News: A Review, And An MPH Quill Update

So I've been talking about food places a bit more. Books may be what this blog's (mostly) about, but food has always been my number one. Some news bites before normal programming resumes:

• In the Parents Corner of The Star Online, a review of Wee Su May's Nine Little People Who Lived in a Chest. A real review, not something like my publicity piece on the book. "Dark themes"? "Unsettling for a children's book"? Really, now?
• This quarter's MPH Quill is still in production. The editorial team is also being swamped with work for the upcoming quarterly issues of several other magazines. We could be looking at a mid-December release for Quill. I find it kind of absurd, too - why not just lump it up into a single bumper issue for January 2012? That's all I know at the moment.
• I'm sure there isn't a dearth of book-related blogs in Malaysia, but when you look at the list of book blogs in this blog, you have to wonder... So why are Malaysia's bookworms not blogging? Too little time, content with sites such as, GoodReads, LibraryThing or Shelfari, or is it just simply not worth it?
• Ellen Whyte's Logomania: Fate & and Fortune and the re-issued Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories can now (or should) be found at bookstores. Both books are, at least, at MPH@Publika, Solaris Dutamas.

Return To Joy Café

Has it been three years since I wrote about this place?

The astonishment isn't just because of the swift passage of time. What became a quiet Chinese café with a limited menu is now a restaurant with more offerings and a few home-made off-the-shelf items.

Something that tasted like meat floss is actually dehydrated shiitake mushroom. A dark mushroom sauce with a hearty, meaty flavour rivals the oyster sauce. A light-coloured sesame sauce, used in some of their dishes, is like a runnier, smoother version of the tahini.

Golden couple Dennis Ng and wife Joyce have continued with the culinary experiments that made me a regular (as I can be). Their special fried rice and their orange white coffee are still as tasty. They serve a good nasi lemak, though it's been months since I've had a plate.

Joy's mango yoghurt - sweet,
yellow and fragrant

Over a year ago, Dennis started making yoghurt. The first flavour remains my favourite: wheatgrass, with a dash of pandan for that herbal sweetness and fragrance. For a while, I was on a Joy yoghurt bender, buying from four to eight cups at a time. Joy Café has since added more flavours to its yoghurt range, including strawberry, roselle, soursop, guava and mango.

On my most recent visit, they were out of wheatgrass yoghurt. My deflated spirits were restored by the thick, sweet and florally fragrant mango yoghurt. One is advised to give it a stir before eating, presumably to smoothen the texture and activate the live cultures inside.

At RM2.90 a cup it's a little pricey, but you'll get the assurance of quality by a proud business owner who uses nothing but natural ingredients. Don't wanna eat your yoghurt? For RM6, you get a tall glass of a yoghurt drink in any of the flavours available at the place.

Joining the beef and lamb briskets, braised pork trotter and dry chicken curry on the menu is an otak-otak omelette, nice but a bit oily when I tried it months ago; a spicy, slightly sourish nyonya chicken with a curry-like sauce that had a tang of lemongrass; and batter-coated chicken or fish topped with their own sesame sauce. Most of these dishes come with a soup, a side of veggies, a sunny-side-up egg (whether the yolk is runny or cooked solid is the luck of the draw), and a choice of either rice or noodles. The special fried rice and nasi lemak are still there.

Picking dishes from such a selection can be difficult. After some time, my dinner companion settled on the nyonya chicken with rice, but I was still undecided. To my rescue was Joyce: "Want to try our new pork belly? We braise it in a sauce with Australian wine."

This surprised us. The menu is almost overflowing! Is there even room for another snack? But I loves me some pork belly, and I'm a sucker for new things. So I went for it.

Dinner Kaki's nyonya chicken had been a taste of home - as in, reminded me of my kampung in Penang. I was content to eat just the sauce with rice. Then, my dish arrived.

New at Joy Café: Pork belly in red wine sauce.
Nigella would be proud.

