Portuguese Pleasures

Written weeks ago, this review of popular, well-reviewed Cristang Restaurant is finally out in the papers. On the day of the Big Yellow Rally. What timing.

However, I feel I have to clarify and point out a few things which were in the original copy: The chef's name is Gerald G (as in Gordon) Oei, not C; the "devils on horseback" dish is described twice; a "noodle incident" about "crossed wires" should've been removed, but wasn't; and technically, the Cristang aren't exactly Portuguese but I was groping for words for a little article alliteration.

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Portuguese pleasures

It’s a different kind of foreign occupation when memories of the food at Cristang Restaurant can’t get out of these diners’ heads

first published in The Star, 09 July 2011


We arrived at the restaurant at 8 Avenue around dusk. As Alex whipped out her camera to photograph the exterior, she pointed at something. "Look," she exclaimed, "there are pigs above the doorway!"

As I examined the pigs, a Cristang-looking fellow appeared at the door. "It’s the first time anybody noticed the ‘guardians’ since I opened," he observed. Alex can be sharp-eyed when she wants to be.

We take in the décor: chairs with chequered cushions, wood panelling around the front doorway, and glass panels with the current specials written in dry-erase ink. Sitting in front of each fake brocade cushion was a half-filled pig head-shaped bean bag. The atmosphere was quite subdued, with Portuguese/Latin American guitar playing over the sound system. At the time we were there, we were the only patrons.

Chef-owner Gerald C. Oei told us that Cristang has been open for two years.

"Our opening hours are on Facebook, and behind the counter. I don’t open on Mondays," he said, adding that there were exceptions. "If Tuesday is a public holiday, I will open on Monday."

Though named for the descendants of the Portuguese who dropped by in the 16th century, Cristang’s restaurant’s menu also has Italian, Spanish and other influences from continental Europe: pastas and protein-starch-veggie dishes. It seems as though the restaurant is still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Or perhaps it’s a reflection of the owner’s eclectic tastes and repertoire.

In a radio interview, Gerald seemed to suggest that Cristang was the lab/playground to test and try out his culinary experiments, his own takes on his grandma’s recipes. He was almost vibrating with glee as he told a customer about a dessert he was trying out.

"I love what I do," he beamed.

Alex avoided the carbonara despite the promise of crispy, smoky porcine pleasure in the ingredients list. She settled on a "basic" pork burger, a Cristang signature that had a number of different "grades" from P1 to P10. I picked a tapas dubbed "devils on horseback" - bacon-wrapped sticks of asparagus, baked in a sauce of garlic, onions and red wine. The menu whimsically noted that for this item, "Sorry, angels are not available."

Similar displays of humour were in the menu, lost in the anticipation of a splendid meal.

Alex didn’t like the "devils on horseback" much, mainly because the bacon wasn’t crispy. The dish - three asparagus spears wrapped in bacon and swimming in a garlic and red wine sauce, was likely baked. It was delicious, a great appetiser.

Alex found Cristang’s pork burger much finer than another establishment’s. It was nice and juicy, and the tiny potato wedges were roasted with rosemary. Definitely a higher class pork burger. The full-on version, which had petai (stinkbean) mixed into the patties only got better with the addition of cheese, chilli con carne, and other add-ons, all of which made for a pretty dish one would feel reluctant to cut into.

My Avenue Fried Rice was a decidedly upmarket, larger and tastier version of a mamak stall nasi goreng kambing. A lamb curry fried rice with crunchy fried anchovies and slivers of cucumber, it was, to my dismay, mild – but tasty.

I was surprised, however, by how bitter my D’Tox Red fruit juice combo was. Wasn’t a mix of watermelon, orange and carrot supposed to be kind of sweet? I also wondered why they served water in a tequila glass until I took a sip and got a mouthful of sucrose syrup instead.

Oh yes... didn’t the waiter say, "Sugar is separate"?

Almost full, we toyed with the idea of dessert. The Apple Strudel looked nice, but Alex was worried about the sugar content. Nor did she find the fried banana dessert appealing. We eventually settled for something different, a Butter Cake Anglaise: five pieces of fried butter cake with cream Anglaise, strawberry purée, arranged around a scoop of vanilla ice-cream garnished with a mint on top.

