I have been meaning to blog for the past few days this week but it slipped my mind to update this blog and I did experience writer's block several times.
Well, on this bright morning, I had decided to get down to this task and inform my readers what have been going on this week. Let's see... *my memory is already going.. argh. And the pharmacist said gingko capsules can boost memory power*
Monday: My colleagues and I had lunch at the Cyberjaya Bus Terminal (henceforth Terminal) which was our regular lunch haunt. There are alot of different Malay food stalls, claiming to have the most delicious food which range from fried rice to mixed rice (aka Chinese economy rice). I always head to my favourite stall which I have been patronising since my university days (my university is a 15 minutes drive there - my friends like coming there despite the awful hot and sweaty atmosphere). The makcik still remembers my face but nowadays, she is the full-time chef so she doesn't man the cashier till anymore, which is a pity because she tends to charge me less for a huge plate of mixed rice (in her words, "alaaa, small boy need to grow big and fat, ya...") Hehe.
Today, another lady took care of the money matters and when I asked how much my plate of food cost, it was RM4. Eh??? Just an fried egg, 3 types of vegetables, rice and no meat - how come it was so expensive? Being a nice-mannered guy that I was, I just paid up and walked back to my table, feeling abit resentful. But maybe times have changed. Vegetables are much more expensive now and certain meats cost more than before. Anyway, I ordered my usual fix of teh ais special from the same uncle (he always keeps a lookout for me whenever I come to this place. Once I arrive with any number of people, he'd frantically wave to me and hook up a large table for us and say "teh ais special, boss?" Haha)
I love being served like this; there's nowhere that I can be assured of such friendly service. Of course, I am a regular patron but I can't explain this unique Malaysian characteristic of any food/drink seller - whoever comes to their stall a few times would be accorded royalty status ie: Booooy! Satu nasi lemak dan telur besar, yar? or Thosai telur bawang planta?? *done with that vigorous Indian head sway* They know my favourite food. Gooooooooood, man.. =)
Dinner was a normal Emperor mee with gravy at the Chinese shop downstairs in my apartment. Usually, the gravy is thick and contains lots of meat and prawns and leafy vegetables. This time, it was a dismal collection of a few leaves and small pieces of meat and one/two prawns. The mee was rather stringy and dry but I wanted to try other types of mee besides my regular type of brown mee (the one in a round shape usually used for pork mee). Rather forgettable.
Tuesday: After training, the girls decided to order lunch from my favourite stall which meant a car-trip there with B and his gf and waiting to get the food. B and his gf bought lunch from the only Chinese stall in this hawker centre and they said the economic rice was ok (I seldom eat from this stall because I found it abit weird-tasting). I decided to have the nasi goreng daging instead of the nasi goreng kampung which the girls ordered. My lunch - the beef was abit tough but the rice was fried with plenty of dark soya sauce and a discernable hint of beef gravy sauce which made up for the disappointing beef. One of the nasi goreng kampung had uncooked clumps of rice and it was rather upsetting for the girl. The rest thought their lunch could be further improved. For the uninitiated, nasi goreng kampung refers to rice fried kampung style which calls for alot of onions, small chilli slices, and an assortment of meat and seafood (usually prawns) as well as plenty of shallots (dried onion bits). It can be a sedap meal if cooked right and unfortunately for the girls, it was not.
As I got back later than usual, thanks to the extremely tardy bus, I ordered the chicken chop rice at the usual place. Apparently, the Malay-speaking servant misheard my order and relayed back to the kitchen that I wanted a chicken chop instead of chicken chop rice. I only realised this when the servant put a huge knife and fork in front of me instead of the small fork and spoon set. I was like...Huh? Can eat chicken chop rice with fork and knife ah? Maybe they were cooking a huge chicken piece. Yummy.
Then the servant deposited a large plate of chicken chop sans rice. CLS warned me it was not one of the cafe's specialities. I reasoned with him that RM8.50 should mean a killer chicken chop. And CLS was proven right. The chicken chop was a misshapen chunk that could rival the size of a baby turkey's wing and of course, looked disgustingly unappealing. The brown sauce which was supposed to be black pepper sauce tasted nothing of the zingy black pepper and reminded me of congealed cough syrup. I love my coleslaw and was naturally delighted to see a small serving of coleslaw. Upon the first 'savouring' of the coleslaw (the sauce was Xerox white which looked good), I spat it out. Aiyoh, where got coleslaw taste like it had been marinated in honey AND vinegar for two weeks! Yikes. The saving grace was the french fries which were rather crunchy. Even the chicken chop in Wong Kok Char Chan Teng in IOI Mall is waaaaaaaaaay better than this.
