In protest…

Last Thursday, my missus and I went out for brunch and we noticed that a number of coffee shops were closed. We thought that was rather unusual because here, a number will have their day off once a week on Mondays and a few on Tuesdays, not on the other days in the week. Eventually, I heard that they had increased the price of pork and starting on that same day, the very nice mee pok with the real char siew here went up by 20 sen from RM3.80 to RM4.00.

Well, the prices of virtually everything have been going up and up and up so if you increase your prices, I am sure it will come as no surprise. In fact, if it is very reasonable like the 20 sen in the case of the aforementioned mee pok, customers will still go for it provided the quality is maintained. On the other hand, if you try to cut corners and shortchange your customers, for instance, if you scrimp on the ingredients or reduce the size of each serving and so on, they will not be very happy if they realise what you’ve got up your sleeves and will stop coming. In the end, you will not have many left!

Personally, I do not think closing your coffee shop for a day in protest will bring the desired result. The pork sellers may be selling less for one day but there are many others who will still go and buy. It is a lot worse for you – you will lose ALL your business and not make a single sen that day! Perhaps, if the increase in price is not reasonable and uncalled for, a more concerted effort where everybody cooperates in their protest will be more effective. They can use chicken or fish cake slices and shrimps instead of pork in their fried noodles or serve their kampua mee meatless for a month – surely, only then will the pork sellers feel the pinch!

That morning, we had no problem at all finding a place to have our brunch and because our favourite chap fan place was closed too, we went elsewhere instead. We had not dropped by here for a very long time but we could remember that what we had there before was always very nice and we did not mind going back for more. We even went there for dinner once with my niece (the one working in Singapore) and in-laws and yes, we liked the food and it was very reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, they do not allow customers to buy only the lauk (dishes) – you have to buy what you want along with the rice. In the end, my missus ordered a few dishes from the kitchen instead of picking what she wanted from the options available for their chap fan (mixed rice).

There was this butter milk chicken…

…which was creamy and nice. I liked it this way a lot more than the dry version or the ones with cereal.

The sweet and sour fish fillet…

…was nice too but my girl stuck steadfastly to the one here – she insisted theirs was a lot nicer and would win hands down.

For one thing, the servings were huge so we just ate up all of the chicken and saved the fish for the next day, being our no-meat Friday. For our vegetable dish, my missus asked for the cangkok manis fried with egg…

…and yes, they enjoyed that very much.

No, it was not as cheap as buying whatever that is available and to our fancy from the chap fan stalls but the total came up to only RM42.00, much cheaper than what I would need to pay usually at our regular chu char (cook & fry) Chinese restaurants. We certainly would want to head back this way again soon enough especially when our house is just round the corner and coincidentally, it looked like my missus also chipped in a bit in the protest against the pork sellers that day – she did not buy any pork dish at all! LOL!!!

AH KIET RESTAURANT (2.317307, 111.850023)…

…is located right behind Comfort Furniture among the shops beside the Selemo traffic lights along Lorong Ling Kai Cheng 2, off Jalan Deshon if you are coming from town or you can go in via Lorong Ling Kai Cheng 4 if you are coming down from Teku or Ulu Sg Merah.