The notion of a fried butter cake drove Alex into mental overdrive, even before she’d had a taste. Oh, it was so good. Sinful decadence on a plate. It helped that the butter cake was already good, but when you pan-sear the outside to crisp it, then drizzle strawberry purée over it and eat it with a bit of good cold vanilla ice-cream...

Alex’s mind was, to my imagination, afire with visions of animated slices of butter cake, falling into and leaping from their frying pans, complete with yelps of pain.

Despite being stuffed, we kept stealing morsel after morsel, and in no time the plate was clean, we were happy, and the tension caused by our crossed wires vanished. It was money well spent.

I popped RM1 plus change into a tip jar that rather brazenly suggested, "Afraid of change? Leave it here!"

Memories of the food, particularly dessert, continued to haunt us as we drove home.

"Oh God, the cake was so sinful," Alex groaned. I couldn’t tell whether she was grumbling or gushing. Our minds would be aflame with visions of butter cake, petai-infused pork burgers and rosemary-tinged potato wedges for the next couple of weeks.

Talk about a different kind of Portuguese invasion.

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Cristang Restaurant

Unit B-G-19, 8 Avenue
Jalan Sungai Jernih (8/1)
46050 Petaling Jaya
Selangor

CLOSED FOR GOOD

Secret Service

I had originally intended to blog the review of this book I got from Monsoon. Then, when visiting the editorial staff at the paper, I opened my big mouth.

But perhaps it's better I did. As an account of the days before and after the Japanese occupation of Malaya, this book is a slice of history. While I don't know how much of a difference the review will make, I felt the paper was a better platform to tell people about this book.

My standfirst in the original copy was not used, so I've included it here; it does sound quite cliché in hindsight. But why does the print and online version have different titles?

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Secret service

The memoirs of a British intelligence officer in Malaya surfaces to entertain, enlighten and enthral

first published in The Star, 08 July 2011


Malayan Spymaster: Memoirs Of A Rubber Planter, Bandit Fighter and Spy is the abridged version of the memoirs of the late Boris Hembry (1910-1990) who, according to the back cover blurb, "... spent a month in the jungle behind enemy lines ... recruited into the Secret Intelligence Service ... returned to Sumatra and Malaya several times by submarine ... liaised with Force 136 ..."

Who would not want to know more?

Born in South Africa, Boris Messina Hembry was barely 20 when he arrived on these shores in 1930. He bounced around several rubber estates in Malaya and Sumatra, and also joined the local volunteer corps. He brought his wife over from Britain and started a family.

When the Japanese invaded during World War II, Hembry joined one of the volunteer corps' many stay-behind parties – his first and failed foray into espionage – before eventually escaping to India. He soon demonstrated a knack for getting into trouble when he signed up for intelligence work in Burma, forsaking the relative safety and calm of a training battalion.

He would later join spying operations in Japanese-occupied Malaya, a job that had him travelling by submarine and taking a short course at Britain's famous Government Code and Cypher School in Bletchley Park, where the Nazis' Enigma code was cracked.

Hours after the murder of estate manager Arthur Walker (that eventually triggered the declaration of the Malayan Emergency and the fight against communist insurgents), Hembry organised his "own bloody army" of volunteers to repel the Reds – the beginnings of the anti-Communist home guard.

His contribution to the fight against the insurgents included input that would later be incorporated into the Briggs Plan that resettled rural folk into New Villages to cut off support for the communists. Social highlights included interactions with Sir Henry Gurney, Sir Gerald Templer and Anthony Eden, who would become British prime minister. Hembry left Malaya in 1955 with his wife, partly due to poor health.

With a title like Malayan Spymaster one expects a cool book. The writing, however, is quite matter-of-fact, devoid of the usual fluff and literary devices. His life as a planter, soldier and estate manager is more detailed than chapters that concern his time as an intelligence officer.