The slab of pork belly and its pool of red sauce dominated the dinner plate; all the sides seemed to shrink from its meaty majesty. And oh golly, it was good. Chewy tender skin, rich buttery fat and lovely meat. In a savoury sauce slightly fruity from the wine. All good with rice, a slice of bread, a mantou (plain Chinese bun), or perhaps mashed potatoes.

What started as a Father's Day special became a regular dish, at the behest of enamoured customers. A previous incarnation used spare ribs, but wasn't as successful. "It's Danish pork," Joyce said. I was sure they could recreate this dish with local pork and a RM30 wine.

Dinner Kaki ignored her dieting taboos and warned me to save her some of the leaner bits. Naturally, I chafed at that. This pork belly surprise was too good to share.

But the taste wasn't the pork belly's only bombshell. At RM13.90 it wasn't just a steal, it was plain Wall-Street-class plunder - never mind that we'd had a different pork belly dish elsewhere for the same amount. On the way home, we argued which was a better price, eventually settling for a figure between RM15.90 and RM18.90.

For once, (some) truth in advertising

Outside Joy Café, a banner proclaimed the place as having "the best food in town". I wouldn't call it a boast; from what we've eaten so far, it's probably a simple statement.


22/06/2015   "Joy Café was located at 540, Jalan Riang 11, Happy Garden, 58200 Kuala Lumpur. It finally closed its doors for good around the end of April 2015. A Meng Kee wonton noodle shop (not sure if it's related to the one in Kuchai Lama) is now in its place.

Will Little Bookstores Be Big Again?

What comes to mind when you hear of an author opening a bookstore? "Oh he's just going to sell his books or his friends' books," some might say.

That might be a bit too cynical of a thing to say about Parnassus Books, the little independent bookstore author Ann Patchett (The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Bel Canto (2001), State of Wonder (2011)) opened with Karen Hayes, a publishing veteran who made her bones at the Ingram Book Company and Random House.

It seems that when a much-loved indie bookstore went belly-up in Nashville, Tennessee, the townspeople panicked.

"People were greeting each other in grocery stores, at holiday parties, wringing our hands," said Beth Alexander, president of the board at the Nashville Public Library Foundation. "We’re home to two dozen universities. We need to have a bookstore other than a campus bookstore, and people were looking at each other and saying, 'We're very concerned about this.'"

Seldom would the closure of a bookstore ever generate such a shockwave here in Malaysia. But Nashville, said to be the "Athens" of southern US, is home to Vanderbilt University which is ranked 51st by The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2010-11. Notable people who went there include author James Patterson; Charlie Soong, dad to the Soong sisters; Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus; and artiste Amy Grant.

Named for the fabled mountain that is considered the home of poetry, music and learning in literature, it is hoped that Parnassus Books would fill the void left behind by the closing of small-time bookstores in Nashville.

"I have no interest in retail; I have no interest in opening a bookstore," said Patchett about the venture. "But I also have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore."

Same here.


Getting personal
In another piece, also on the NY Times, the author of State of Wonder opines on the evolution of the bookstore. "The cycle has come all the way back around: the little bookstore grew into a big bookstore, which was squashed by the superstore, which folded beneath the Internet store, which made people long for a little bookstore." A process, she says, that took just 13 years.

Now, in the (dying) era of the book emporium chain, parts of the US appear to be embracing the indie bookstore again, competing - says the New York Times - "where Amazon cannot: by being small and sleek, with personal service, intimate author events and a carefully chosen rotation of books. ...Make your store comforting and inclusive, smart but not snobby." Parnassus also has a coffee bar.

Admittedly, I don't know any that would fit. Mention "indie bookstore" to (some) Malaysians and they'll say, "Silverfish"; an even more select few would suggest Skoob Books. Both are cosy little nooks. I remember the buzz from the sight of rows of volumes by big literary names. You want to read there, and if you had a pen and notebook, you'd want to write there, too. Author events and readings feel more natural at a bookstore.

If there's some extra space, why not host another independent industry? Ice cream? Baked goods? Personal hygiene products? The networking possibilities, the tie-ups! Fancy a small cup of Last Polka durian ice cream at a discount when you buy a copy of Amir Muhammad's The Big Durian? Weekend bazaars are okay, but I'd rather not wait for the next Art For Grabs for a bar of handmade mint and cucumber glycerine soap (ahh) from The Bubble Lab.

