cup of chocolate.

The thing that really hits you about each sip is how incredibly (which, really, is just really-really) gao(3) the drink is. It's like half and half of a melted chocolate bar and cream. And, and, if you close your eyes while drinking this, I swear you'll see Charlie of Charlie and the chocolate factory fame.

There was this scene in the book (I never saw the film) where he dips his mug into the chocolate river and describes how the warmth spread to every end of his body. Now we can all be Charlie.

Hurrah!

and Hurray for Starbucks for bringing a piece of heaven into my tummy today.

p.s. it goes really well with a book and an afternoon with nothing else to do