Even if this isn't quite the knuckle-whitening, real-life spy thriller the title suggests, Hembry's simple storytelling, charming in its own unadorned way, is compensated by a wealth of information and experiences gleaned the hard way. The reader is immersed in life in the clubs and estates of the British colonial era, as well as the dangers of the jungles and swamps during war-time.

'Tis heady stuff, this record of the days in pre-war and post-war Malaya by this Mat Salleh, one of many who spent much of their life's efforts on their adopted country and who may never be acknowledged in the history books.

Hembry never intended to publish his memoirs. His kin, however, felt that it deserved a much wider readership.

"We dedicate it to those expatriates of many generations whose devotion to that beautiful country and its peoples helped to lay the foundations of present-day peaceful and prosperous Malaysia," says Hembry's son, John, in the preface.

I'm certain readers of Malayan Spymaster will be grateful for the Hembrys' generosity.

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Malayan Spymaster

Memoirs of a Rubber Planter, Bandit Fighter and Spy

Boris Hembry
Monsoon Books (2011)
424 pages
Non-Fiction/History/Malayan Emergency
ISBN: 978-981-08-5442-3

Born To Run

Timothy Malcolm Smith is creative whiz at London ad agency Cream. He's friendly, charitable, deeply spiritual, philosophical, good with the ladies, and keeps virtually no vices. He doesn't pray to Christ, he chats with Him, calling him "Jezza" or "Jez". Did I mention he's also his ad agency's creative genius?

There's this British coffee franchise, Common Grounds, which is older than penicillin, tea bags, even sliced bread. But the brand has gone stale. With his capable and charming assistant Cambria, Timmy swoops in with a plan and a slogan: "Common Grounds - Everybody's Cup of Tea". The campaign is paradigm-changing. The video ad goes viral. Common Grounds is rescued. One can almost visualise the headlines blaring, "Cream Saves Coffee".

More ad campaigns follow, including a poem for a charity organisation's ad that blows everyone away. Rival agencies come a-courting, including New York creative powerhouse Oddinary. But for the time being, he stays put.

And there's this other dream of his: training in secret since his childhood, Timmy wants to run and win the New York Marathon, taking the entire race by surprise as a dark horse of a champion. No small feat, considering that it means defeating the Ethiopian long-distance running champion, Haile Gebrselassie.

Oh, did I mention that Timmy's rich? Or his Balinese-style, 4-bedroom pad called Ankhura, atop a 18-floor luxury apartment building on the edge of London's Canary Wharf, with its own garden and fish-filled rock pools, and a sound system that plays ambient sounds of nature: forests, seaside, rivers and so on - which he designed himself? And the "elephantine mahogany bed", larger than king-size, with sheets of 1500-threadcount Egyptian cotton?

...I put down the book. If I could crook one eyebrow, I would. Can such a Mary Sue - whose ads everyone wants to copy, whose artistry can bend the fabric of reality so that Brits would start switching from tea to coffee - possibly exist? It is fiction, but still...

Character, charisma, career, creative chops, cojones, and cash. Timothy Malcolm Smith has it all. Then I read on, and find out that even as Superman has his kryptonite, the protagonist of Jeremy Chin's début novel has some flaws. For one, Timothy Malcolm Smith is unlucky in love. Funnily, "Jezza" is a nickname for people called Jeremy or Jerry.

...All that was the first 60-odd pages of Fuel, a dark horse of a Malaysian-authored novel if I ever saw one. Even before we enter the home of Timmy Smith, it passed the 50-page test with soaring colours.

What follows is perhaps among the most beautiful love stories ever told. Timmy would share his marathon dreams with Cambria, whom he eventually grows close to. They would train together, go to New York and exchange pleasantries with Gebrselassie. And they would, as the novel promises, do the unexpected. What drives Timmy - the "fuel" for his creativity and his dreams - is passion. Hence, the title.

Despite the reality-warping powers of Timmy Smith's creativity and charm, the initial contact, courtship and the clincher is well-scripted and believable, albeit a little rainbow-hued. If the atmosphere of a creative agency feels too true-to-life, it's because Chin himself worked in a similar industry in London for a number of years, and has brought his experience to bear in this book.

