I’ve been thinking about whether or not to share this with anyone. There is, you see, a little nasi lemak place high on the hill above KL and, well, it’s really good. And I mean REALLY good. So good, in fact that you can find me trekking all the way out there several times a month to have breakfast and believe me, this is not just around the corner: Take the elevated highway to the very end of it, all the way out to Ampang. Continue past Ampang village and on past Ampang waterfront (that place, by the way, is worth a blog of its own) and on and on. Turn right in the direction of the only landmark to be found, i.e. the Carrefour desecrating… Come to think of it, there really wasn’t anything to desecrate.

Now comes the tricky bit. You pass a few dull intersections and then you have to turn left to ascend the hill. If you’re not familiar with the area (and let’s face it, why the hell should you be, there really is nothing there) you’ll have to be careful not to miss the turn. Up and up you go, heading towards Hulu Langat, singing “Climb every Mountain” fabulously out of tune and there, just at the top, on your right, you see what looks like a DBKL interpretation of a public toilet for tourists (half of it actually IS a public toilet for tourists) and here you have reached Walhalla.

I know you’re going to question my nasi lemak judgement, so I would like to insert a few quotes from local friends unbiased by the fact that I got up at seven in the morning to pick them up from their homes, drove them for miles while making interesting conversation and then bought them the very nasi lemak they are now gobbling up, only to drive them all the way to work after that. Quotes: “Wow”; “Damn Siok”; “When are we coming back here?” – See???

And what makes it so good? The rice is lemak, the ayam goreng is freshly gorenged, the sambal is not too sweet and the whole thing is better than the sum of its delicious parts. In short, like the nasi lemak of my youth, misspent as it may have been. But seriously, don’t just take my word for it, this place is open daily and I think it nasi lemaks from 7:30 to 11:00am. Go early, climb the hill behind the warung and enjoy the view while you’re at it. And remember, climbing the hill after your nasi fix will consume one tenth of one percent of the calories you just stuffed into yourself. But then, some things are just really, really worth getting fat for.

The first instalment of my “Chef Eats” blog (in which I irritate you by revealing all the great meals a cook can have if he just knows a few other cooks) was supposed to be all positive and full of warm fuzzy feelings for my fellow chefs, but then I went to Dome at KLCC and so:

This is the story of a sandwich that wasn’t. After a vigorous workout at the gym at Maxis, I felt entitled to a nicely constructed sandwich and foolishly headed to Dome at KLCC. It is not as though I had lots of fond memories of great sandwiches there, but it was convenient, not smoked out like Chinoz, and I remembered them doing a halfway decent job, so in I went. I had my laptop with me and some work to do, so I wasn’t in a hurry. The nice girl asked me what I wanted and I ordered a toasted ham and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread. Toasted, if you please, and a coffee to go with that. I worked, I drank my coffee and some twenty minutes later they brought me a grilled vegetable and feta cheese sandwich on foccaccia, untoasted. “Excuse me”, said I when the waiter passed (no idea what happened to my waitress, as I never saw her again),” but this is not what I ordered.” “So you want change your order?” “No, I would just like to get what I actually ordered.” I said quite pleasantly. So after making sure that I wouldn’t rather eat this sandwich right here in front of me, he takes it away. I’m not in a hurry and I’m in the middle of hammering on my poor laptop, so I order fizzy water and carry on quite happily.

Ten minutes later the person that I assume is the manager comes and asks me “So you want to change your order, Sir?” It’s all taking a rather bizarre turn and my endorphin fuelled happy mood is being seriously challenged. “No”, I say again, “I don’t want to change my order; I just want to eat the toasted ham and cheese sandwich I ordered some half hour ago.” “Ah, but you see, this may take a while, because, you see…” I say as nicely as I can: “If instead of standing here talking, you go to the kitchen and tell them to start toasting my sandwich, I’m sure it won’t be more than fifteen minutes, so why don’t you go and do just that??” And off he trots.

I go on working and some twenty minutes later the waiter brings me two slices of cold brown bread with a slice of cold ham and a slice of industrial cheese in no discernible state of meltedness. “Can you call me the manager please”, I say calmly. He arrives. “Can you please explain to me”, I ask, “why it has just taken you twenty minutes to produce a cold sandwich?” “Oh”, he says blithely, “because when you change your order we have to follow the track again, we have to…” Now I am normally as meek as any chef you may know, but at this point I explode and amid a lot of finger pointing, the uncovering of this disgusting piece of inedible evidence to the utter lack of talent of his kitchen I explain to the manager that when you f@$& up your order you go to the kitchen and say: “This idiot out there wants to change his order, can you just quickly slap this one together for me” you do not, repeat, DO NOT fire a new order and let your customer wait almost an hour for a simple sandwich. Breathe, breathe! My mood, by the way wasn’t helped by the fact that I tore the top off the sandwich and flung the ham and cheese to the side of the plate, only to discover a slice of tomato compressed into the thing posing as bread, leaching water into an already flaccid dough.

What had happened, of course, is that whoever took my order, took it wrong and then insisted that they didn’t. I don’t even blame them for that, but what is utterly astounding is that the manager aided and abetted them in their crime against humanity (me) and thus irritated the hell out of a customer. Wrong orders happen. They happen at Frangipani too (not too often, I’m glad to report) and as a manager or a chef, you will never be able to find out whether the waiter took it down wrong, or the customer did in fact think they ordered something else, but you have to realise one thing: It doesn’t matter! What matters is that your customer walks out happy. This is not a fight you as a manager can ever win. It shouldn’t even BE a fight. It’s a mistake! Forget whose mistake it is and give the guy at the table something to eat as fast as you can. If it does take time, give him another coffee, give him a little salad or a cookie or whatever, and just keep the guy happy!

Conclusion? But for the utter incompetence and (dare I say it?) stupidity of the person in charge this simple mistake could have been forgotten within an instant, instead, I have invested another hour venting my frustration in an overlong blog.

Lesson learnt? For a good sandwich, go to Bar Italia.