***
I visited that wretched hive of scum and villany today.
Yes, Malaysia.
Furthermore it was Johor Bahru, the cesspit of the hive. Luckily I had 7 companions with me so none of us got killed, raped, mugged or otherwise assaulted.
To preserve our hides, it was a relatively short venture, so we just went in for dinner and walked around City Square some. Given that the only two reasons to visit Malaysia are to eat and to make fun of Malaysians, this about realised the night's potential.
For some strange reason, you cannot bring Cocoa Pods, Rambutan, Pulasan, Longan and nam-nam fruits from the Philippines and Indonesia into Malaysia. Uhh.
[Addendum: Someone suggests "competition"]
There was a guy selling the "Malay Mail" newspaper. Ironically, it's in English.
After clearing Imigresen, we hopped into 2 teksis to head for a restoran some of them had tried previously. Naturally, the drivers refused to use the meter. The ride was about 6 ringgit but the driver of my cab quoted "八块" ($8), and D gave him 10 and told him to keep the change.
When we got to the venue at 5:30, we discovered the silver lining of my being almost half an hour late - the place opened at 6pm. So some of us went off to a nearby hawker store conglomeration to train up our digestive systems (tomorrow we'll know who made the Constitution save).
The drinks store auntie recommended we try "白香果" and "Balonglong". She also helpfully had English menus (must be all the Singaporeans dropping by); actually I noticed a smidgen more English than the last real time I was there (2005 or 2006) - globalisation is finally working its magic.
"白香果". It's off-passionfruit: tarter. I can't find a translation for it in English.
"Ba long long" (pronounced the same way the slavery term meaning anyhow is) / "Kedongdong". I'm very sure it's the sour fruit in Penang Rojak.
Suspicious-looking seng guay (preserved plum)
Drinks store. Notice the lack of flies around the uncovered condiments. That must be why the drinks didn't taste -that- good.
Nude amputee mannikins. Incidentally, I didn't see any Malaysian mannikins today!
"Japanese Baby Eyelash". Or "Why Malaysian Ah Lians are more scary than Singaporean ones"
Around the table
The menu - I guess this saves on menu costs.
If you will look at the bottom right part of the photo you will notice an interesting thing about this restaurant: their poetry.
"人生在世， 吃喝两字"
Translation: 2 things sum up Man's life on earth: Eating and Drinking
They also had exhortations to their customers.
"敬爱的顾客，
把你的满意告诉朋友，
把你的批评留给我们。
谢谢！
感恩的心，感谢的你"
Translation:
"Dear customers,
If you love us, tell your friends.
If you hate us, tell us.
Thanks!
We are very grateful and thankful to you"
"三楼干米粉": "Three Storey Dry Bee Hoon"
This must be the best bee hoon I've ever tasted. We had 3 plates.
The thing on the bottom left is supposed to be LaLa, but it's the largest LaLa I've ever tasted.
Fried tofu with salad cream. We had 2 plates.
Fish in dark sauce with curry leaves
The waiters were Malay. Presumably they don't mind working in a place selling non-Halal food.
Kai Lan included for completeness.
Pork ribs
Chili Crayfish
Claypot Pork. Basically like Kung Poh Chicken minus cashew nuts, replacing chicken with a thin slice of fatty pork (san zhan bak) and adding salt fish.
Fencing for salt fish
Who photographs the photographer?
More exhortations
"请记住，我们没有第二次的机会给顾客第一次的印象。在加一句，得罪一个人等放得罪一百个人。做人的道理。要客气，不要小气。 *Something I don't understand*"
Translation: "Please note that we don't have a second chance to give you a first impression. We will add that offending one person is as bad as (?) offending a hundred. To be a good person, you must be gracious and not petty"
HURR HURR
All in all eight of us had about twice what Hum Sup Guy might eat (at a later date I will upload an example of his gastronomic spurts).
Unfortunately, ravenous eating in a large group and a menu I do not fully understand are not conducive to food reviews, so I won't bother. I will note that the bee hoon and fried tofu were excellent, and that the rest were good (though not spectacular); I will also say, though, that the MSG was palpable. Hurr hurr, the secret of Malaysian culinary excellence.
