Never a dull moment

One of the things that I really take with pride as a restaurant owner is the experiences that I get serving different backgrounds of patrons. To me, falsafah penyediaan makanan ni simple je. Serve the food, just like how you would like it to be served to you. Ala, macam do unto others as how you would have them do to you. Something like that. Be it the taste or the presentation. So, when you know what and how you would like your food to taste and look like, hey, you can open a restaurant already!

Just the other day, our customer brought his friends, a pair of American Indian husband & wife, whom also are very strict vegetarians. Terang-terangan our menu kebanyakannya berunsurkan ayam, daging dan kambing. Segala jenis haiwan ternakan gitu. So it was rather challenging for any vegetarian yang menerima jemputan dibelanja di kedai kami, one thing for sure orang yang mengajak tu sepatutnya aware yang kawan dia vege and orang yang diajak, tentu tak mau turn the friend down. I managed to convince the couple to have our rice with the dalca, yang sememangnya berisi sayuran sahaja. In fact, selama ni kalau ada customer vegetarian, memang diorang takde choice lain. Maybe we should include one or two choices of vegetarian dish? However, this lovely lady ordered a plate of rice and rojak buah with extra cili padi potong. To my surprise, she finished her meal berlaukkan rojak buah. I can only imagine how would that taste. Kuah rojak petis ditabur ground nuts lepas tu gaul dengan nasi briyani saje.  Mungkin ok kot, it was just me yang tak boleh terima kombinasi tu.

On another occasion at our outlet in Ampang, sepasang Korean membelek2 menu dengan khusyuk. Mungkin memang lapar sebab hari hujan, the guy seolah-olah push the girl to order fast tapi the girl just can't decide which one to order. Bila hujan, maknanya cuaca sejuk. Lepas the guy order "Mee Kari" (dengan fluent bahasa Melayunya, mungkin dia dah lama duduk sini) dia order juga "Beer". Dengan harapan dapat memanaskan badannya kot (betul ke beer memanaskan badan pun?) Then I smiled. And his lady friend kind of shuush him which in return he said "Sorry Sorry" sambil menyusun 10 jari tunjuk minta maaf. He was undoubtedly forgiven.

Oh well. There are too many other unforgettable moments that we made through 2011. Tahun pertama in the business, terlalu banyak yang kita belajar. Experiences are too valuable you can't even find them in those university textbooks. Nothing beats real life expreriences kan. Some sweet, some maybe bitter. I would say, when it comes to managing the ups and the downs, there is no real format that you can follow. It is important that you develop the perseverance trait inside of you. I read from other successful business people that it is really the key.

"In an enterpreneur's life, it is always the matter of juggling, whether the chicken or the eggs come first" - Sahar Hashemi, Coffee Republic. 

Mr Chow Miami . Extravagantly stunning.