Wednesday: Our trainer gave us a two hour lunch break! Yay. B wanted to go to Alamanda Mall in Putrajaya City (KL's main government and administrative capital) which was the biggest shopping mall there (For your information, Putrajaya has no other malls so Alamanda can claim itself to be the biggest mall there. Oh right.) to do some shopping so I tagged along. It is a good fifteen to twenty minutes' drive on moderate driving speed from our office and if you are very lousy at geography and directions, I suggest you wait for a driving veteran of Putrajaya and Cyberjaya roads to get you to Alamanda Mall. It is incredibly easy to get lost in Putrajaya if you make a wrong turn (see Saturday's incident). That said, it is rather nice to drive along Putrajaya's roads - you get to see lots of greenery, shimmering lakes and the undoubtedly striking pink Putrajaya Mosque.
Upon arriving there, we made a beeline for the food court as we were very hungry. I dithered over the hot wok stall's menu before choosing a sweet and sour chicken rice set. Now, a little introduction about the indoor Rasa Food court in Alamanda Mall may be useful. It is based on an open-air concept which means a mix of standard food court tables with some rather sturdy wooden tables and chairs ala the kopitiam chairs of long ago besides glass doors on one side and a rather nice layout of various decorative shrub trees in between (imagine a park crossed with a food court la). It has a amazingly high ceiling which has rather big partitions on the very top to allow in lots of sunlight and a few curious birds. I don't know why the brown robins love coming here. Probably the food is nice but I digress. Overall, it is a cool place to eat in if you don't mind the occasional swoop of the tiny bird and weird music playing on the speakers.
Back to my meal. For RM 5.50, I expected a decent-tasting meal and all I got was a pinkish thick sauce which coated one quarter of the rice in the mini-wok and a small portion of fried chicken pieces. I am a gravy lover and like it when my rice/noodles are full of gravy. Inexplicably, there were lots of chopped green peppers and onions, two of my most hated vegetables on my list. It was a bad meal. B's Hokkien mee from the same stall looked much better than mine although he couldn't say how it tasted like because he was suffering from the flu. Augh.
For dinner, it was the same mee that I had on Monday. This time, it tasted much better, probably because of the different chef-on-duty.
Thursday: Another two hour lunch break! Wahoo... The whole gang (my training colleagues) decided to go back to Terminal but we were momentarily confused where to meet up because all the girls went in three other cars while I followed B's car. B tried to call one of the girls where to sit but the call was not picked up so we just made do with a table and he chose to go to the stall next to my favourite stall. He came back with his meal and pronounced it as tastier than my preferred stall. Augh. I made a mental note to try it out next time. For my lunch, I had the Indian banana leaf vegetarian set. It was not totally vegetables and rice; I selected gravy chicken with potatoes and carrots, two servings of different vegetables (long bean and cabbage), a fried egg, pickles, plenty of dhal and curry gravy over my rice and poppadom - it cost RM4.50. The chicken pieces were rather peppery but the sauce was nice; it had that chicken-infused taste which meant the gravy would have been simmered with the chicken meat for a long time. The vegetables were so-so but I adored the pickles. I like it best whenever the pickles for the Indian vegetarian set are tangy and fresh - in this case, the pineapple slices burst into my mouth. Ooomph.
I didn't have much appetite for a large dinner so I went into the other Chinese cafe (SA) in the ground floor of my apartment and requested pork fried rice, one of my favourite dishes there. The cafe had been closed for a short renovation period and I was rather curious to see if anything had changed there. It still looks the same with a spartan layout of plastic chairs and cheap wooden tables but the servants are noticeably absent. Instead, the four kids are the designated waiters. Cute.
There was a US teen drama showing on one of the Astro (similar to Singapore's Cable TV) channels and it was seriously entertaining with lots of fast car actions and the teens outwitting the cops. I recognised one of the main drama leads as the male star of High School Musical. What made it even more enjoyable was the inclusion of subtitles which helped make the drama more appealing to me. =) It's always a pleasant surprise to see subtitles in some of the Astro shows since I cannot hear well and it can be frustrating trying to lip-read the actors/actresses when I know nuts about BM (the choice of language for subtitles in Malaysia).
My dinner was................fabulous. Luscious slices of crispy pork (lots of fat) and pork meat slices mingled with bite-sized long bean chunks and fried egg...the must-have prerequisites for this type of fried rice and I was really pleased with my meal even though it was a huge mound of rice (I did think of eating a portion and packing the rest up but the TV program was so exciting that I just mowed down the rice without thinking). Some people may complain about the saltiness of the rice but it is actually the crispy pork that makes it so sinfully salty. Of course, it is a BAD meal to eat everyday since it is chock full of cholesterol! However, RM 5 seemed well spent especially when I got to watch that US show. It is not everyday that I get to relax and enjoy my dinner on my own (most of the time, I eat with CLS since we are housemates).
