My sister-in-law is a kiwi, no…not the bird, but a New Zealander – well, half actually, to be more exact, as her mother was, in fact, Japanese. She was here on a visit the other day and she picked up a book at the Popular Book Store branch at the Delta Mall here – Robert Raymer‘s “Tropical Affairs“.
She was enthralled by all the Malaysian culture depicted in that book and when I told her that I had his other book, “Lovers and strangers revisited“, she was really keen on getting her hands on it and reading it too. Well, I lent it to her and she thoroughly enjoyed it as well.
I also passed her my copy of Anita Desai’s “Fasting Feasting“ and good grief! She read about the characters eating rice with mutton curry and that triggered in her a craving for that and it prompted her to ask whether there was any place in town where we could have that…
In the end, I took her to Balkis, or is it spelt Balqiz? She and my brother had the nasi bryani with mutton curry while I had the same but with chicken…
LJ went the following day and had the same with mutton curry and he posted the photograph on Facebook…
*From LJ’s mobile uploads on Facebook
…and he had the same again the next day. Gee! He must have enjoyed that a lot!
For one thing, it certainly looks like the rice seemed different between the two days. My daughter commented on that once – that there was poor quality control and the nasi bryani wasn’t all that good on certain days – sometimes a bit too hard like it was uncooked and at times, it even had a burnt smell.
Anyway, it was a good day when we went and my brother and sister-in-law enjoyed it a lot. They can get that at the Indian restaurants in Auckland for around NZ$10.00 (RM23.00)…and I think here, it’s RM6.00 only for mutton and cheaper for chicken. As a matter of fact, that lunch treat, inclusive of drinks, worked out to around the same price as one plate of nasi bryani in New Zealand in our money.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 