Awana...Alamak

I have decided to return to my roots: Food, food, food.

Or rather, sharing my opinions about food.

Having lived in London for almost a year now, and having been exposed to a range of food quality and service, I think it's time to start reviewing the food scene as I see (or eat) it.

Unfortunately, what convinced me to start writing is a negative experience. Oops, sorry. But I've a good reason: This time, I had pictures (courtesy of my friend, Christina Quek) so here we go.

Awana is a swanky Malaysian restaurant in the SW3 area. It serves so-called high-end Malaysian food in an atmospheric space, and there's also a bar and satay bar.

I was there as part of a group to celebrate Ramadan, and we had an all-in menu. Now, given that we paid 20 pounds for this special lunch, I didn't expect huge portions, but what we got was a laughing joke and a lesson in what NOT to do if you want to entice potential customers to come back and pay for a full meal.

First things first, this was the food line-up:

Starters: Popiah sayur goreng, chicken satay, roti canai.
Mains: Ayam masak merah, rendang daging awana, cha bee hoon

With the accompanying descriptions, I was salivating at the tantalising tasting menu.

Alamak

Well, I got to salivate indeed. That's because the portions were utterly miserable! I was at a table of five, and my god we got five sticks of satay. I do NOT mean five sticks each, by the way. Yes, we got ONE stick per person.

Yup, you read right.

Now, since when have a Malaysian or Singapore been happy to have ONE stick of satay?! **roll eyes**

It was not a good sign.

There were also spring rolls, which were okay but totally forgettable. Again, we could only have small bites, and not a whole spring roll each... Gulp.

To add insult to injury, we got like 1.5 roti canai - again to share within FIVE adults. I nearly died.

It was ridiculous. Do YOU feed your guests a morsel of prata when they come over, and give them a handful of chips and say that's it?!

At this point, I thought okay............ Maybe it's just me, everyone seem to be going along with it, taking dainty little slices. I thought. The prata itself was again, mediocre.

The main courses arrived. This time, they were served in proper large-ish serving bowls and we were all given rice (thank god they were a bit more generous then they were with the starters). But again, the food was only okay but really nothing to write home about. And no way were we able to actually eat to our hearts' content. Did they weigh the portions on a digital scale or something?

The beef rendang was the only thing I can actually remember, and even then it was wastered down, to placate the angmoh palate I guess. I far far far prefer the version at Satay House. In fact, when I think back to the gathering at Satay House about three months back, we could NOT even finish the food! And there were about 10-12 of us at the table!

Back at Awana, we were done with the main dishes, and sat back to await some sort of dessert, and some tea or coffee to wash it down.

We waited....And waited. And waited some more.

Finally, we could not take it anymore.

"Er, was that it?" we asked the co-organiser. With a look of embarrassment and indignation, she said, "Yes, I am afraid so. The restaurant wanted to charge us some outrageous amount for a single dessert."

Goodness gracious.

I've gone for at about three of these events, each time with the intention of making friends but equally as an opportunity to try new food places.

I guess you can figure from my post here but NO WAY I WILL GO BACK to Awana!

It's a pity because I thought the wait staff was just superb. Genuine, obliging and very friendly. The management is really letting them down with such appalling portions. Talk about sending out wrong vibes. So sayang.

Totally off, man. Totally off.

When I asked an Awana regular, she said that the murtabak is not bad, but standards have gone down. But at 8pounds per murtabak, it's just daylight robbery. Even with the 50% discount that apparently you can download on the Internet, I am not persuaded at all. At these prices, it's really mediocre grub.

I would rather go back to Satay House, pay full price, suffer the rubbish t service there, and know for sure the food's gonna be better.

First return run

Finally put on my running shoes again.

Did 30 minutes on grass, nice and easy. Well, it was painful. It always is, somehow! But I felt better for having done it.