Friday: The Terminal as usual for lunch. This time, I decided to try the stall where B got his meal the other day. All the girls actually followed me to try this stall and I selected a fried egg and three types of vegetables (think I had bittergourd, cabbage and carrots/long beans) which cost me RM4. The meal was not bad except that the sauces were not strong-tasting enough. The Indian man remembered my Teh Ais special drink. The rest of my class was intrigued with my drink - I did caution them that it was a very sweet beverage. No wonder my tummy is expanding like an expecting kangaroo.
This is why I had decided to sign up for a one-year gym membership at Fitness First at IOI Mall this evening. Partly to lose my tummy and partly to force myself to exercise because I have been accumulating lots of exercise aids (at last count, a Pilates ball, one 4kg dumbbell, a tummy-roller and plenty of exercise magazines) and never got round to utilising them at the maximum. I know it's going to be an expensive investment but I need to get down to exercising seriously. I had been putting it off for a long time (and even though my uni had a gym, the idea of being a bouncing pregnant bunny pounding on the treadmill in front of google-eyed lunch patrons of the cafe opposite the gym was highly deterrent to my goal of becoming a lithe rat by end of my uni studies). Thankfully, the IOI branch is all walled up so there'd be no passers-by gawking at me although I am fairly sure I'd get freaked out by the other fitter people there. Pressure, pressure.
Had my usual brown mee at the Chinese cafe. Just the same average meal.
Saturday: Followed CLS and WL who would be driving to my former uni (they study graphic design there) to drop their assignments there. I thought it'd be great to see my former lecturers and headed to my faculty where I asked to see one of my favourite lecturers, Puan Anita. When she saw me in the waiting area, her face broke into a huge grin and she enthusiastically shaked my hand and asked how I had been. I brought her up on my latest news and she was genuinely happy that I was in a good company. Then she told me it was actually her last day there and she was in the middle of packing up her stuff. Of course, the faculty would lose one of its brightest stars but I was also happy that she had finally found another place.
Puan Anita had been very instrumental in my university education. She is the Program Leader for my BA in Mass Communications degree and her position allows her to control the quality of teaching/learning. When she got to know about my hearing problem and my utter lack of BM knowledge, she did her best to ensure I could take BM (for international students) and often asked about my progress with this essential LAN subject (without passing this, I cannot get my certificate). When I got an A+ for this module, I was so shocked and Puan Anita could not believe her eyes but her pride was evident in her shiny eyes as I showed her my results. She was also my lecturer for one of the early modules and I enjoyed writing critical essays for this module even though I was facing alot of stress at that time.
If not for her, I wouldn't know where I would be. She wrote a very strong testimonial letter for me which enabled me to cinch my first job as a magazine writer. I have since moved to another company as a subeditor but I will always be grateful for Puan Anita's kindness during my whole university studies. I wish you all the very best, Puan Anita and thank you so much for everything.
I met another friend, Zb and we had lunch at Terminal together with CLS, WL. We all had a fun time making jokes with each other - it was great catching up with all my uni mates! =) Later, we made a wrong turn at Cyberjaya which led to the Putrajaya highway and we were stuck driving onwards until we found an obscure sign (hidden behind some trees - in fact, alot of signs were hidden in this way) and finally made our way to Puchong! It was a scary ride because we did not know our way around in Putrajaya but thank goodness, we found a way out..
Dropped Zb at the IOI busstop and the three of us made our way to IOI Mall to do some shopping. I went into a shopping frenzy because of the Jusco sale and bought gym shorts, socks and other essential items like an ironing board (I have yet to iron my clothes..). We had dinner at Wong Kok Char Chan Teng; WL and CLS had the triple meat sizzling set while I had the Rice in Superior Soup with minced meat and dried oysters. I must say that all the rice soups here are equally delicious - the minced meat was tender and the dried oysters were sizeably large and naturally, the soup tasted fantastic. It did not taste like the typical soup made from stock cubes; it had that real taste of herbal soup flavoured by the soup ingredients of choice ie dried oysters and minced meat. The other soups such as minced pork with winter melon and cuttlefish with minced meat (which CLS tried before) are really good. =)
Got home around 9pm and WL went home while CLS and I went online. Around midnight, we were feeling a bit peckish so we had thosai at the 24-hour Indian cafe downstairs. The thosai was abit wet, not the usual crispy thosai I was used to eating in the morning. Perhaps the duty chef was not very skilful in making the thosai. But it was a filling supper snack and I slept late.
Altogether, a great week!
