Real Peasant Food Versus Fake Peasant Food

Despite the fact that I have now been back in Canada for a few months, I still occasionally get those “Wow, I’m home,” moments that sneak up on me and smack me on the back of the head like a sadist in a pillow fight convention. Today was just another quiet day, no surprise considering a) I am incredibly boring, and b) it’s Easter Monday which, in a predominantly Christian country like Canada, means that school kids, banks, government employees and various others are enjoying the last of a four day weekend. A far cry from Singapore where everything grinds to a halt for Chinese New Year, and Good Friday, with its subsequent Easter Sunday is a grudgingly acknowledged blip on the calendar radar because the Asians know the Western world is going to be stuffing its collective face with chocolate anyway and thus no financial or business transactions are really viable.

So today was laundry day and a few other minor errands in the neighborhood, which meant that since the bulk of our clothing was going to be sloshing around in the nearby laundromat (yep, we actually drag our stuff to laundromat now, the first time in my life that a laundry machine has not been in the house) we could afford to take it easy and so decided to stop in a little place we’ve frequented before.

The place, as you can see from the picture, has the very comradely name of “People’s Foods Hamburgers” and like a few places back in the ol’ home town of Edmonton, this is an honest to goodness, 100% completely authentic, utterly functional and completely unpretentious DINER.

You walk in and you see booths. You see a long dining “bar” with stools set up. Hell, you see regulars who come in as the cooks and waitresses say “Afternoon, hon, cup o’ joe before you start on your lunch?” and the regulars barely acknowledge this greeting since it’s the same ritual one they’ve been getting for years. The place has been in the neighborhood FOREVER, and it’s the kind of diner that grandfathers and fathers have been taking their kids to, who in turn, carry on the vicious cycle of keeping this nifty little “greasy dive” alive in a world of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks coffee. I’m convinced that the coffee urns in this joint are older than I am. The only concession to the 21st century the diner has is an Automated Teller Machine stuffed away in hall to the bathrooms because the place refuses to deal in anything but cash.

Eating in there while the Wife happily sketched away at the diners, the staff and the funky old 50′s milkshake machine tucked away on the counter, I couldn’t help but remember the almost psychotic giggling fit I had the first time I arrived at the place pictured left. An Australian guy I knew had invited me to get a burger with him at a some restaurant on the upper floors of a shopping mall called “Billy Bombers,” a space that was supposed to recreate the authentic 50′s diner experience.

Okay, so said Australian guy was, after all, Australian and thus had probably never been to an actual diner in either America or Canada, and maybe he even thought that me eating at a place like this would somehow make me feel more at home, but MAAAAAAAAAAAAN…

Walking in, I think, for the first time in my life, I finally understood what it must have been like for a Chinese or Japanese national to walk into a North American version of a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. There was a thick, palpable sheen of “chintz” so viscous it practically clung to your skin like the humidity outside. Seeing disinterested Chinese kids dressed up as 50′s waiters with a sullen look on their face that screamed “God this job is so beneath me” was almost as hilarious as the great pains the decor took to be as authentically American as possible, complete with plastic figurines of various presidents scattered around, and a menu filled with cheap imitation renderings of Vargas girls. It should also be noted that they had what looked like imitation Seeburg Stereo Consolettes set up at each table, but these were largely for atmosphere it seemed; I could never get the damn thing to actually take my money and play music on the jukebox, assuming there even WAS a jukebox anywhere.

People’s Foods Hamburgers however, do have authentic Seeburg Stereo Consolettes like the one pictured on the left, and they still work for only a quarter. In addition, when the waitress (a gruff, friendly gal that still chews her gum) takes your order, she DOES NOT blink in confusion when you ask for “a hamburger but hold the onions.” Or, she will actually ASK you if “you want everything on it,” as opposed to being completely baffled when you utter the phrase and ask to have it repeated several times, then slower, and then finally breaking it down to “I would like all the fixings, that is the ketchup, the mustard, the pickles, the onions, tomatoes and lettuce.”

I am also extremely happy about the fact that when you order a burger here, they do not fry an egg and put that on your order, something that still strikes me as profoundly bizarre, but for some reason, Singaporeans seem absolutely convinced that authentic American diners and patrons ate this.

However, probably the best part about eating at People’s Foods Hamburgers, aside from some real authentic diner ambiance is the fact that prices are also authentically diner. The Wife and I can easily have a hefty meal of massive amounts of food for less than $15. The average meal for two at “Billy Bombers” in Singapore will probably run between $40-$50 in local currency. I’m still amazed when I stop and think about that. These people are shelling out half-a-hundred bucks between the two of them, just so that they can feel like they’re “really in America” and, for an additional cost, get their name carved on a steel plate on the table, just like the greasers in America would carve their name with a switchblade or jack-knife!

Man. Singapore is just starting to seem more and more like this surreal dream I had for ten years…