Some might argue that the select number of titles and the presence of the owners might ramp up the snob levels a few, but that's a minor kink. Indy establishments must have character. A coffee bar wouldn't hurt, though.


Missing things
As the physical book retreats to its place as a luxury item, the approach to selling one should match: personalised service, limited range, and a staff who knows what they're selling (Amazon recommendations are nice, but they sound cold and can be inaccurate). Increased human contact also builds trust, something that's been eroded by the convenience of long-distance digital communication.

Yes, there's always the cost factor. Independents can't survive the long run without a supportive community. Reading about Parnassus and Nashville makes me wonder about the (lack of a) sense of community here, which seems more conducive for our savage brand of politics, rather than communal ties.

But the indy label's not just about out-of-the-box. It also encompasses identity and self-expression. And if the products and services are consistently good, and if the owners are proud of what they do, indy also means quality.

Quality, trust, and the human touch. They've been missing from our lives for so long, but I bet we'd still recognise them when we see them.

D'bento's D'ebut

Though small, the interior is cozy. Bamboo screens and a door curtain separate a private nook from the main dining area. The chairs are cheap plastic and the tables feel recently varnished. Kitaro's calming compositions are temporarily drowned by the rumbling of a passing train.

Not quite private dining nook at D'Bento Sushi

Eyes closed and ears attuned to the music and ambient sounds of D'Bento Sushi, it feels like downtown Ginza, Shinjuku, or whatever Japanese city district you last visited. Just don't look out the bamboo-screened curtains, lest the sight of skyscrapers, Malay language on the billboards and the STAR LRT tracks along Jalan Tun Perak brings you back to earth.

Lovely garlic fried rice; the tori shoga
yaki is in the background

I'd been brought to D'Bento, a surprise of a hidden gem in the heart of KL, by a former fly-by-night food writer turned columnist at the start of a long weekend.

The food was good, I was told days earlier. To quell further doubt, I was given samples: some garlic fried rice and several chunks of tori neikei karaage, deep-fried batter-coated chicken in some sauce with chopped bits of a kind of spring onion or chive. The sauce had a strong, savoury flavour, and the bits of spring onion/chive had a little spicy, garlicky bite to it.

The fried rice, pungent and flavourful, sold the place; the wonderful chicken, though cold and a bit soggy, was just the cherry on top - imagine what it would taste hot off the fire. But I would not set foot in the place until several days later.

Some effort was made to make the place look Japanese: paper lanterns, Japanese-motif prints, folded paper cranes on some of the bamboo screens and background music. Even the chef looked like he jumped out of the pages of a manga comic: dressed in black and sporting a funky, spiky hairstyle. Tommy Kuan (a decidedly unJapanese name) had worked for over a decade at some Japanese kitchens in hotels all over KL before he decided to open his own business.

Only a couple of months old, D'Bento was previously at ground floor level. Though popular, the place could only seat about ten at a time, and customers complained. Regulars couldn't lunch there when it was packed. So they closed temporarily to relocate to slightly roomier digs upstairs.

A single lantern marked the entrance to the restaurant, a glass door with the name of the place stuck on it. Another notice pleaded with patrons to close the door carefully.

Though my companion and I were in no hurry, our orders took a while to arrive. The chef cooked everything himself, with only one assistant helping out in the tiny kitchen.

Mango and spicy tuna maki - rustic but yummy

First, came our tori shoga yaki, pieces of bone-free chicken thigh, stir-fried with onions and bean sprouts in a ginger sauce. Though looking and tasting a little like chicken and soy sauce stir-fry, it was delicious, especially with rice (ordered separately). No heat from the ginger, which appears to have been finely grated and mixed into the sauce.

Except that we had the deliciously addictive garlic fried rice instead. Garlic isn't bad, but after a while, it induces thirst. The saltiness of the sauce from the chicken didn't help with that; as the dish cooled it became more evident. But oh wow, how tasty it was. The sweet veggies - the onion and bean sprouts - helped balance the salt in the dish.

