Category Archives: Food

Food

Eat Eat Eat

“What’s for dinner?” you ask me. “How about porridge?” I suggest. “Porridge? That’s so boring.” “Maybe, but we are doing Italian tomorrow. That new place at Pavilion. And that French place on Friday with our makan gang. The girls fly in on Saturday from Taipei, so that’s an entire weekend of eating and eating.” “Oh

Paparazzi

We are at dinner with your colleagues, a sort of post-Chinese-New-Year reunion for one of them who has just returned from Houston with his wife in tow. The first dish arrives – a platter of yin/yang prawns (half cooked in Marmite sauce and the other half in what resembles an oriental Thousand Island dressing) –

The Eighty-Percent-ionist

We are driving to dinner when you tell me you are thinking about tweaking your pictures again. Aren’t the pictures already up? I ask. You say yes, you posted them up this morning. But the picture of the pork belly soup, the soup spoon needs to be a little bit brighter, you say. And the

The Boy at the Pavilion

Another rainy day, another traffic jam. Life on the roads of Kuala Lumpur. I drive into the underground parking area of the mall, the usual turns, the usual row of parking bays. Three sets of escalators and I join the afternoon crowds. A couple of hours before the end of the working day. I head

The Boy at the Pâtisserie

The sun bears down on me. It’s a rather hot afternoon. I enter the pâtisserie again and ask if I may have the table inside instead. Air-conditioning, always a boon given our weather. Of course, you say, smiling, please do. There are no other customers right now, so we start chatting. It’s the polite thing

Abalone and Mushrooms

We brave the crowds. Last minute shopping for Chinese New Year. An entire box of premium mandarin oranges. Rows of assorted canned mollusc flesh – limpets, clams and abalone. I consider a multi-coloured package of ready-to-go yee sang but you shake your head. Fresh only, you say. I nod in agreement though secretly I wonder

Pineapple Tarts

It’s almost Chinese New Year, you say. We haven’t bought anything. We’ve got time, I say, no rush. It’s at least two, three weeks away. Right? You consider this. I see you doing mental calculations in your head, something I’ve never been really good at. No, you say, we don’t have two to three weeks.