As promised..
I shall relate a very silly incident which took place during my Penang Trip. I shall begin with introducing the people involved:-
From top to bottom: Joash,Mei Theng,myself,Christina and Anna
We were walking together in Prangin Mall (one of the destinations scheduled during the trip) and we were pretty bored. It was 12:30 pm and we had been walking around quite aimlessly in the mall (the shops there held not much interest for us). We had another hour to kill before we could start walking back to the bus and head to our hotel check-in.It was B-O-R-I-N-G...
We passed by this little steamboat shop which emitting a very tempting Tom Yam smell.Since we had not had our lunch;and there was still time...we entered the restaurant,placed our respective orders (tom yam,tom yam,tom yam,tom yam and tom yam) and fell into easy chatter while waiting for our food.
We waited...and waited...and waited....
Despite the fact that there was only a moderate number of customers there;our orders took an excruciatingly long time to arrive. We all ordered the same thing..only with different noodles. We placed our orders at around 12:40pm and our orders did not arrive until 1:15pm. Evn then,it came one bowl at a time. I was at the point of gnashing my teeth and ripping out my hair by the time my bowl arrived because we all had exactly 10 minutes left to finish our food and walk through a long route back to the bus. I was NOT pleased.
Joash;whose bowl came first,finished his noodles first. But he was still hungry and decided to order Tako Balls from the stall next door. Now for those of you who have yet to sink your teeth into these absolutely scrumptious balls,let me make your mouths water. Takoyaki (the japanese name) are squid balls.They look like kaya balls but they contain squid inside. It's pretty fascinating to watch the making process because it starts from a pile of mush like this:
We passed by this little steamboat shop which emitting a very tempting Tom Yam smell.Since we had not had our lunch;and there was still time...we entered the restaurant,placed our respective orders (tom yam,tom yam,tom yam,tom yam and tom yam) and fell into easy chatter while waiting for our food.
We waited...and waited...and waited....
Despite the fact that there was only a moderate number of customers there;our orders took an excruciatingly long time to arrive. We all ordered the same thing..only with different noodles. We placed our orders at around 12:40pm and our orders did not arrive until 1:15pm. Evn then,it came one bowl at a time. I was at the point of gnashing my teeth and ripping out my hair by the time my bowl arrived because we all had exactly 10 minutes left to finish our food and walk through a long route back to the bus. I was NOT pleased.
Joash;whose bowl came first,finished his noodles first. But he was still hungry and decided to order Tako Balls from the stall next door. Now for those of you who have yet to sink your teeth into these absolutely scrumptious balls,let me make your mouths water. Takoyaki (the japanese name) are squid balls.They look like kaya balls but they contain squid inside. It's pretty fascinating to watch the making process because it starts from a pile of mush like this:
and the fellow in charge of making it will use two chopsticks and mess around with the mish-mash of squid and dough,turning it round and round on the hot plate until it turns into cute little balls.
Your mouth would be watering during the whole process because the smell itself is so fantastic. Then,the finishing touches of fish flakes,mayo and herb sprinkles will be garnished onto the steaming hot balls..and there you go. Tantalising Tako Balls ready for eating:
Anyway,back to the story...
Joash thought that 15 minutes was sufficient time for the girl at the stall to prepare the takoyaki,but NOOOOOOOOooooo...boy was he wrong. First,the girl turned on the gas under the hot plate and calmly retreated to the back room to text on her phone (we saw her through the gap in the curtain divider). When she finally got around to pouring the dough mixture on the hot plate,Anna.Christina,Mei Theng and I had already finished eating and were totally shocked to see she had just STARTED making them. Heck,we had only FIVE MINUTES LEFT!!!!!
What could we do??We stood there while she poked the mess on the hot plate and retreated again to the back room (to press her handphone again!!!!). Joash and I were staring at the gloop bubbling slowly on the hot plate.
Joash : It doesn't look nice.
Me : It doesn't. It looks disgusting.
Joash : She totally f***ed it up. Eww. Lets run away while she's still at the back.
Anna and Me : Yea,lets go. (starts walking away)
Joash was only half-serious but Anna and I were totally serious. WE WERE ALREADY LATE and Tako-girl didn't looked like she knew what she was doing and we were going to pay her RM7 for a bunch of mess. I was at the end of my patience and wanted to get out of there!!But Joash,Mei Theng and Christina stays rooted to the spot,staring at the both of us.