But it's not just the cover's simple but impactful design. Every phrase, every paragraph has purpose, is strung together well and polished to a showroom sheen. Timmy's big empty mahogany bed practically screams, "Lonely heart, space available, enquire within." No need to guess what the 1500-threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets imply.

The only minor bumps in Timmy's racetrack to glory are the first-person narratives and the prologue featuring lionesses hunting a gazelle. But wait a minute - isn't Gebrselassie's native Ethiopia home to a number of national parks?

That's why I feel the inclusion of Gebrselassie adds a touch of realism to the tale. Even before the conclusion of Fuel, you're already cheering for Timmy and Cambria. You'll want to believe that someone like Timmy can actually exist, that Timmy and Cambria's love story can be real, that Timmy can win, that he can actually move mountains. That you can move mountains, and the fairy-tale Timmy-Cambria romance can be yours.

Yichalal, as they say in Ethiopia's Amharic language. "It is possible". "It can be done." Especially when the word was associated with Gebrselassie’s fierce determination to run and win gold in the 10,000 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics despite an injury.

If there is one book you should read this year, or next year, or the year after that, it'll be this book.

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Fuel

Jeremy Chin
255 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-10084-0-9

Web site: fueldabook.com

Booty

...or how my reading list is getting longer.

I picked up three books by Singaporean Eurasian novelist Rex Shelley (1930-2009) that have been reissued by Marshall Cavendish: People of the Pear Tree (1993), Island in the Centre (1995) and A River of Roses (1998), I'd also rescued several other books from non-review obscurity - because I'm kind of biblio-masochistic that way.

Books "rescued" on impulse (left) and the Rex Shelley "collection"

Now I also have John Boyne's The Absolutist, followed by Catherine Lim's Miss Seetoh in the World and Those in Peril by "airport novel writer" Wilbur Smith.

Now, let's see:

• The Absolutist
  John Boyne
  Doubleday (2011)
  309 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-385-61605-8
• Miss Seetoh in the World
  Catherine Lim
  Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
  487 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-981-4328-36-4
• Those in Peril
  Wilbur Smith
  MacMillan (2011)
  386 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-230-52927-4
• People of the Pear Tree
  Rex Shelley
  Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
  270 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-981-4346-24-5
• Island in the Centre
  Rex Shelley
  Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
  271 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-981-4346-25-2
• River of Roses
  Rex Shelley
  Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
  471 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-981-4346-26-9

...Whoa. Glad I've finished reading The Absolutist and drafted the review. One down, five-plus more to go!

The Writing Room Gets Crowded

Unbound, a new crowd-funded publishing company that gets readers involved the writing of books, was unveiled at this year's Hay Festival, the an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, the famous town of books in the Welsh county of Powys.

Unbound, the new face of crowd-funded
publishing

On the web site, each author's page has an extract from their book and a video pitch of their book idea. People who like what they see can pledge a certain amount to fund the book, from £10 to £250, with goodies that commensurate with the pledged amount. Pledgers will have their names printed in the final version of the book.

Half the profits on successful titles go to the author. If a book fails to launch, pledges can be transferred to other titles, or be refunded.

So why should people participate? Because, according to Unbound, "For the first time, you will be able to hold in your hands a book that wouldn't have existed without you."

"We are really trying to involve the readers at an earlier stage of the process which could be transformative as authors will have better visibility of how their ideas are being received by their target audience as they write," explained John Mitchinson, one of the company's founders, in the Guardian. The others are British historian, television producer and writer Justin Pollard, and author and editor, Dan Kieran.

Several authors have signed on to Unbound, including best-selling authors Terry Jones, Booker-shortlisted novelist Tibor Fischer and cloudspotter Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

In the fading, cash-strapped world of book publishing, crowd-funding can be one way out of oblivion. But will any kind of book be successfully Unbound?

Crowd-funding, I feel, works best for works of non-fiction, particularly coffee table books and directories for people and places of interest: historical sites, hidden foodie haunts, unique communities, and such. Nothing galvanises the public more than a worthy cause, and they can contribute more than just money. From this simplistic point of view, I don't think the initiative is all that novel.

