When the durian season started last month, we were taken aback by the exorbitant prices. My durian-loving mummy, Grandma W, held back her cravings, and waited around for the prices to drop. While it has dipped a little since the start of this season, it is still pretty pricey compared to how it was back in March this year. So we waited, drooling every time a friend or relative shared a photo of their Mao Shan Wang (MSW) or Musang King durians. Tak boleh tahan (cannot take it) on Monday already, so we finally took her to our one-and-only trusted durian seller to pick out the durians on us.
Ah Hua, our durian guy, texts his customers his prices on a daily basis, sometimes twice in a day when he reduces his prices in the evening. Since it was a Monday, I was expecting him to drop his prices by the evening. Indeed, his lowered prices price list came just after 6pm. He was offering $22 per kg for 10kg of MSW (plus free mangosteens), and considering how everyone else is still buying theirs at close to $30 per kg, I excitedly told my mum that I would take her to pick out her durians that evening. So off we (Grandpa H, Grandma W, Daddy Sean, Mummy Michelle and Baby J) went!
Thick and creamy MSW durians!
Our 10kg stash of MSW durians turned out to be four boxes of what you see in the picture above (greedy ol’ me took one to eat already before remembering to snap a photo). Super thick and creamy with very small seeds!
Anyways, as Ah Hua’s staff opened the durians for us to taste and pack into the styrofoam boxes, he spotted one durian with slightly black seeds (nothing wrong with the flesh, still delicious, just aesthetically less pleasant). So he opened an extra MSW durian and filled up an additional box. This meant we went home with 5 big boxes! Extra yumz! 😋
This pleased Grandma W plenty, and she went home feeling satisfied from our purchase.
It’s not the first time our go-to durian seller has done this for us. In one of the occasions, hubby and I brought home a box of 金凤 Jinfeng durians that didn’t taste good (I was stupid enough to not taste it on the spot, 😅 so from then on, we would always take Grandma W along to do the taste test). I gave a feedback to Ah Hua about the bad batch and he said we could return any time for one full box of durians on the house. A week later, we went back for our ‘replacement durians’. Ah Hua kept his word and filled the box to the brim after opening up a few good Jinfeng durians. That night, Grandma W went home feeling satisfied too. 😜
On another occasion, Ah Hua also gave us an additional box of durians after spotting some less aesthetically-pleasing seeds.
Don’t you just love sincere business owners who work with integrity and only want to please their customers? 🙂
You may check out Hao Chi Durians on the locations and the boss’ (Ah Hua) contact, as well as delivery options. They have 2 branches now; one at Mei Ling Street, the other at Sembawang. The boss now tends to his stall at Sembawang (the newer branch). The one we went to was the Mei Ling Street one. We personally feel that there’s no difference in which branch we go to as his staff will still act according to his boss’ rules about satisfying their customers.
By the way, this is not a sponsored post. I just feel that any durian lover deserves a good durian source, and not get ‘chopped’ by an errant durian seller. And we all know there are many of these around.
Enjoy the rest of the durian season! 🙂