*Conscience pricks* Anna and I went back to stand in front of the stall again while Tako-girl nonchantly saunters out again and starts messing with the gloop again. She forms it into 8 squishy looking balls (not tantalising I assure you) and we were all starting to sigh with relief ("FINALLY..." ,we thought) when she plopped the balls back onto the hot plate and walked back into the back room again without so much of an acknowledgement we were waiting there!!!!
That was it. Conscience or no conscience...I was leaving. Anna looked in the same mind as me. We walked 10 steps and turned back to the others who were again rooted there staring at us. I was about to go, "Come on!!!!" when Christina ran towards us,triggering Joash and Mei Theng into action. We broke into a sprint. Running as hard as we could out from Tako stall.
We ran down the escalators,winding through the mall towards the entrance. All the way,some people were kind of shouting at us;I think they thought we were thieves. Once out of the mall,we continued running..we ran (or walked as fast as we could) across two streets,up an overhead bridge,down again,pass several shops at the road side. I could feel my thigh muscles burning and sweat running down my temples. Anna and Christina were keeping up with me but we eventually had to slow our pace a little for Mei Theng;who if not for Joash,would have been left behind.
We finally reached the bus 10 minutes after the allocated time. As expected,we were the latest. I felt pretty bad because I hated lateness. But Vemal,the President, was pretty cool about it and assured us that we weren't VERY late.
What we did was totally silly but we had all good reasons for leaving.
We were all very sweaty after running so hard. I guess that's the price we had to pay.
A picture of the sweaty 'criminals'
Well,we had Tako Balls in QueensBay the next day and it looked,smelled and (I'm very sure) taste better than the ones we ran away from.
I guess all's well, that ends well.
:)
Joash thought that 15 minutes was sufficient time for the girl at the stall to prepare the takoyaki,but NOOOOOOOOooooo...boy was he wrong. First,the girl turned on the gas under the hot plate and calmly retreated to the back room to text on her phone (we saw her through the gap in the curtain divider). When she finally got around to pouring the dough mixture on the hot plate,Anna.Christina,Mei Theng and I had already finished eating and were totally shocked to see she had just STARTED making them. Heck,we had only FIVE MINUTES LEFT!!!!!
What could we do??We stood there while she poked the mess on the hot plate and retreated again to the back room (to press her handphone again!!!!). Joash and I were staring at the gloop bubbling slowly on the hot plate.
Joash : It doesn't look nice.
Me : It doesn't. It looks disgusting.
Joash : She totally f***ed it up. Eww. Lets run away while she's still at the back.
Anna and Me : Yea,lets go. (starts walking away)
Joash was only half-serious but Anna and I were totally serious. WE WERE ALREADY LATE and Tako-girl didn't looked like she knew what she was doing and we were going to pay her RM7 for a bunch of mess. I was at the end of my patience and wanted to get out of there!!But Joash,Mei Theng and Christina stays rooted to the spot,staring at the both of us.
*Conscience pricks* Anna and I went back to stand in front of the stall again while Tako-girl nonchantly saunters out again and starts messing with the gloop again. She forms it into 8 squishy looking balls (not tantalising I assure you) and we were all starting to sigh with relief ("FINALLY..." ,we thought) when she plopped the balls back onto the hot plate and walked back into the back room again without so much of an acknowledgement we were waiting there!!!!
That was it. Conscience or no conscience...I was leaving. Anna looked in the same mind as me. We walked 10 steps and turned back to the others who were again rooted there staring at us. I was about to go, "Come on!!!!" when Christina ran towards us,triggering Joash and Mei Theng into action. We broke into a sprint. Running as hard as we could out from Tako stall.
We ran down the escalators,winding through the mall towards the entrance. All the way,some people were kind of shouting at us;I think they thought we were thieves. Once out of the mall,we continued running..we ran (or walked as fast as we could) across two streets,up an overhead bridge,down again,pass several shops at the road side. I could feel my thigh muscles burning and sweat running down my temples. Anna and Christina were keeping up with me but we eventually had to slow our pace a little for Mei Theng;who if not for Joash,would have been left behind.
We finally reached the bus 10 minutes after the allocated time. As expected,we were the latest. I felt pretty bad because I hated lateness. But Vemal,the President, was pretty cool about it and assured us that we weren't VERY late.
What we did was totally silly but we had all good reasons for leaving.
We were all very sweaty after running so hard. I guess that's the price we had to pay.
A picture of the sweaty 'criminals'Well,we had Tako Balls in QueensBay the next day and it looked,smelled and (I'm very sure) taste better than the ones we ran away from.
I guess all's well, that ends well.
:)
0 squeaked:
Post a Comment