Quirky quotes and char kuey tiao

Honeymoon package promotion. Maximum 2 persons.

How many people are expected to go on a honeymoon anyway?? Found that on some website.

”If there are more than 2 persons, it is called an orgy...”
Debi said =D

And then we started arguing whether there is a difference between an orgy and a threesome. How could I ever talk about these with a male colleague, I wonder!
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What a wonderful world out there.. how will I fare?
BM translation: Berapa tambangnya?

Lyrics from one of the songs in Perhaps Love, caught during CNY. My all-time favourite Chinese show.

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Ta pau-ed char kuey tiao for the first time yesterday for lunch cos Shikin got harassed by the bitch downsouth til she had no time to go for lunch (I already got harassed first thing in the morning upon my CNY hoi kung!), the rest of the Chinese community is still away and I didn’t notice James going out for lunch. While standing there waiting for my kuey tiao to be ready, I realized that there is a lot more to just frying kuey tiao.

“Small kuey tiao without chili, one ta pau, one eat there”
“Kuey tiao mee with chili”
“Kuey tiao with extra chili extra egg”
“Big kuey tiao mee with chili”
“Kuey tiao with only egg”

That is only in the at most 10 minutes I was there. I didn’t know prior to this that people do order extra egg or only egg. So weird! And I thought that ordering for Sherly and myself is complicated enough, with hers ‘extra chili and no tauge’ and mine ‘no chili’. Which is also why I don’t give ‘special instructions’ but remove all the cockles later on. Cos I don’t wanna confuse the old aunty (and also prevent myself from getting confused by the time I reach the stall =P). If given a choice, I would also tell her that I don’t want any chives. Like my mum said, I should just say I want kuey tiao kosong instead =D But I might as well have everything since they’re not gonna charge me cheaper anyway =D Actually Sherly doesn’t want prawns as well, and she’ll give me all of them. And I give Lai Wah all my cockles. Actually I don’t give them to her, she will ask for it and pinch them off my plate before I can offer!!

A 10-minute wait inspired a long post on char kuey tiao and instilled a new found respect for char kuey tiao sellers =) I could still go on more and more on char kuey tiao! And if I were to sell char kuey tiao one day, I would limit the choices to only chili and no chili. Anything other than that, you can go to another stall, I don’t wanna do your business =D

And talking bout selling char kuey tiao, I honestly and seriously once considered selling char kuey tiao. Inspired by the neighbourhood char kuey tiao man in Berkeley. I thought that it was a good, fast and easy way of seeing your money multiplying. RM2.50, RM5.00, RM 7.50.. (at that time, char kuey tiao as still priced at RM2.50 per plate) It’s now RM3.80 in PJ (due to many ‘special requests’ haha), in Klang it would be RM3.30. RM3.80, RM 7.60, RM 11.40.. =D In 10 minutes, that uncle could fry 5 plates and get RM19, in an hour RM114, in 2 hours of lunch time daily RM228, in a month of 30 days RM 6840!! That’s 3x more than what I make and he only works 2 hours a day! Omg, I really have to start selling kuey tiao!! Don’t laugh, I heard that the man selling ‘economy mee’ at 80sen per plate in Pandamaran has lots of houses that the income tax people are after him.

The moral of the story: Don’t look down upon kuey tiao sellers or any other hawker especially the famed chicken rice seller in Klang, for they have excellent memory and they probably make more than you despite all the education you have. Which was why I wanted to stop schooling once. Not to sell kuey tiao laa, but I saw that you needn’t have high education to make lots of money. The time and money spent could be used to start something up but of course, not every business venture turns out well and when it doesn’t, you’d be wishing that the time and money should have been put to better use in getting a piece of paper instead. That kuey tiao uncle is making lots of money but didn’t even spend any ‘modal’ getting an education, which now makes you super poor. So you better start frying kuey tiao to pay off your (backlogged) PTPTN loans (the same goes for me too).

And since we are still at the topic of char kuey tiao, I must tell you that it is pretty tough getting a decent plate of char kuey tiao. The one at 1 to Eat in Bukit Tinggi is good at the first mouthful but the second makes me wanna puke. Each and every time I eat that kuey tiao. The wanna-puke feeling is really bad that I really try to hold it and my jaw turns sour. Yes, it’s that bad and it’s really scary. I thought it was psychological but my mum said the same too. I dunno what is it that makes us wanna puke, mum said it’s the fish sauce. After the last encounter, I finally learnt my lesson as it was seriously nauseating and I’ve only had this same feeling when about to throw up due to food poisoning.

The RM3.80 char kuey tiao above is not bad too, but had the same nausea feeling once. What is it about char kuey tiao that makes people wanna puke? Think it’s the oil. But other than that, it’s ok, the soft egg wraps the kuey tiao like nasi pattaya. The one in Specials of Penang (was featured in NST before) is not bad too and the least oily among all. And the best is it doesn’t make you wanna puke. So that must be the correlation between puking and oil. It’s RM5.50 and it’s ‘expensive char kuey tiao’ as I told Timmy but the portion is really big and besides, it’s a café. Colleagues say it’s not bad, huge big plate of kuey tiao and I really like the cucumber strips they add at the side. Helps the tauge in giving more crunch.

Oh-uh, I’m becoming a food critic. Char kuey tiao critic some more. But being a food critic is not bad, you get paid to eat!! But I don’t eat lots of things and eat so slowly some more, that even at this age, my grandma said seeing me eat is a torture and my ahyee asked me to chew my food the last CNY =D And come to think that when I was younger, char kuey tiao was a rare ‘treat’ for myself and I stayed away from fried chicken skin. I was more food-disciplined when I was younger, hai.. I know what Timmy will comment for this post: “Soooo yau kooi”, so save it dear! Regret teaching him some Hokkien. ‘All words will be used against you’. Cheh.