Soft-shell crab tempura futomaki, covered in rich,
thick flavourful mayo-based almond sauce

Encouraged, we tried some sushi. Items were limited, flying in the face of the mind-boggling diversity found in other Japanese restaurants. Then again, it's a new place and, as Chef Kuan lamented, prices of raw ingredients have soared since the Fukushima incident and some items had become hard to come by or simply unaffordable.

At his recommendation, we tried the soft-shell crab tempura futomaki (four pieces for RM8.50), covered in thick almond sauce and garnished with sesame seeds and ebiko (shrimp roe, supposedly); and the mango and spicy tuna maki.

To our regret, we forgot to ask the chef what made the tuna spicy. That, at least, gave us an excuse to return for more. The bare tuna rolls, half a dozen bundles of ebiko-speckled goodness, were so good.

The soft-shell crab futomaki were even better. The rich mayo-based sauce was flavourful and hearty, and the occasional crunch of sesame seeds or almond flakes made each bite satisfying. But it's a double-edged sword; the sauce overwhelmed almost all other flavours, and if not for the bits that stuck out, they could just use fried tempura batter in the centre.

And the sauce was also a tad salty. We were assured that the saltiness levels would be fixed.

Of course, I'm returning. Four pieces of soft-shell crab tempura futomaki isn't enough for me. They also split the garlic fried rice. And the chef recommended his seafood fried rice. Although... is it rude to order fried rice at a place that touts itself as a sushi joint? Even though it's good?

I was advised not to send this to the papers. The place by my estimates can only seat up to thirty, and it doesn't look like the chef's getting more help any time soon.

---

D'Bento Sushi
45-A, 1st Floor
Lebuh Ampang
50100 Kuala Lumpur

CLOSED FOR GOOD

His Monday Musings

About a year back, I chauffeured a writer to the Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial for an assignment.

The visit was an eye-opener and it took me back to my History classes in primary school. That was when I first heard about Tunku's Looking Back. Back then, I didn't even have a clue that I'd be working with books in the future, or that I'd have a chance to read that book - twice - as part of the editing process for the reissued edition, which rolled off the presses sometime last week.

I'd pick this over that other former prime minister's memoir
any day of the week, any month of the year

Most Malaysians don't need to be told Tunku's tale. Looking Back is a collection of pieces from the eponymous column in The Star in the 1970s. It covers the days leading to independence, the Emergency and the break with Singapore, and recollections of his childhood, during the Japanese occupation, his days studying law in London, and some commentary about issues of the day.

The pages radiate candour and familial warmth, like how a favourite granddad would sit down and tell you stories of how he came to this land on a boat, put a house together without nails and killed a man with his thumb. ...Not that Tunku did all those things.

What he did do was just as impressive. He faced death in the form of several Japanese officers. He stood up against the British and with them, hammered out a deal for our independence. He faced up to the likes of Chin Peng, Macapagal and Sukarno. He owned horses and raced a couple. He can cook a decent English roast beef. And he endured the "lusty" snores of one TH Tan.

The best gems remain the slice-of-life bits in his collection of articles. He managed to convert the dhoti-wearing Tun VT Sambanthan to European suits. He missed the chance to serve Prince Phillip durians and curry. And there's Tun Tan Cheng Lock's holey cigars. His reminiscences of his days in "Kampung Tunku" gently toasts the cockles of your heart.

However, it could be said that those most dear to you are also the most annoying to you. Tunku's views on "the Communists" in particular were irksome. Like they were responsible for the Malaysia-Singapore partition, the Yom Kippur War, and Arsenal thumping Malaysia 4-0 at Bukit Jalil. But Tunku did live through a 12-year Communist insurgency; the gravest "emergency" us Gen-Xers' had to face was the 1998 water cut and the annual haze.

And he did have... strange ideas about Communism and Communist countries. His take on Communist China back then, for instance, kind of resembles North Korea today.

