Ernst in Singapore

Sometimes when my wife is out of town I don't feel like cooking I pick up sushi from the closest supermarket to our apartment, Carrefour.

In the evenings Carrefour staffs a "sale" counter for Sushi at the front of the store trying to unload the unsold inventory from the day.



I always wondered what the grocery stores in the US did with the unsold sushi at the end of the day as it loses freshness very quickly. My record is 3-day old sushi in the fridge and the taste/quality was definitely not suitable for human consumption.

The annoying/fun (depending how you feel about bargaining) part is that there is no set price/offer - it is whatever the sushi counter person dreams up. Sure there are some slight discounts posted up-top - but those are only for the expat chumps willing to pay sticker price.

The woman that works some weeknights & I now recognize each other and each of us know that there will be a winner & a loser in the transaction. She will never quote me the same deal twice, and does her best to shaft me while smiling and being sickly polite.

Tuesday night I stopped by around 8:30pm and picked up 2 6-piece sets with a retail value of around S$16. She offered me a special discount of S$2/pack - I demanded a 2-for-S$10 deal that I had been given weeks prior. She made a fuss about how that kind of discount was impossible, she would lose money personally, etc. I told her I'd be back after I finished my other shopping - let her stew in her increasing desperation to offload the sushi. I returned a little before 9:00pm and re-iterated my terms. 2-for-S$10 - she countered with 2-for-S$12 but in the end I prevailed when I told her I could get a footlong sub at Subway next-door for only S$10. Victory was mine.

I returned again the following night and she was still licking her wounds. I grabbed 2 packs of sushi and gave her my "cut the bullshit I know your best price" look and she smiled and said 2-for-S$10 no problem.

That put me on guard - she caved far too quickly and was still smiling.

I fumbled around looking at other Sushi sets and overheard her offer to another customer "S$3 off list price".

Then it was my turn to pay and she was grinning ear-to-ear ready to collect my S$10 - "Sir just like yesterday I give you 2-for-S$10" - the initial sushi packages I picked up didn't have a price tag but I was able swap them for equivalent packages with price tags and the combined list price was S$9.70.

Vindictive little bitch was trying her hardest to close the deal quickly and hoping she'd get the best of me. This is what sucks about buying things in Singapore - frequently the other side of the transaction isn't satisfied with just selling you something, they also do their best to screw you over and seem to take pleasure in it.

Then I turned the tables on her. "I heard you offer S$3 off list price to another client - so I'll take that instead". The "blackface" look I got was priceless - she gritted her teeth, silently cursed me and accepted my S$6.70.

I win again.

I don't like shopping under normal circumstances and I absolutely despise being a "mark" for some charlatan - whether they are selling shawls in Dubai or sushi in Singapore. If the store posts reasonable prices I will happily pay for them - but 3.5 years in Asia has turned me into quite the asshole when it comes to bargaining.

Last-minute sushi buying in Singaporean Grocery Stores - buyer beware.