Funny Customers 顾客无奇不有

During the more than 10 years helping my father with the wanton noodle stall, I came across a number of funny, sometimes nasty customers. Here are some of them:
i) He brought his own groundnut oil, and rice wine, to mix with his noodles.

ii) She came with a bottle of thick black soya sauce. She said our sauce was too light

iii) One of my regular customers was my Remove Class form teacher Mr Foo BC. He normally came around 7.30 to 8.00pm. His favourite is 'kon lo mi' with boiled spring onion. I had never asked him why he did not take our tasty roasted meat.



iv) If there are many customers coming at the same time, my father would usually cook 5 bundles of noodles at one go. This man said he wanted his noodle to be cooked singly, and he could not wait.

v) One customer came and asked for a small bowl, went 2 stalls away and came back with half bowl of sugar to mix with his noodle.

vi) This lady came to our stall, picked up a few bundle of raw noodle in her hand, then handed one of them to us. She picked the biggest bundle.



vii) A lady ordered 20 bundles of noodle to be nicely packed for her home party. She then coolly asked for 1 day credit. She came back only 1 week later

viii) It was raining cats and dogs. This man came in an umbrella. While taking out his wallet, he accidentally tilted his umbrella and wetted all the raw noodle in front of him

ix) We served customer a small bowl of soup. This man asked for 5 free refills.



x) This man was not funny, he was disgusting. He threw our stool away, cursed and went off, simply because he was served late by 15 min.

xi)This man was worse. He chose a table far away from us. After eating, he sneaked away without paying. It was not the practice then for customer to pay immediately when food was served.



xii)This woman brought along shredded ginger. She asked for it to be mixed into the oil and soya sauce

xiii)We placed red, cut chilly in an earthenware on each table so customers could help themselves. This chilly king would finish half of what's in the container each time he had his noodle.

xiv)This lady was a different chilly queen. She brought her own bottle of chilly plus ginger sauce. I had tasted her sauce, really hot

xv) He came just after our stall was opened for business and ordered a bowl of noodle worth 30 sen. He took out a RM100 note. We didn't have the change and asked him to pay us the next time. We never saw him again.

xvi) This young girl was more honest. She had only RM10 note and we had no change. So she went home and asked her mother to come straight away to pay us the 30 sen



xvii) This man would always tell me not to hold the soup bowl with my 5 fingers on the rim of the bowl. He said my palm will be passing electricity to his soup.

xviii) One customer said our roasted meat was cut too thin, so he cut for his own plate of noodle. And, he chose the ends, which were a bit charred but more tasty.

xix) Apart from oil and light soya sauce, we also added a watery sauce made with corn flour and green peas. This man would want his whole plate of noodle to be inundated with this sauce, and he wld clean up everything on his plate, as if the sauce was a soup.



xx) This old man would gulp down his noddle without chewing, We made it easy for him by cutting the noddle four times.

xxi) This woman tried cooking her noodle. When she threw the noodle up after getting it out of the boiling water, her scoop missed the noodle and it landed on the floor.

xxii) We keep 2 or 3 bundles of raw noodle over-night in the deep freezer as some customers asked for it. They said it's more spongy



xxiii) One guy came and ordered for his workers 20 packets of noodle as reward for overtime work. He asked for discount. We didn't give and he went to the other stall for something else. That stall owner later mentioned about the discount request to us, but the customer didn't get his wish.

xxiv) My father initially used charcoal for boiling noodle, When we switched to kerosene, a few customers grumbled that our noodle tasted different. My father thought it was just customers' perception. We did not notice anything different in taste before and after.

xxv) A group of 15 people came to order 1 1/2 plates each at around 11.40 pm. After finishing, somebody opened a box of cake and started to plant 18 candles over it. Then they all started to sing "Happy Birthday" when they heard the mid-night news over the radio. It was a girl's birthday party.

xxvi) We used only ceramic plates and bowls. However, they might chip a little at the edges over time. One gentleman always chose his perfect bowl. He reckoned that cracks and chips might contain germs.

xxvii) For washing plates, my father had a very cheap and effective way of removing the oily residue. He would take out a few mugs of boiling hot water to mix with the wash. Because the hot water contains starch from the noodles, the plates are easily cleaned. However, one customer was not happy seeing the slightly ember color of the water for washing and thought it was dirty. He did not see the second part of cleaning with clear tap water. I reckon my father's method was more eco-friendly than using soap powder.

xxviii) We put bamboo chopsticks on each table so customers can help themselves. Before ordering, this particular customer would take out a pair of them and placed it over the edge of fire to make it super hot. He said it was to kill any germ on it.



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