I think I'd better run on grass at this pace for this long before attempting anything else, lest I injure myself again ;(

On a related note, I subscribed to Runner's World on a trial basis in September, and just found that my first issue will be December 2008. Goodness. This country really sucks the life-force out of you...

But hey, they already processed my Direct Debit with the bank! Sheesh ;)

Talk about sending out the wrong message.

HM

Saw the runners this morning.... So sad that I couldn't run, but at the same time the weather was utterly miserable, so on that note I glad I was going for a coffee and eclair!

Maybe I could do one in November or December? Wish me luck!

Stopped in my tracks

Disaster has struck. I injured my left foot last Thursday.

I ran for an hour, it was a nice run, I didn't get any stitches, it was all fine. And then, an hour later, I started to feel a sharp pain on the outer region of the foot.

By the time I finished dinner, I was seriously limping around.

Six days, much rest and an ankle guard later (yes, the pain spread), I went to see the doctor. And he has insisted that I will risk further injury to an already strained foot, especially if I stopped now and then went out to do 21km.

Ray of course is adamant that I not run; I'd thought that Marathon Man Martin would say just do it, but sigh, even he said to write it off and come back stronger.

So............................

I've emailed the organiser to defer my place (hopefully not too late), and start looking out for year-end HMs. Maybe I will recover in time.

Just feel very frustrated! It's been my only real goal for the year, and I've been gaining real momentum, feeling good about my small progress, actually looking to it despite the butterflies and trepidation, then this.

Please wish me a speedy recovery.

Saturday's run

Tyres pon-cheh. I only ran 40 mins. Ran to Blackheath, and then through the Cator Estate, came out on Lee Road, ran back into Blackheath Village, and then back home.

Not sure how long I ran, but I didn't enjoy it. I kept wanting to stop, and shuffled most of it. My (lack of) motivation to check the Google pedometer shows how much I enjoyed it. Not.

Having somebody run with me rather than in front of me, and then back to wait for me, is a far more effective tool. Sigh. I guess I can't ask for too much. At least he came with me. Will we ever be running buddies? I have my doubts. Serene says she cannot run with her BF; she has a hard time catching up, and he'd cramped if he slowed down for her. Ok, so even Iron(wo)Men types don't expect their life partners to partner them on the run. I'd have to keep that in mind and say it's okay lah. At least I get to sleep with him ;)

Longest run ever

On Wednesday, I ran for 1 hr 25 mins. The distance? 12km. I've done 13km on the treadmill before, but I don't think that quite counts, does it?

Pace was slower than the 10km, but I lasted for longer, and I did not stop. I know. I couldn't believe it either...

We ran along the canal near his house at Old Street, and then around Victoria Park, and then back. Felt surprisingly okay, but I did start to develop a bunion or corn on the side of my right toe. Ouch ouch ouch.

Took a quick shower and was late for dinner with Becky and Yvonne. Ate less than I'd expected/usually do after long runs. Guess my brains were pretty much fried...

I gave myself a silent pat on the back. Question is, how am I gonna do much longer than this, and without my trusty wing man on the day itself? I am still hoping that Martin will change his mind about running the Great North Run and come see history in the making (i.e. me doing the half-mar).

Running mojo

After not running for almost a year thanks to three surgeries, a move to a different country and a vast assortment of excuses, I finally took part in my first race in a long time.

The Nike Human Race was held at London's Wembley Park on 30 August. I was very nervous about it; I had only trained for two weeks, we took off almost two hours after we got to the venue, I was very cold (it was held at night) and I'd only had a light lunch and half a granola bar afterwards.

To make things worse, the so-called performance (Moby and some band called Pendulum) took ages - and then the emcees had us do warm-ups! Good grief. Do the organisers run themselves? It was so badly organised and communicated... But that would take an entire post altogether.

Just when I thought it could not get any worse, it started to DUMP with rain, while we were in the pit waiting for Wave 3 to be flagged off. I was utterly miserable. "What the heck am I doing here?" I groaned.

