The Most Delicious Burger in KL

No, it's not the (in)famous Ramly burger. Relish on Changkat Bukit Bintang specializes in burgers and damn are they amazing. Situated directly opposite Frangipani, next to Pampas, it's a clean and modern looking restaurant that also calls itself a cafe and bar. It opened 9 weeks ago, by a charming pan-Asian-looking Penangite. He took an instant liking to me (yeah yeah gay icon and all that) and told us all about his adventure leading up to the crucial decision to open Relish in KL.

2 pages of their menu (they have it on their website as a PDF file!) is dedicated to burgers. Beef, lamb, chicken, veg; in numerous styles for each. They also serve alcohol and some interesting desserts (which I hear are also good - will have to try next visit!). I had the "minty lamb", in which succulent pieces of lamb were lightly coated with a heavenly mint sauce and styled to pour out of a salad-filled pita bread. Every-bloody-thing on that plate was sheer delight to my taste buds, from the juicy lamb to the yummy sauce to the lightly-toasted just-crisp-enough pita to the dressing on the salad. I was audibly orgasmic, to the irritation of my friends beside me. I also tried their beef burger - the 6oz patty is the size of my fist, perfectly medium-rare and comes with its own fantabulous sauce. Deeelish!

So yes, I had a most fulfilling hour there at Relish - awesome company, got hit on by a cute guy, great conversation, a orgasmically epicurean experience - and the night had just begun! Sounds like a perfect girls' night out... except that I'm not a girl.


AmBank

I dropped in to AmBank's Road Tax Department at their headquarters on Jln Yap Kwan Seng recently and I was pleasantly surprised. Hassle-free efficient service (with one small glitch) and quick response. If you go before noon, they can do the renewal by 4pm. Massive kudos to their service (except for that last fuckwit who should be shot) and to anyone dreading the idea of going - it's not so bad.


Stage Managing, DBKL and signages

Part of the job as Stage Manager is to visit our most esteemed city council, DBKL, to apply for a licence for the show. After a stressful experience driving in KL traffic, I discovered the right building - on Jln Raja Abdullah, and NOT the main one on Jln Raja Laut where's it's always been. Of course, you can't tell it's DBKL until you've turned in towards the building, as the building sign is blocked by trees.

Thankfully, the service was fast and hassle-free (yes we're not keeping up our Third-World-country-image very well), with the mandatory grumpy civil servant and the kind 'mak cik' type. If you want to have a show in this country, you need to apply for an 'Entertainment Licence', which describes everything; also attached must be a synopsis, a cast list, a script (and/or lyrics), the applicant's photocopied IC, a seating layout and the company's registration details. In SIX COPIES. Xerox - sponsored by the Malaysian Government.


Cars and tyres

So I'm sitting here at some tyre shop in Sunway with some friends, typing out the skeleton of this entry. One of them's doing The Star's Sudoku, while the other 2 (car nuts who are the reason I'm here as compared to any other workshop in Klang Valley) are getting themselves off on the many rims that surround me. I'm feeling the same thing as I feel in a jewellery shop - headachy from too many shiny reflective things, heartachy from the price tags. As a man, I absolutely refuse to allow myself to get into cars and rims and chrome. Too expensive a hobby for me, and anyway it's too common here in Asia. Every other guy's into cars - damn boring right?

Anyway I've learnt a lesson about measuring the baldness of your tyres. Along the side of the tyres, there's a little triangle. If you follow it onto the tracks of the tyres, you'll find a raised indentation. It should be (according to my friend) at least 3mm deeper than the contact surface. Any less and it's time to change. Here's another description and an alternative measurement (if you have US pennies).


The Falalas

I got to see a preview of The Falalas at No Black Tie. I don't know what it is, but Christmas carols are great. Except the overplayed ones at shopping malls, of course. They're playing at Laundry on 20th Dec 2006 10pm onwards, check it out if you're not sick of carols by then.


Malaysiana

My favourite idiot thinks that we need more shopping malls in Malaysia (sorry can't find the article on Star Online). Yes, we need to have a higher ratio of Guardian pharmacies per square kilometer. Honestly, what in hell for?!? Mega Mall, Mega Mall 2, North Point. Ikano Power Centre, The Curve, Mutiara Cineleisure, 1 Utama 2 Utama 3 Utama. Sungai Wang, Lot 10, BB Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Low Yat Plaza, Star Hill, whatever monstrosity they're raising opposite over BBGS. Its staggering as it is, you want more?? Have you seen Times Square, Avenue K, Maju Junction? Why not revamp them into towering edifices dedicated to your stupidity before suggesting we get more? Mate. The problem with creating more retail space is that we're not creating enough stuff to sell there. So how do we fill up said space? With the same ol' chains.

The problem with THAT is that you're creating more sales assistants and store managers. "We have a large unemployed graduate workforce. How can we take care of that?" "Hey, I got it! Let's stuff 'em into shopping malls! And the way to stop them from lepaking is to have them tend stores!" CIA World Factbook 2020: Malaysia - employment 100%; retail industry 80%; GNP - RM0; primary reason due to majority of workforce keeping work hours equal to that of shopping malls, leaving no time to buy anything (hence no stimulus for demand), meaning that they don't earn anything due to lack of sales.

Skimming over the fact that we have so many other tourist attractions in our beautiful land, and the ridiculousness of orientating our tourism industry to our shopping circuit, as a standalone idea we could actually make it work. Thankfully we'll never do all that's necessary to make it work, but think about it - the whole Bukit Bintang area is really shaping up to be it. If they did some serious city planning (hah! Show me a city planner in Malaysia with an IQ above their age and I'll join a nunnery for life) and tourism planning, we could make BB such a kickass tourist zone - move out all the big businesses and banks, make the streets pedestrian only, ramp up the street entertainment.

Okay to be fair to my favourite idiot, he did make a sensible comment on the papers recently. I forget what it is, but all in all he's not doing too well in the "saying smart things on the papers" department. We should send him to the US - he'd stand a better chance politically there, judging from the current President.


Mini-yay

I'm mentioned in this month's Plan B. No, not even by name, but nevermind. Here it is:

... etc etc etc about Free Flow...

... A cute Chinese lad did an abstract comic piece about his dream of building the tallest durian tower, with a comfortably predictable ending of being crushed by the crumbling edifice of spikes. He was practiced, but nervous. A tubby middle-aged man...


What? So I'm a nameless "cute Chinese lad" in a two-liner in the best men's mag in Malaysia. Soon it'll be three, then four, then you'll see.