A Day Of Being Thwarted

Sometimes you do get a day of Black Monday where nothing seems to go your way, doesn't it. Well today was a day that held a lot of disappointments that started when I wanted to change the name of beneficiaries of my EPF scheme, so I thought since I had some time before a series of meeting in the afternoon, I would go to the EPF building in Jalan Raja Laut and purposely walk from the Masjid Jamek station to the building so that I can visit some food haunts along the way that has been unvisited for too long. Well on the way to the EPF was the first in my series of disappointments of the day, as my favourite shawarma stall at the old Kamdar along Jalan TAR do not only seemed closed for the day, but closed down. To me this stall is the best and most authentic shawarma stall in the country, serving genuine shawarma and maintaining the food as one even before the dish was corrupted to a 'kebab' by everybody else. I really hope that the stall is only closed for the day and it was just my bad luck to come on the wrong day, and not the latter as this would be a great disappointment. Need to make a return visit real soon to ascertain the truth.

Anyway the string of event of being thwarted continued at the EPF office where instead of the simple queuing and filling the form at the counter in the pre-electronic age(ten years ago methinks), now it seems that not only you have to queue to get the form, you then have fill the form and prepare supporting documents like a copy of your IC before queuing up again to get a number after the reception is satisfied that you have filled the form correctly. My how going electronic has increased productivity as it now makes me work more to do such a simple beneficiary change, and since I only allocated a short time to be there as I thought that the system was still so simple, I decided to come again another day to do the job. And the irony is that EPF themselves are always campaigning for their members to update the beneficiary list in order to safeguard their interest, but if the process is this time-consuming I am not surprised that nobody would actually do so. EPF, buck up will you and make the process simpler, it is not as if I am actually withdrawing some money from your precious vaults.

Well I then decided to go for my favourite chapatis at Santa's located at the little hole in the wall along Jalan TAR. Well this time I can confirm that the shop is no longer operating there, as the whole building has been brought down. Anybody out there knows where the stall has moved to? This Santa aa and not the other Santa Chapati's around town as to me this is the best version amongst all of them. Anyway this is second chapati stall that I like to patronise that has closed down and moved to locations unknown, and I am running out of places that serves good chapatis to patronise in KLlah. Well since Ibrahimsha was just besides the place and still open and since I have been reading about how they supposedly served Penang Nasi Kandar that somehow till now I have never tried, I decided to give the place a try to see if it was as good as they said. Well it was a typical nasi kandar stall, and they do serve the nasi kandar Penang style with a ready serving of round papadum with you plate of rice. Even though their roasted chicken looked savoury, I decided to give them my personal taste test of beef "masak itam" or in black gravy and accompanied by fried omelet and veges and when I asked for some belacan, they served it with some ladies fingers or okra. This was a plus point as I must say the okra they serve actually met my palate that even though I usually forego the okras at other mamak stalls as they were usually mushy or too raw, here it was perfectly done that I polished them off. Nonetheless overall the dishes were just ordinary to me, good enough to be considered as genuine Penang Nasi Kandar but not as good as the excellent P Ramlee nasi kandar store further down the road. And this would not be a place I revisit anyway as their price is too rich for my taste, as would you believe the plate of rice shown here with a limeade to drink cost me RM10.90. This is one mamak stall that has not followed the call to reduce prices eh.

Well on the way back to the LRT station I stopped at Jai Hind, my second visit since I wanted to confirm why I did not like the place on my first visit but other writers and bloggers seem to give the place such high ratings. Well what else should I test it on again right but to ask for my avourite sweetmeat, laddu. As they had two types of mortichoor laddus that differs in the orange tinge, I asked the guy at the counter what is the difference because I was a bit surprised that the other was already pre-packed. When I asked whether I can mix and match both type, he was non-committal and kept pushing me to buy the pre-packed ones, insisting that they taste the same and cost the same. Wanting to test his sincerety, I agreed to his suggestion but I must say I should have insisted on the fresh ones on display, as these photos would evince the fact that the pre-packed ones are definitely not fresh, too crumbly due to its dryness and definitely not creamy as it should. Well Jai Hind, I stand with what I have felt about you from the first visit, and I will revisit you no more.

Well the day ended with the meetings that I was supposed to have, and luckily this time it was me who thwarted a potential silly mistake by one of the visiting mission members that could have jeopardised all the marketing efforts we had mounted for months before. I though that would have cut the string of bad luck, but still it niggled at me when the chocolates that was given to me as a visit souvenir actually contained alcohol, so tomorrow it will be my kid's kindie teacher that will enjoy the treat. Well at least I still did some good eh, and that is what matters right.