Eats: Paying Homage to Porky Pig @ Kedai Kenanga

It's not easy finding pork dishes in Jakarta. So when Hubs found Kedai Kenanga, he was as excited as his 5 year-old nephew Willliam opening his Christmas pressie.

Tucked in a rather quiet looking arcade near where Hubby is staying, Kenanga serves anything that gotta do with Porky Pig. From barbequed pork, roast pork, 5-spiced pork wrapped in tofu skin, pork satay to pork siew mai and heck they even have stewed porky ears. Yep.. you read the last one right. Order the special and you get all of them served with rice in a single dish.

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Kedai Kenanga

Ruko Permata Hijau,
Blok F No.26,
 Jl. Patal Senayan, Permata Hijau

Eats: Nasi Padang @ Garuda Restaurant

This is another must-try on the Indonesian foodie list. Not because I am "wow-ed" by how good the food is, but try it for the dining experience. The very moment we sat down, the dishes just kept coming, and coming and coming. Until we actually have a spread of at least 20 plates of meat and vegetable dishes in front of us.

The way to start is to ONLY take what interest your taste buds. Because there's a catch to it. If you tried something which you did not like the taste, you will be charged even though you did not finish it. And now you wonder, what do they do with the rest of the dishes that you did not touch? Well, the restaurant actually "recycles" it for the next customer that comes in. And there lies the second catch: GO EARLY during the lunch hour. If you can, be the 1st customer of the day.

Verdict: Good enough Malay-esque cuisine that's slightly overpriced (in my opinion)

And this is how much food we had on the dining table.

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Restoran Garuda

Jl. Arteri Pondok Indah No. 79 D

Kebayoran Lama, 12240 Jakarta Selatan

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of us all?

Asian women have this huge obsession with fair skin. And now the pursuit of fairer skin is no longer limited to the fairer of the sex. It would seem that men too have fell under the spell of numerous beauty products out there promising fairer and supple-looking skin.

A male customer came and ask for the literature of a new health drink containing pearl powder and marine collagen. Unfortunately, the product did not come with a 2-page long fine-print explanation of its properties. What's available is already printed on the box and the bottle and it offers limited information on just how the product delivers its promises: rejuvenates aging skin, prevents wrinkles and pigmentation and the ever-elusive skin whitening effect.

In the end, he did not buy the product. The reason: he's already on collagen supplement mainly for skin whitening properties and did not see any effect so far. In fact he is so well-informed that he mentioned the latest wonder in whitening products are those containing human growth hormone which guarantees visible whitening effect. I just nodded my head and mmm and ahhh at the right intervals, in passive agreement.

Vanity, Thy Name is Wo(Man)!

My pet peeve!

I dislike dispensing Postinor. Literally, anyone and everyone ask for it, men and women alike, from dirty old men to the sweet sixteens. Postinor is indicated as emergency contraception in the event of missed pills or torn condoms or more sinister, a rape. But in reality, it has achieved recreational status, because it absolves the users from practising safe sex apart from the obvious of trying to prevent a pregnancy.

And today, a nerdy looking college-going male came in asking for levonorgestrel 0.15mg. My first instinct: that's a weird way to ask for a medicine, because hardly anyone in Malaysia is educated enough to ask for medicines by their generic name. Secondly, the strength mentioned felt 'not right' because for that strength it would normally exist in combination with an estrogen as combined oral contraceptive pills and if it's a progestogen only contraceptive pill it would be at a very much lower strength. Upon further probing, I found out that he was looking for emergency contraceptive pill.

Come on, if you dare to do it without condom and all, be brave and mention the brand. No need to be shy-shy and try to act smart. Grrrrr!

And for girls who happen to be reading this, please be responsible for your own body. As with all medicines, there are known side-effects. For Postinor, it may cause ectopic pregnancy which is pregnancy occuring outside the womb. If you are sexually active, there are long-term contraception available which are more effective and reliable than Postinor. You can always discuss these options with your doctor/pharmacist.

Of numbers, fortune telling and... MLM?!

Yesterday, after taking a free BP check for one of the regulars, she asked if she could do a number reading for me. Always the curious me, I said sure. She asked for my birth date and quickly drawn up an inverted triangle and began filling it up with some numbers, which I found out later that these numbers were actually summation of various combinations of my birth date.

She then proceeded to tell me about my character and personality, i.e. how am i like and the works, which I sorta agree with. She went on to say that I 'seems' to have various opportunities to venture into businesses/investments which had I gone into these, I would have been very successful. However due to my own uncertainty (as in to do or not to do, that is the question), I have missed out the opportunities. Nevertheless, she said that I must venture into business coz I would make it good as the numbers "seems" to point in that direction.

Next she asked me to pen down the character of my chinese name. Whatever she saw there, it wasn't good coz she said that certain elements in my name does not bode well for my personal life, hence i must change my chinese name. She informed me that there's a particular Dato who conduct seminars on this number/fortune telling thingy in Kota Damansara (including name change and all the works) and if I was interested I could go and listen. I said non-committally that I would think about it and we exchanged phone numbers.