But anyhow it was too late, so off we went. Miraculously, I ran it in 1:04:06. A better time than back home, and certainly better than I'd expected given my lack of prep work. Having a running mate and the cool weather (ironically) helped tremendously. Also, I didn't get stitches until about the 7km point which allowed me to gain some distance with (relatively) less pain.

So.......................

Now I've to somehow (more than) double the distance and try not to die on the way to the finish line, in time for the Run to The Beat half-marathon on 5 Oct!

I have resolved to use this blog as a way to chart my agony, I mean progress, and share the pain of trying to find my running mojo back.

Today I got on the treadmill and did 6km in 47 very painful minutes. Oh crap.

I guess I just need to not look back and soldier on. Wish me luck!

A new door opens

I've been observing at an animal clinic for a few weeks now, and I must say it's been absolutely fascinating. I am learning a lot, and it's simply one of those doors that would not have been opened to me before. I am most grateful for the opportunity, and look forward to going every week. I wish I could go for more days!

I am not sure how this would play out in the long run (I am probably too old to got to vet school and I certainly lack the science genes!). But I have learnt to always trust my instincts and just go for it. Life has a funny way of working itself out if you let it. I will look into helping out in animal welfare units; perhaps I could put some of the knowledge to good use and help out the ones who can't help themselves.

London

I had resolved to write about moving to London and… Well, it’s been four months now.

Truth be told, it has not been easy. But it is home now, so Ray and me just have to do our level best to make it work.

So in a show of faith, I will start on a positive note.

Some weeks ago, we took the dogs to Greenwich Park for a run. As usual, I didn’t bring my keys as Ray has his on him. About 30 minutes into the run, he stopped, and realised that he’d dropped his key!

We were distraught – the park’s massive and we had not even followed a fixed path or regular route. We didn’t know where to start retracing our steps. Needless to say, the mood suddenly took a bad turn…

We started just looking around for the key. After almost an hour, Ray said: “It’s gone. Even if somebody found it, no way they’d bother returning it. And it’s a Sunday so the Park office is closed.”

The panic set in as we dragged ourselves home in the cold – we didn’t have our phones with us, we didn’t have the landlord’s number… We were resigned to having to knock on the neighbour’s door and beg for help, call the locksmith and pay a fortune to have the lock replaced.

As we came down our street, lo and behold, the landlord – who lives in the conservatory next door – stepped out onto the street! Now bear in mind we’ve been here four months and we’ve never seen the chap on his property, and most of the time he’s away in his house in some other county.

It was a MIRACLE. I can only say that because one moment we were having a grand time in the park, next we were in the pits of depression because we’d lost the only key we had, and then this…

Anyway, so life went on. The next day, I took the dogs to the park as usual. I decided to try the Park office to see if perhaps somebody had returned it. “No, sorry,” said the clerk. “Nobody’s returned a bunch of key.”

My heart sank.

“But you can try the Police Station which is just next door,” she said.

So I brought the dogs over, leashed them up, and then stood up only to find a note that the station was closed and to call them using the free phone mounted on the wall.

“Great,” I thought. “My only hope and they are closed. No way they have it.”

And then I saw it.

Resting quietly on a red metal mailbox at the police station was Ray’s bunch of keys. I could not believe it. If I’d ignored the instinct to try; if it had rained and I had not taken the dogs out; if it had been a later little; if some cruel kid had seen it and decided to take it even though there was no way of holding which house it opened…

Well, I had my second miracle.

Some kind soul DID take the trouble to return the key. Somebody figured the cold and panicked owner would try the Police Station.

So, to the kind soul who returned a bunch of keys with a small leather strap, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

It was a wonderful thing you did. You know who you are.

Whenever I have to deal with the Greenwich Council about yet another inane thing or missed collection, I try to think back to the good things like this little miracle so as to keep my sanity intact.

So there, my first London entry. Should be more consistent from here.