One of the founders appears to concur. "In many ways it's a very old idea – there are a lot of 19th century cases where books were published by subscription," said Justin Pollard. "Because of the internet we have crowdfunding, so we can combine the old idea of subscription with finding your audience on the internet, and get the best of both worlds."

Perhaps. After all, books aren't solo endeavours; historical novels, for instance, require research, which volunteers can pitch in with.

Thing is, I'm less sure about crowd-funding working for fiction.

With regards to the novel as an art form, however, crowd-sourcing can be burdensome. Imagine Leonardo da Vinci's patrons - the highest-paying ones - being granted the privilege of sitting around the artist and providing input as he paints the Mona Lisa.

"The nose needs to be sharper."

"No, a finer bridge."

"CLEAVAGE!"

"Why is the backdrop so dull? The Florentine cityscape would look nicer."

"Why not her room?"

"Don't want people to know where the apartment is located."

"Point."

"CLEAVAGE!"

"Her forehead's too damn high."

"G*d she looks like a man. Longer eyelashes?"

"Redder, shinier lips, maybe."

"More colourful robes."

"MORE CLEAVAGE!"

"Like he said."

"Yes, that'll work."

Leo would probably snap his paintbrush in two and stalk off after a few days of input.

Regardless of the amount, there is little to deter patrons from going overboard with their ideas. The author, meanwhile, will inevitably feel swamped by all the contributions, wondering perhaps if he'll offend certain patrons (such as the high-paying ones) by rejecting their ideas. Then there's the question of money compromising artistic vision... .

I'm certain some authors would not welcome such complications to their creative processes.

Still, it's not a bad idea, and G*d knows the publishing industry is gasping for fresh ideas, a lifeline out of oblivion brought on by the digital age. Perhaps Unbound can be another launchpad for the careers of new authors, and a new arena the established ones can explore or play in.

Some members of the latter category sound enthusiastic. Jones reportedly said the "brilliant" crowd-funding idea was "just what publishing needs". Philip Pullman and Noam Chomsky are similarly enthusiastic.

Such a web portal can also help bridge the gap between authors and their supporters and the public - kind of like JK Rowling's Pottermore. The buzz surrounding an upcoming project can whip up a degree of interest in it, ensuring a ready market for new products.

Chick-lit author Amy Jenkins, another Unbound participant, is particularly excited by the notion of being surrounded by supporters ("Writing is a really lonely occupation", she reportedly stated) and not having to do much marketing.

So I suppose, yes, this startup might be worth keeping an eye on.

"The hero needs to be blonde."

"Why did you kill him off here? Do it earlier."

"Later."

"SEX!"

"This scene needs to be longer."

"Shorter."

"China in 1891 is still under the Qing Dynasty."

"SEX!"

"There are no piranhas in Africa."

"They're imported."

"Dude, this is fiction. Lighten up."

"LOTS OF STEAMY, SWEATY SEX!"

"Like he said."

"Yes, that'll work."

...Along with the myriad challenges it poses.

Paper People

I decided to get Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists at the advertised 20 per cent discount. The sales assistant mentioned a "coupon", but turns out all I had to do was to surrender that section of the newspaper in exchange for the price cut.

At a discounted price of RM48 it was still expensive, never mind the "bonus" interview featuring Rachman and Malcolm Gladwell and accolades such as the New York Times Book Review of the Year.

At least the book didn't disappoint.

Formerly a journalist with Associated Press, Tom Rachman was born in 1974 in London, but grew up in Vancouver. The Imperfectionists is his début novel; he's now in London, working on his second.

Tom Rachman's newspaper novel

This novel charts the fall of a fictional newspaper headquartered in Rome, through the vignettes of key characters involved with it. Each chapter is dedicated to one character, complete with a headline. Spliced in between are the milestones in the paper's history, rendered in eye-gouging italics.

