A Cheap And Good Restaurant

Singaporeans just love to queue. In particular, they like to queue before a store opens its doors. I am not talking about the first day of operation of a newly opened store like Ikea Tampines which saw people queueing overnight for the store to open the next day. I am talking about queueing before an established store opens its doors for the day. You see it at Hello Shops:

You see it when they give away free digital cameras:


You also see it at restaurants:


It was the long snaking queue outside this restaurant I saw 2 Saturdays ago which made me vow to try its food some day. When there is a queue at a restaurant, there can only be 2 reasons:

1. The food is good; and

2. The food is cheap.

In the case of Aston Specialties, it is both good and cheap. And since I didn't make a killing from the stock market recently unlike some people, I can only afford cheap food, never mind if it is good or not.

Today, my family arrived at the restaurant at 11.45 am. Its shutters were not opened yet and there were already 3 persons standing ahead of us in the queue. One was an elderly lady aged about 70 who said that she grew old while waiting she had been waiting there since 11.15 am. When the small restaurant finally opened its doors at 12.10 pm, the 10 tables or so within it were filled very quickly. Tea and coffee ($1.20 each) were served quite quickly:


I should mention that there is a 30-cent charge for a glass of 'sky juice' (plain water) but there is no service charge or GST levied at this restaurant. You get to choose 2 side dishes to go with your main course.

The grilled fish ($5.90) was served in 10 mins:

Grilled fish with onion rings and mashed potato

About another 10 mins later, the other 3 main courses were served:

Barbeque chicken with sausages, seasonal vegetables and baked potato

Black pepper chicken with sausages, seasonal vegetables and mashed potato

Black pepper sirloin steak with seasonal vegetables and baked potato

There are plenty of mushroom bits in the mushroom soup ($2.20). It's so tasty that I couldn't resist finishing half the soup before taking a picture:

The mushroom soup came with 2 small pieces of garlic bread

Overall, we found the restaurant's food very good and its prices very reasonable. The most expensive main course we ordered was my sirloin steak ($10.90).

So how about buying me lunch at this restaurant, Jayne? It is near your residence as it is located at 119 East Coast Rd. It is a cheap treat as lunch for our family of 4 only cost us a little over $44, about the price of a meal for one at Cafe De Amigo. I am sure that it won't make a noticeable dent in your share earnings. Maybe you should also invite Chris Sim as well. Don't let us grow old waiting for your treat.