Michael…

…the son of my friend, Philip, in the US was here briefly to visit his grandma but I was able to take him out for lunch on one of the days he was in town.

Since I only had that one opportunity, of course, I had to take him here to try some of the exotic delights that one would not be able to get anywhere else…or at least, not any that is exactly the same. That would, of course, mean that we would be having more or less the same stuff that I have had before like the Payung rojak, for instance…

…which he liked very much as according to him, it was not as sweet as what he had had before. For one thing, what they have in the dish is different from the usual that one would find everywhere else and the sauce is slightly different too, much nicer, I would say. I specifically requested for more of the buah kedondong (umbra) leaves that everyone had fallen in love with at first bite.

He enjoyed the Payung otak-otak too…

…but he had never tried the rest so he was in no position to make any comparison. I told him to try the Johore/Muar ones when he goes to visit his maternal side of the family and see whether he would want to come back for the one here the next time he’d be in town.

I also ordered the lamb curry…

…that my daughter loves a lot and it was as nice as always and they did seem very generous with the potatoes that day. I love those tubers in curry and I like the fact that this one here is quite dry – like overnight curry which I enjoy a lot more. What about you?

We had the belimbing prawns…

…as well. I had not had that for quite a while as around the rainy/stormy monsoon season at the end of the year, these prawns would not be available and if they were, they would be too expensive. They’re more easily available at other times in the year but unfortunately, these days, they would not be much cheaper so do not expect to find a lot of crustaceans among all those ingredients used in the cooking.

The bill came up to RM61.00, inclusive of drinks, but they just asked me for RM60.00. I guess that is not very much but something is better than nothing and that’s anytime better than some other places in town where they would wait and wait for you to dig out one miserable 10 sen from your wallet or pocket to pay the exact total. Tsk! Tsk!

Well, Michael thought the meal was great or at least, that was what he said. However, he did not want any dessert as he would like to go some place else for something that he was hoping he would get to eat while he was home…but that would be in the next post, I’m afraid. Stick around, folks!!!