Dear readers, today being Hari Raya Puasa and a public holiday, I decided to get nice meals from an outlet of a popular prata chain for my family via a take-away.
After tucking into the meals at home, my family and I were shocked that the meals we bought were so much fewer in ingredients and flavour than ever before!
And to think that these were from the famous prata chain that has also in recent times increased the prices of its meals by few dollars per dish!
We feel very disappointed and felt very let down from this famous prata chain! We were anticipating nice meals as before from this famous prata chain but not sure why for some reasons or other, the prata chain decided to treat its customers this way.
It could be due to the need to cut costs or the cooks no longer bother to upkeep the high quality of the food.
I have decided to patronise the prata chain next time only when necessary. This is only reasonable as the value I have been paying for high quality of food is no longer there.
In recent days, I have also decided not to patronise a famous Lor Mee stall which has recently increased its $5 meal to $5.50 (10% increase). The very last time when I dined in there, I was served with a plastic bowl! I checked in with the stall assistant and he told me tongue-in-cheek, that this plastic bowl is their “current bowl” (sic).
Already, the high costs of living have left me looking closely at various ways to curb my spending. I am fully aware of the need of some stalls to increase the price of their food in this environment and I can fully accept a certain threshold of increase.
But having received the higher prices from customers who continue to support the stalls for the food despite being charged higher prices, there is no excuse to further undermine the quality of their food via reducing size or ingredients! It is just natural for diners like me, who are hurt by the “betrayal” of trust in the quality of the stalls’ food while still supporting them via the higher prices these stalls charge, to go elsewhere for better food at good prices.