The big and small of it

“No boss, never bluff you one, the cup is so small only”

Naomi and I always order dou­ble espres­sos when we need our cof­fee (except when we’re at Caffe Bevi­amo Tan­glin Mall, because Eleen Cai makes a mean latte), and appar­ently, there are many Sin­ga­pore­ans who send their cof­fees back when they realise a dou­ble espresso isn’t as volu­mi­nous as they expect it to be, given the ‘dou­ble’ and the extra 50 — 80 cents you pay for an extra shot.

This is why staff at Changi Air­port Ter­mi­nal One’s Caffe Ritazza have been instructed to inform cus­tomers who order espres­sos that, “it comes in this small cup, is that ok?”

I can imag­ine their con­cern too, if there were many cus­tomers who would protest at the small­ness of their $4 some­thing cof­fee and demand a refund or an exchange for a jumbo long black.

“Must say, because some cus­tomers not happy”, said Rajoo the barista/cashier/manager, when we asked him if he always informed cus­tomers who order espres­sos. He seemed relieved that we know­ingly ordered our fool­ish lit­tle bev­er­ages in their silly lit­tle cups.

We also almost sug­gested to him that he should put up a sign­board to inform cus­tomers of the size of the espresso cup, but stopped our­selves because, you know, he might just have done that.

Hav­ing said that, Rajoo was a very good sport, agree­ing to pose for a pic­ture because we told him that we would help him edu­cate the pub­lic and save him the trou­ble of inform­ing every espresso orderer.

So, an espresso, dou­ble espresso, mac­chi­ato or dou­ble mac­chi­ato come in this really small cup. Is that ok?

There.

But there are rea­sons to be con­cerned about shrink­ing por­tions, as Naomi and I realised a few days ago when we dined at what used to be one of our fre­quent quick fix din­ner places. Pic­tures in the menu (which I rely on a lot because my Chi­nese, she is the sucks) were grossly mis­lead­ing as we ended up hav­ing a not so sat­is­fy­ing din­ner and hav­ing a fur­ther two late night sup­pers to make up for it.

While I should know bet­ter than to blog about price hikes and how they affect my unborn chil­dren, I think it’s ok to talk about how some altru­is­tic busi­nesses have shoul­dered some of the bur­den by being absorbent citizens:

The Absorbent Nation

But really, the sheer shrink­age of por­tions is get­ting ridiculous:

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