This was also the only part of the evening we didn't get screwed: it was RM178 for 8 of us.
Confirming earlier observations, I notice that Singaporeans eat more than Malaysians (for example, one couple seemed to be sharing just one plate of bee hoon).
"Restoran Ah Kaw", "Since 1979"
Maybe they'll have a special promotion next year
I don't see why people put their parking kupons on their windshields: spiteful people could pull them out. But of course we know that there aren't any spiteful people in Malaysia (because Malaysians are better people than Singaporeans: cheating us is just their way of fighting the way we oppress them by buying their cheap water) - just rapists, car jackers, corrupt policemen and sodomites.
Note also that, in keeping with Malaysia being the land of piracy and low kualiti ripoffs, the parking kupons looks like Singaporean ones (I remember the days when everyone used meter parking in JB)
Couples
Nail spa charging men more than women. It must be a way of exploiting gays and metrosexuals (or maybe they're fussier than women, so).
"可口可乐"
I was amused: Malaysia has fewer Chinese than Singapore, yet they have Chinese on their Coke cans but we don't.
Malaysian Cai Fan (Mixed Vegetable Rice). It's more efficient than in Singapore since you serve yourself, but it wouldn't work here due to kiasu people piling stuff onto their plates.
We decided we'd exhausted the possibilites of the area, and decided to return to the Causeway area, so we got some teksis to City Square.
This time the taxi driver mumbled something in Malay to me which I couldn't figure out, but I showed him 8 fingers (not one, unfortunately) and he didn't seem to disagree, so I assume that was our fare. The idiot forgot to turn off the meter though, so I got to see how much he'd ripped us off by (it read 4.50, so we were overcharged by 77.8%).
"Get (A) Head"
"Adakah anda kenal dia? Do you know her?你认识她吗？？？
We welcome the litigant come and exchange the splendid close-up, the hot line 012-717 9737"
This must be some form of warped Malaysian humour
We then went to MPH. There was a section labelled "Malay Novel" containing novels in Malay. Since next to it was "Bacaan Umum" this wasn't due to some store-wide policy of only using English in official signage. Go figure. Must be more Malaysian parodi dan ironi.
The girls browsing a bridal catalogue
Caption: "Every guy's worst nightmare"
J: "I wasn't looking at the wedding photos, I was looking at the child ones"
Befitting Malaysia's low class status, the wedding albums were a nightmare (the typos didn't help, of course):
"RAE
The Magazine For Men
Stippers!
Tree Hugging!
Sharks!
STAG NIGHTS TRIED AND TESTED...
'Cheat!'
How To:
Hypnotise women...
Major Babe!
'Nice Strides Gringo'
PLUS
Gabrielle Richens
Alicia Silvestone
Jennifer Lopez
Brenda Schad
Karen Butler
and...
Air hostesses!"
"I'm not a girl...... not yet a woman"
Maybe Malaysians are into ephebophilia besides sodomy. And check out the OMGWTHBBQ accessory around her neck.
"Baby Come To Me
I want all of you that all of you ass long as you live"
Once again, bear in mind that these are all from wedding albums.
We were feeling peckish, so we went to good 'ole Merlin Corner near the Causeway for some mamak food.
Their incomplete menu
Look at the item on the left column third from the bottom: "Crap. RM4.00". Uhh.
People
Unfortunately, there we got screwed again because the guy tried to charge us for one Teh Ais we didn't order and 4 Roti Kosongs that never came (we might even have ordered only 3). When we pointed out his iniquity, he amended the bill but with his skulduggery somehow the price only went down by 80 sen.
To end off the evening, I bought a Ramly Burger (Ayam) before leaving the wretched country since I wanted to have genuine rat meat. I gave the guy RM2.60 for a RM2.50 burger, and from his words and tone he didn't want to return me the last 10 sen. I didn't particularly want to chase him for it either, so I wrote it off as Zakat (alms) and ran to catch up with the rest.