Nor did he didn't seem to understand why Prince Norodhom Sihanouk (now former king) of Cambodia accommodated his country's Communists. He seemed to wonder why someone would support an ideology that imposed a "regimented" way of life on its people. After all, Cambodia, like Malaysia, has more than enough for everybody, as this passage suggests:

"Nobody need starve in [Malaysia], as one can just stretch out one’s hand and pick one’s own food. There are fish in every river, food in abundance on the land. Even the forests yield animals and vegetables that can be eaten.

I don't know how much of that was true then, but I'm sure that isn't the case anymore. For one, I certainly would not eat anything I can fish out of the Klang River.

The lands are no longer as bountiful or as pristine. Outside forces loom larger, more menacing and challenging than before. Upheavals in one country or region generate even bigger ripples that can go around the world.

Tunku's happy era is long over.

But every time I think back on how empty and forlorn the Memorial was when I visited, like the abandoned home of a long-deceased relative, I still feel that nudge of regret from realising that we and future generations can only get to know him through the artefacts and the words he left behind.

That's never going to be enough.

Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories is reissued and jointly published by MPH Group Publishing and Star Publications. Will soon be available at all major bookstores.

---

Looking Back

Monday Musings and Memories

Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj
MPH Group Publishing and Star Publishing
411 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5997-57-0

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Here Comes A King

Not long after Queen of America landed on my desk, I was offered a couple more, both by big names.

Not a chance in hell, I thought. Too big, too popular. Hence, too-tight deadline. There's probably a line of people who'd want to do these - let them have it.

I asked the distributors to check with the papers. Word came back.

I answered thus: "Book. My desk. ASAP. Thank you."

Sometimes, you don't have to say much.

Wow, Life, I didn't remember fervently praying for the chance to read this but... thank you. Of course, this means that all the other books in my reading list will have to take a back seat while I deal with the VIB, and soon.

Meanwhile, they can have a look at the one I wrote about David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect, an older book. Chances of publishing that one are 50-50 but I hammered it out in a couple of days, took another couple to polish it and let it languish on the PC for a few more days until I clicked "Send".

Just when I thought things are finally winding down towards the end of the year.

Pardon My English

So it's final: PPSMI or its Malay-language mouthful Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris (the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in English) will be discontinued.

The policy was considered a failure in its goal to foster use of wider, better mastery of the English language among students. Fingers were pointed everywhere, but it's generally agreed that it failed because the education system was just not capable of furthering the vision of former Malaysian strongman Dr M.

I don't really think the policy would've helped much with regards to learning English. Language skills are often best picked up and sharpened with every day use. Learning English within such a narrow scope would inevitably narrow down students' mastery of the language within the realm of science and math.

Today's schoolkids are more slacktastic than they used to be, lacking initiative to better themselves in fields they're not interested in. That said, try asking them meanings of English words used in World of Warcraft or Counterstrike. You might be surprised.

So, yes. Only the constant, everyday use of English will ensure you'll be a natural at ordering fish 'n' chips in downtown London or getting onto a bus in rural Montana - if either manages to happen. For a more relevant scenario close to home, there's the Lat cartoon of a full-bladdered foreigner and the cleaning lady with the English phrasebook who kept going, "Yes?"

Of course, prime minister-in-waiting Muhyiddin Yassin argued that English isn't important. Out of the G7 countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States and Canada, only the latter three are English-speaking, and that all of them became successful without neglecting their national languages.

Which is a valid point. Whatever languages we can speak and write in (barely) would not make a difference when we can't grasp the fundamentals of justice, fairness, equality and rationality.

Mastery in English would not have prevented massive government spending that's becoming the norm.

Remembering the "a"s and "the"s would not have saved Teoh Beng Hock, A Kugan and all those in detention from their mysterious ends.

Avoiding the use of the double negative would not help us from voiding the temptation to break speed limits, cut lanes indiscriminately and double- or triple-park our vehicles at our convenience.

Getting your subject-verb agreement right doesn't guarantee we can also agree to disagree with grace, politeness and maturity when it comes to race, religion, sexual identity.

All the above - and more (I could go on and on) - can be taught in any language. So if we can't master all that in our own mother tongues or the national language, good luck learning all that in English - if we ever learn it at all.