Among others, we meet an obituary writer and trivia section custodian, who struggles with his editor and later, a family tragedy; the grizzled corrections editor who can't seem to keep up with the Internet-powered changes in his world of words; a frumpy, bitchy, bitter copywriter who has a love/hate relationship with her career; and a news editor/aspiring inventor who tries to deal with his girlfriend's cheating.

Rounding up the cast is the struggling, starving freelancer who's miles away from it all, and is therefore, clueless about how the news mill he writes for is run; the equally clueless descendant of the paper's founder; and one who is perhaps the paper's most loyal reader.

Despite my very brief stint in journalism, and even though the setting and ethnicity is different, I can still recognise bits of former colleagues in the characters. In myself are fragments of struggling freelancer Lloyd Burko and obsessive-compulsive corrections editor Herman Cohen. As for the premise itself - well, it's one that's playing out everywhere.

The format may look odd, breaking the story up and interrupting the momentum, but thanks to sharp, witty prose and an innate knowledge of the industry, this 200-plus-page obituary to newsprint that Rachman has written is one fun, morbid ride. The character's individual stories, though interesting and funny, are somewhat peripheral to the world crumbling around them.

In The Imperfectionists one can truly see the physical newspaper's slow, painful spiral to oblivion. Despite knowing what's to come, the pages keep turning. Writers/journalists/publishers of every stripe will find the depressing tone of the book strangely comforting in its familiarity.

Hence my bafflement at this book being marketed as fiction. It's as real as it can one wants it to be.

They could have done without the Rachman-Gladwell section. Omitting that would probably cut the price by 30 per cent.

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The Imperfectionists

Tom Rachman
Dial Press (2011)
281 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-385-34367-1

"Eet Ees NOT Too SOHLTEE!"

A long, long time ago in a Visa Card ad with a restaurant setting, Zhang Ziyi infuriated a chef with the complaint, "De sup is too saltee." The pissed-off chef yells his denial and set his kitchen staff on her. A re-enactment of the restaurant fight scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ensued. Though the place was trashed, Zhang emerged triumphant and hurled a Visa Card to a waiter - "for the 'extras'".

In 2008, at a restaurant in Taiwan, a similar tableau unfolded but this time the chef - or rather, the restaurant - won.

A food and lifestyle blogger who visited the restaurant not only complained about salty food, but also of cockroaches in the kitchen and the owner who allowed indiscriminate parking near his premises. When the owner heard about the review, he sued her for defamation.

The judge ruled in the restaurant's favour on the grounds that the blogger had gone too far with her review. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay the restaurant about US$7,000 for losses her review may have caused.

This sounds... kind of familiar... except that nothing about that fishy case has come up so far.

I have not read the review, but I feel the judgement handed down was a bit heavy-handed. Making sweeping statements about the food based on one dish is reckless (unless it's the only dish served by the establishment), though I feel the roach part is valid. It was just one review by one person; other diners may beg to differ.

So can a food blog, a chronological journal of one's eating experiences with anecdotes of bad food and bad hygiene for a particular day, be defamatory? Is it unfair and unobjective to say something tastes "bad" when it, well, tastes "bad"? Tastebuds generally don't lie.

Things change all the time in restaurants, and unfortunately for that blogger, that day was perhaps a bad time to visit. Things might have happened afterwards: a visit from a healthy inspector, another customer complaint... the problems that were blogged about may have been solved after the review was published - something a review should include.

Commenting on the case, a Taiwanese lawyer said food bloggers should be "truthful in their commentary", "be fair and objective in their writing", and use photographic evidence to protect themselves. In short, they should be like journalists. But are food bloggers supposed to be journalists? Or will journalism be expected from bloggers in the future, particularly those whose blogs have high page hits?

Will being like journalists actually help protect bloggers from defamation suits?

One way this could have been avoided was not to review the place at all. With the exception of one or two blogs I know of, Malaysian food bloggers don't bother if an overall restaurant experience is sour. But what if a review was paid for, or by invitation? Does one gloss over the flaws, write a "balanced" review, or what?

In the near future, however, I think they'd better be careful when reviewing eating places in Taiwan.