Throughout the day, I didn't have much time to think about the episode until later at night when my mind quiet down. As they always say, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. I felt a little restless and out of curiosity googled 'numerology' and 'kota damansara'. Interestingly the word "visiber" turned up.

I went into the company website and saw the familiar inverted triangle and the various formulas to derive the numbers which the lady had penned down earlier in the day. I also found out that this thing has been in existence since 2007 and from various blogs learnt that it has some MLM elements to it.

The restlessness grew and I called Hubs to relate what had happened. When he heard about the 'businesses' and 'investments' bit, he was laughing his guts out and said that it was so obvious the lady was 'baiting' me. Since Hub's cousin was visiting, I asked Hubs to check with him if he has heard of the company as he sorta move in the MLM circle.

Now on a saner mind, I recognised the 'baiting' was indeed there, and realised that gone are the days of 'hard sell' where enthusiastic MLM-ers encourage you to attend their motivational/inspirational talks that makes one so positive and practically wrap in this bubble of 'can-do' spirit. Instead, this particular company has employed something which I felt is uncomfortably darker, where in this instance the use of special numerological calculation to influence one that the future is changeable through numbers and good luck charms.

And I thought all men are born to know how to shave

As I was catching up with some ex-colleagues over lunch a few days ago, relating a couple of weird but hilarious customer encounters, one of them encouraged me to blog about it here. So here goes:

This episode happened quite a few years back when I was still in employment by another chain retail pharmacy. The store opposite from me is a photography shop and manned by a rather effeminate and plump Chinese man.

When he's not too busy he will run over to my store, mostly to window-shop and ask some general questions about health supplements on how to maintain beautiful skin or for weight loss. One day, he turned up in front of my counter and rather sheepishly asked how to get rid of facial hair. With him being a man and all, I thought he would always have a steady supply of razors in his bathroom. So naturally I answered shave lor.

Turning a slight shade of pink, he asked "Got any cream ar instead of shaving?" and while he was asking this, his right hand was lightly patting his rather scarce moustache - one-day-old hair probably, with the little pinky finger sticking out. Trying to maintain my best professional composure, I answered, "Most of the time shaving would be the easiest. I suppose you can try some of the hair removal cream like Nair or Veet but these are formulated for body hair, hence not tested for face."

Looking back I realised i should have suggested a third option: strip wax, just for the heck of it. Hahaha

Close Encounter of the Very Weird Kind

and I don't mean ETs or UFOs. My encounter with weird calls/sms-es from unknown numbers has taken a funny, bordering weird twist.

Two weeks ago, while in Jakarta, apparently I was a property agent. Someone sent me a sms requesting to be kept in the loop of any possible double-storey homes in Bandar Puteri Puchong that are up for sale.

Last Saturday, I received two more weird sms-es. In SMS 1, I was a university student. I was "asked" if I was interested in a study date. If yes, the sender of the sms will do the necessary booking of study room with the university.

In SMS 2, I was simply asked this question in Malay: Can sign (the contract/deal)? As usual, my response to theses pesky sms-es is to press the delete button. However sender of SMS 2 is one determined lady, which I shall call her Ms. B. When failed to get a reply from me, she called and asked to speak to a Mr Tan. I told her there's no such person and requested her to stop calling my number.

But that wasn't the last I heard from her. Ms. B called yesterday and again requested for Mr Tan. I gave the same response - no such person. She went on to explain that she had earlier sent a sms to my number to inform that she has banked in some money and when can she sign the contract. I repeated myself that Mr Tan doesn't exist and I told her to stop bothering me. When I ended the call, then only I saw her sms stating she banked in the money as requested and when can she sign the contract.

That sms got me worried. Like shitting bricks worried. In my mind, flashed the worst case scenario - someone could be using my number in some shady money lender business and I saw my face plastered in the Star newspaper, seeking help from Head of MCA Publice Service and Complaints Bureau to appeal to whoever it is to stop using my handphone number in such way.

I quickly called Hubs to tell him what happened and to get advice on my next course of action. Hubs informed that maybe I could check with my mobile service provider if there's another user registered to my number and also to lodge a police report. I gave my service provider a call and weirdly enough there's only one me that's tagged to my handphone number and their advice was also to lodge a police report.

On hindsight I decided to give Ms. B a call to find out exactly what sorta business is this Mr Tan involved in. Upon questioning her, I found out that she wanted to borrow some money from some shady money lender and apparently was asked to deposit some money into a particular account. She was supposed get in touch with Mr Tan after doing that and that's where the blunder happened - she couldn't remember precisely Mr Tan's handphone number. She could only remember the last four digits which matches my number correctly but wasn't sure what were the first three digits.

I gave her a very stern warning that her sms-es and calls got me very worried because it certainly felt like someone has deliberately use my handphone number illegally in some illegal businesses. I also told her that I was that close to lodging a police report. She begged me not to do so as it was really fault on her part that she couldnt remember the exact number. She sounded genuine, someone desperate. She promised not to disturb me anymore and will inform me if my number was indeed illegally used.

I left the matter as it is. My only fervent hope is that it was a genuine case of stupid blunder.