We don’t serve plain water, only the fancy kind

Maybe I can lick the dew off the leaves

OK, the waiter didn’t say that, but it means the same thing. And I’ve blogged about this before.

We were invited to birth­day drinks on Sat­ur­day at 1 Rochester, here­inafter known as 1 Of The Places In Sin­ga­pore That Will Not Serve You A Glass Of Water Gratis.

It is very humid in Sin­ga­pore, and I think it gets worse at night, and I think it should be man­dated that all al-fresco din­ing estab­lish­ments must serve plain water, as it is known in Sin­ga­pore, to din­ers who ask for it.

Not only does 1 Rochester not do that, their wait staff have also not been clearly instructed as to the pol­icy of the man­age­ment. One of their oth­er­wise friendly and patient wait­ers appar­ently tells one of our parched friends that he’ll only get a glass of water gratis if he orders a main course.

So, not only did we order mains, we ordered a cou­ple of fruit sodas as well, and when we asked if we could have a glass of water on the side as well, see­ing as we’ve worked up a bit of sweat try­ing to will a vacant park­ing lot to appear in the car park whose gantry still lifts up when the damn place is full, the waiter says, all sheep­ish like, that he is “sorry but we don’t serve plain water, would you like a bot­tle of San Pel­le­grino instead?”

So we explain that we were told that with an order of main course comes the priv­i­lege of hav­ing a glass of water. The hith­erto friendly and sheep­ish waiter baulks and asks, “which waiter told you that?”, but as soon as he’s said that, prob­a­bly realises that his tone of voice might earn him a rebuke or two, responds in what he prob­a­bly thinks is a con­ces­sion to really unrea­son­able cus­tomers, that, “alright I don’t know who told you that, but since you were told that, I will serve ice-water all round, but nor­mally we don’t serve plain water”.

And so, drinks arrived, and we emp­tied our glasses of fancy sodas and plain water till our hearts’ con­tent and our blad­ders’ capac­ity while wish­ing the birth­day girl many happy returns, and grum­bling about how it should be man­dated that all al-fresco din­ing estab­lish­ments must serve plain water, as it is known in Sin­ga­pore, to din­ers who ask for it, because, come on, tap water doesn’t cost you much per glass.

When my main course was served, it was the wrong order, but you know, fuck it, it’s late and I really didn’t want to be made to feel as if I was the one that made the mistake.

One Rochester
1 Rochester Park
Sin­ga­pore 139212 (map)
Tel: 6773 0070