SINGAPORE: With the price of everything in Singapore gone up quite a bit, it should not be surprising to hear netizens wax nostalgic about the good old days when prices, especially of food, were much lower.
When a local TikTok user posted a montage of photos from way back when four pieces of otah cost only S$1 at the old Sheng Siong Woodlands Centre, it went viral.
“6A Woodlands Centre Road Sheng Siong (Woodlands Centre) Singapore Best price in Otak smell good, $1 will get you 4 sticks of Otak Otak. Next to the supermarket was Arnold Restaurant,” the post author, 毒霸天下, wrote in a comment.
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The old Woodlands Town Centre closed down in November 2017.
The pictures at the start show staff preparing the popular snack food, also known as otak or otak-otak, made up of fish, onions, coconut milk, and spices, bound together with egg and then grilled in its banana leaf covering.
The queue of people waiting to buy otah snaked all the way up a stairway.
The video caused commenters to reminisce and say they missed the place, and the post author wrote that even the smell of otah was yummy.
Many TikTok users wrote that they “really missed the old days” and thanked the post author for sharing.
He also commented that back in the day, after visiting Johor Bahru, they would go to Sheng Siong to buy otah.
Others missed the different shops in the building, and one sighed that they were now part of “history already.”
Indeed, otah has gotten a lot more pricey, and one commenter wrote that a coffee shop near their place is selling five pieces for S$3.
“Wow so expensive,” wrote the post author.
A quick check online shows that otah can even cost as much as S$.90 per piece.
A commenter on Facebook recalled that in the late ’90s, when Sheng Siong opened a store in Little India, S$1 could buy you seven pieces of otah.
When photos from 毒霸天下’s TikTok post were shared on the Heritage SG Memories group page earlier this week, commenters also shared their fond memories.
“I remember buying one whole basket of the otah for family BBQ on the East Coast back then,” wrote one.
Another called the Sheng Siong is the best one in Singapore because it is “so easy to get everything in one go … loved the ambience.”
One woman called it the best place to go shopping for Chinese New Year with her mother. /TISG