I am truly Malaysian

If i were to describe us Malaysians in a sentence, it would be this:

"We Live to Eat"

We have foody places all over. Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, KL! We open conversations with "Eh, that hokkien mee place opposite GH.....damn good loh!"

And we go by the adegan:

A Singaporean not eating in Malaysia= STUPID

A Malaysian eating in Singapore = also STUPID

*no offence singaporeans*

*and i mean Malaysians and Singaporeans WILLINGLY eating or not eating, I on the other hand need to live, as it is i have the ability to replace skeletal exhibits in medical schools, hence i eat sing stuff*

So, you happen to not be totally convinced. That food=malaysian. That we are in fact synonymous with good asian food. Read further:

What happened on Sunday (10/8/08)

My folks were getting pretty lonely down in KL. Dad especially was going bonkers with the total abscence of any males around the house (even the dog is female). No one to discuss football or science of philosophy with anymore. I can understand.

So they drove down to Sing for the day and the initial plan was:

1) Drive down.
2) Pick me up from NTU
3) Drive to NUS to see bro.
4) Check out the float bro engineered for his hall for a parade on campus
5) Lunch in Sing
6) Dinner in Sing
7) They leave in the evening


But the adegan above plus the fact that we happent to be foodies, it kind of resulted in this:

1) Drive down.
2) Pick me up from NTU
3) Drive to NUS to see bro.
4) Check out the float bro engineered for his hall for a parade on campus
5) Lunch in Sing
6) Dinner in Sing Melaka
7) They leave in the evening We get on a bus from Melaka back to Sing.

Which quickly became:

1) Drive down.
2) Pick me up from NTU
3) Drive to NUS to see bro.
4) Check out the float bro engineered for his hall for a parade on campus
5) Lunch in Sing
6) Dinner in Sing Melaka
7) They leave in the evening We get on a bus from Melaka back to Sing No bus to Sing after 8pm.Take cab.


I'm tired of reposting the damn list, so this is what happened THEN:

We got a cabbie to take us to Sing and we agreed to fork out a said amount for bro and me and one more passenger. We were supposed to leave by 10.30pm in this car:

except that ours was yellow and had a cab sign on its roof.

Turned out, the third passenger FORFEITED (for lack of a better term), and the fella upped the price to RM250 for a trip. Being Malaysian, we walked away (after bargaining of course..and failing).

A detour here about food:

The reason we did not bother dining in Sing was that there is this really awesome Chinese Teo Chew place in Melaka which uncle discovered 18 years ago and we have been coming to that place at least once a year.

The food is out of this world ( I have blogged about it before in one of my earliest posts btw). And us being Malaysian, we do not mind taking trouble to drive from KL to Sing and back to Melaka just for the stuff.

Another Malaysian trait is gonna come in now. Kiasu-ness i'm afraid. Cos you see, the place is extremely popular with KL-ites and Singaporeans and tables are very very limited..you need a damn booking to get in (but cos the Tao Kay knows dad, its easy for us).

That being said. Its location will not be revealed here. Only is you msn me or call me will i open my beak. Sorry, but when we want to go, i want to get a table. Look on the bright side though, its all in the name of good food. If you're Malaysian, you'd understand.

Moving on, this place has good stuff, that being said, please please, if you go there, DO NOT BE A SMART ASS AND TRY TO GET THE CHEF TO COOK ACCORDING TO YOUR STYLE. Eat what he recommends.

So this is what we had:

Oyster noodles

Deep fried soft shell crab with honey

...also....bittergourd with pork ribs and sweet and sour chicken and steamed Pomfret

Okay, the best items to get if its your first time here are the oyster noodles, frogs legs and the soft shell crab. The chicken was normal though , but i loved the pork and the fish.

And, if you happen to be an alcoholic ;) , do try to 10 plus year old bottles of scotch lying about:

10 plus year old stuff.

I have no idea how old these are. Its dusty and only one bottle has been opened, and its only 3/4 drunk. Am guessing its rocket fuel in there, which reminds me, US can fuel the moon mission easily enough.

Back to the ridiculous cabbie:

So, we were left with no choice but to drive to Singapore, and it was already 11pm. Cause bro had college the next day you see.

The problem was, it being late, Dad tends to get tired and driving back would be dangerous.

Then mom had an idea.

You know (if you have taken busses before) that express busses stop enroute for toilet breaks and all? Usually at these rest areas along the PLUS highway. So we headed for the Pagoh one , 30mins away from Melaka to find a bus with a few empty seats.......
.
.
.
.
.
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.......and boy were we lucky. There were 2!!! And BOTH were these ultra luxurious ones with Wifi and what not in them. If you travel from Sing often, you would know em.

Odyssey and NICE. Odyssey (never been in one before) is like 60 SGD , but it comes with stuff like WiFi and massage chairs and a lounge below. NICE is the same, minus the WiFi and the massage chair and the lounge below.

Excuse the Redundancy.

So I asked the chaps in the Odyssey while bro went over to NICE. Odyssey was full, NICE had exactly 2 empty seats on it. :P:P:P

Chap asked for 50 bucks each and so we coughed up and hithced a ride.And believe me, it was value for money. We were in Singapore within an hour and it was awfully comfy.

And our folks drove back to KL in 2 hours.

saviour

Have a great week mates!

Matrix