Deep in the heart of the warehouse district, near the shipyards, on the west coast near Jurong Bird Park, tucked away on a back street where you are sure it isn't located, there is indeed a warehouse to shop for food. When I first came to the island, I heard about Ben Foods; the great deals they have on meat and that it is a "must go" to place to conserve the budget. Believe me, here in Singapore, we all have to tighten our belts and stretch the buck. Since it is only open from 10am-12pm (2 hours) on Saturday mornings, by the time I remember it, it is usually closed or very close to it. Today I remembered. So off we went.
The taxi driver assured us that by the time we paid for taxi fare to and from the remote place we were headed for 'good deals' that we would have wished we had gone to the store.
"No savings." said he.
Maybe he was right but I was on a mission to prove him wrong.
When he dropped us off, this is what we saw:
We were unimpressed. There had to be something more...
But this seemed to be it... See the people?
We enter. Guards welcomed us and didn't question us, so we must be on the right track. On the left there is a small landing of stairs. At the head of the stairs are shopping baskets (the handheld variety) and the door to go into the building. We were still unimpressed. We arrived 15 minutes early and the doors opened soon after we arrived - definitely before the 10am bell. We grabbed a basket and went in sure we would find a landslide of good deals. It was a *very* small room - not at all what we expected:
The room filled up very quickly. Steve and I both are clausterphobic... so it wasn't pleasant and wandering around, and I found no incredible, breath taking buys. Let me say, however, I don't use hash brown potatoes, or frozen potatoes of any kind, and I don't use chicken nuggets, or fish balls, or clam chowder, fish sticks, frozen sausages, or frozen soups. I don't drink wines, I don't eat that icky brand of yogurt, don't use 5 pound bags of shrimp flavored chips or I don't use 20 lb bags of fragrant rice.
They sold some other odd stuff in there -
I just happened to have my point and shoot in hand... (you can feign surprise here)
So... can you tell me - why do I want to buy this?
After a bit of wandering, Steve and I made eye contact and both of us could read each other's eyes - "let's get the heck out of here". Yes, I was disappointed. That darned taxi driver was right - we just wasted S$45.00 in taxi fares to get here and back. We made our way to the door to put up the baskets.
When we walked out of the room, there were people EVERYWHERE - it looked as if they had come in by the bus loads! They were already lining up in ques (lines) and were paying out.
Steve (the wise man that he is) said, "There has to be something else..." looking around.
A short glance away, he found it.
It was not the door we went into and wasted 15 minutes in -
It was this door:
So we wandered through that door and found this:
Crates and crates of meat! There was a frenzy of people digging in the boxes, packers were packing as fast as they could and putting more meat out and people were tossing huge chunks of meats into their baskets. Curious, Steve and I wandered over - and low and behold, we found some great deals!
What in the heck did we MISS while we were in that dinky room?
Now remember we have the Barbie sized refrigerator and freezer, so we couldn't buy much, but we did buy a basket of food - mainly meats:
I know you see margarine (is that what they call it?) here and a block of butter. I actually only saved about 40 cents on each pack of margarine, but we did darned good on the meats!
So for you Singapore shoppers, here is the breakdown of what we got... Oh, and since all of us have a passport and we all know what size it is, I put my passport next to the meat so you can get an idea of sizes...
Purty smart, huh?
This is what our basket of food contained:
All very nice cuts of meat -
There were pork chops:
Loin thin sliced bacon (it is yummy!)
Very large rib eyes that we had to slice - but the meat was beautiful.
It was not green - the cutting board is though ;-) The meat had excellent color.
Not shabby is it? I took pictures so you could see how pretty all the meat is.
The final food total came to this:
2 racks or pork ribs (26 in all)
40 slices of loin bacon
5 huge pork chops
19 - sliced (3/4"-1") rib-eyes (FYI - New Zealand)
1 small roast with the left over rib eye
5 *very* large filets of dory fish
2 tubs of margarine
1 block of butter
Grocery Bill: S$129.80
Taxi Bill: S$42.74
Total cost: S$172.74
(I know some of you want to know in USD - that total is $138.19)
We figured out the price of just the steaks alone and after cutting, they are about S$3.42 ea
Before the taxi fare of course ;-)
Yeah, we definitely made a deal because if I took the price of the rib-eye only, then added the taxi to it and divided it by the steaks/roast we got, that total would be still under S$5.50 per steak. Definitely not bad.
So if you don't mind this...
...then Ben Food Pte Ltd will definitely save you money, especially on meats - and you might eat a bit nicer; none of this meat is knock off meat. It smells very fresh. We quickly divided it, cut it and stored it in our Barbie freezers. We may have to eat steaks every night for nearly a month, but we are good...
Things to know:
You are not in the wrong place when you see containers and warehouses
They opened earlier than the stated 10am time
The crowds grow very rapidly
They provide plastic bags to bring the food home
They take credit cards and cash
They give receipts
Must find the "other" door first
Meat is generally sold in large quantities
So now you have the unofficial official cajunsis review. It is worth the taxi ride.
Go forth and buy - take a friend and split the taxi fare.
Take your hubby and get lots of rib eyes.
Did I forget anything?
