A hungry man is an angry man.

After being denied his order of oyster omelette, a drunken stallholder took his rage out on the the server's cash register with a chopper.

On Wednesday, Ang Khim Eng was jailed for four weeks for pointing a chopper at a fellow stallholder, and hacking his cash machine.

Ang, 47, pleaded guilty to criminal intimidation at Hola coffeeshop at Block 248 Simei Street 5, in the early hours of the morning on June 29 last year.

A district court heard that both Ang and the victim, Mr Wang Keyou, 44, operated food stalls at the 24-hour coffeeshop.

Mr Wang was helping out at a relative's newly opened prawn noodle stall.

At 3.26am that day, Ang, who was drunk, tried to order an oyster omelette from Mr Wang, who told him that they had stopped cooking.

Angry, Ang asked Mr Wang to step out of the stall.

He went to his own stall and returned with a 20cm-long chopper. He shouted at Mr Wang and pointed the chopper at him aggressively, and pushed him on the chest.

Mr Wang pleaded and apologised to Ang, who then used the chopper to hack at the victim's cash machine before returning to his own stall.

Ang's lawyer Chia Kok Seng said his client had returned to the coffeeshop after attending a wake and had been hungry. He had had a long and tiring day and was offended when Mr Wang said words to the effect that they did not open 25 hours a day.

He lost his cool and committed the offence in the heat of the moment, said Mr Chia.

Ang, he said, never intended to hurt the victim, who has accepted his apologies.

They are now friends, and Mr Wang even wrote a letter to the prosecution to say he had forgiven Ang.