‘The puff is online’: Netizens ridicule complaint about green dots on Old Chang Kee curry puffs

A woman who was blissfully unaware about the existence and significance of coloured dots on curry puffs thought they were blemishes and felt the need to air her grievances online. 

The internet, astonished that a Singaporean isn’t familiar with the practice, came out in droves to educate her in various shades and tones of snark. 

The woman took to the Facebook page of homegrown curry puff chain Old Chang Kee on Tuesday (Oct 27) to complain about an outlet at VivoCity.

Apparently, she had bought Chicken Mushroom’O curry puffs (now revamped with butter pastry) but was hesitant to bite into them. Why? Because the meaty pies had green dots on the crusts. 

“Got a shock to see these green little dots on the pie. Not sure what are them and if they are spoilt [sic]?” she questioned, stating that she didn’t see the markings on similar puffs she bought from another outlet the day before. As such, she felt that Old Chang Kee Singapore did not deserve her recommendation. 

For the majority of Singaporeans who have long known what coloured dots signify on curry puffs, her complaint would seem like ludicrous. The dots are actually just food colouring and is meant to indicate the filling within the pastries without having to break them apart to see which is which. The same thing is done on paus. 

Green dots mean that it’s a chicken-and-mushroom puff; red dots indicate that its a sardine puff; no dots denote that its a standard potato-filled puff. The dotted indicators vary in usage and meaning between shops though — Malay vendors selling traditional curry puffs could use green dots to signify that there’s vegetable filling within, for example. But the bottom line is that those dots don’t affect the edibility of the puff. 

Kindly enough, Old Chang Kee explained to the complainant what the green dot means. 

And then the floodgates opened. With over a thousand shares and hundreds of comments on the post, netizens had a field day mocking and lampooning the complaint about curry puff dots. It was brutal. 

Then there’re those who really amped up the absurdity in 'explaining' what the green dots are. 

ilyas@asiaone.com