Dimbulah serves the best coffee in Singapore. On the ground floor of my office, there is one. I often visit because, with staff discount, it seems slightly more ‘affordable’. Just under five dollars. It is still way more expensive than the Spinelli served inside my office building. Between the two, it’s a no-brainer.
Very often, there is a long queue at Dimbulah MBFC, though the queue does move pretty fast. While queuing, most browse their phones. I … I often observe what’s going on behind the counter. One at the cashier taking orders. Two making coffee. One bringing rounds of coffee to the customers at the tables. And one more behind the kitchen counter preparing food.
The other day, as I was observing the staff behind the kitchen counter preparing lettuce. She would take a fresh lettuce out from the wrapper, lay it down on a chopping board, and then take out the core. A rather large piece of core, much larger than what I would have cut out from a lettuce. She would then examine the leaves one by one and toss out the imperfect ones. Only the best leaves would make it to the plastic containers.
No wonder a bowl of salad costs so much in Dimbulah! Quality doesn’t come cheap.
While the staff was going through lettuce by lettuce, discarding cores and leaves, I couldn’t help but think – if I could collect these discarded close-to-perfect leaves from Dimbulah on a daily basis, I could have a free vegetable dish every evening. Oh yes, I would eat that. The leaves did not look old or bad to me at all. Just less than perfect. I may discard a few. But I can eat the rest.
For the cores, I was thinking of my old rabbits back in Hong Kong. Poor rabbits, rest in peace. Had they still alive, I am pretty sure they would be happy eating these large and generous pieces of discarded cores.