watermelons comes in both shapes of round and square....
Have you seen this?
Sunday is groceries day at Jelita Cold Storage and look what I saw! A SQUARE Watermelon and it cost SGD50 bucks! I don't have my camera with me so took a snapshot with my Nokia 7370
Since young we were taught in school, watermelon is round in shape..., hehe maybe we should start revising our school books that watermelons comes in both shapes of round and square.
Hi Azli, you don't believed it? See recent news on 13th June.... more expensive ada lah!
Would you pay $89 for a rock melon?
S'poreans may baulk, but Japanese shoppers at Meidi-Ya Supermarket pay big bucks for taste of home
By Belle Charlene Kwan
June 13, 2006
ONE watermelon, five peaches and a bunch of grapes together usually won't cost you more than $20.
Cooking school culinary director Jernine Pang shows an Australian rock melon and a Shizuoka musk melon. --HEDy KHOO
But if you buy them from Meidi-Ya Supermarket, in the basement of Liang Court Shopping Centre, they could set you back a cool $450.
Chew on this: A 700g box of Ruby Okuyama grapes costs $199.
Momo peaches are priced at $100 for a box of five.
Then there's the Daihoubi watermelon for a whopping $159.
Your typical 3kg watermelon from Malaysia doesn't cost more than $5.
Some of these fruits come in boxes wrapped in cellophane, all air-flown from Japan.
The supermarket also sells cheaper varieties of these fruits.
For instance, an Australian rock melon costs $7.90.
Less then 2 metres away, a Shizuoka musk melon, a distant relative of the rock melon, is priced at $89.
In spite of their high price tags, these Japanese fruits have no lack of buyers.
Ms Suki Tatsumo, 32, a regular shopper at Meidi-Ya, is one of them. She said the fruits reminded her of home.
Said Ms Tatsumo: 'These fruits give people like me a taste of home.
'And unlike Singaporeans who may find the prices too high, in Japan, we pay almost the same amount for these fruits, so I'm okay with the price.'
In Japan, a Daihoubi watermelon costs around 8,000 yen ($112), she said.
Ms Tatsumo, a Japanese-language teacher, buys Momo peaches and musk melons for her friends and relatives living here during special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries - that's an average of once a month.
'Momo peaches are the best peaches I have tasted. They are so sweet and soft and taste so different from the cheaper ones,' she said.
'You cannot find the sweet taste of musk melons in any other melons.'
Miss Stella Kwok, merchandise manager of the supermarket, attributed the high prices to the Japanese fruit suppliers' tight quality control.
Only the best fruits end up on supermarket shelves here.
Said Miss Kwok, who is in her 50s: 'They are all grown with extreme care and passion by Japanese farmers, and each melon and each grape is nurtured to perfection.
'The farmers make sure that each fruit is perfect before harvesting it. As long as there is a flaw on it, like a small dent or a dark-coloured marking, the fruit will be considered sub-standard and not worth the price.'
According to Miss Kwok, these rejected fruits are then either sold in markets in Japan for much lower prices or even thrown away.
True enough, compared to the Australian rock melon, we could not find a single bump on the musk melon.
Said Miss Kwok: 'The Japanese fruits, especially the Momo peaches, are popular with the Japanese community here. They are commonly used as gifts.'
She added that the supermarket flies in fresh stock twice a week.
'We bring in the fruits according to the particular season in Japan. Now, between June and July, Momo peaches are in their prime. We fly in about 10 boxes each time.'
They have a shelf life of one week, but Miss Kwok said that they are usually sold out by then.
These fruits may look good, but how do they taste?
Ms Jernine Pang, 26, a culinary director of a cooking school at the supermarket, has tasted the musk melon and the Momo peaches.
She said: 'They are more fragrant and are very, very sweet.
'However, I would buy them only as gifts. They are a bit too pricey for me. And like all fruits, they are best eaten fresh. Only then can you really taste how sweet they are.'
LOCAL FANS
It seems some Singaporeans have also taken to these expensive fruits.
Said Ms Zainan Omar, 32, a sales assistant at the supermarket: 'From the way they dress and speak, I could tell that mos
I don't have my camera with me so took a snapshot with my Nokia 7370
They're grown in containers to facilitate more efficient shipping.
