my cantoenese was rather bad when i first came to kl. we only speak english and hokkien at home, so kantonis was like a foreign language to me.

1st choice of food was always chak fun, as minimum conversation was required, all you have to do was say sek or ta pau. then you just point with your finger at the dishes you want to eat. no sweat. price, back then in tar college, it was dirt cheap, at times i felt like we were ripping them off. rice with 4 dishes, complimentary chinese tea and thong = rm1.50. where to get ? funny thing about tar college, was that it was like little china to me, everyone spoke mandarin or some other dialect, but eventually i found the hokkien dialect gang, then it was fine.

anyway, when there was no chak fun, alternative was always chicken rice. since my kantonis is extremely limited. i was taught to ask for siew kai, problem begin when they start to ask me, nei oi kai pei ? kai yik ? kai yik tow ? kai hong ? or kai kuat ? and my answer, ching chai lah, so he gave me the kai hong. so someone re-taught me, so now i order siew kai yik, the bugger now ask me, oi char siew / siew yoke ? ching chai, he gave me fat char siew. finally someone taught me correctly, siew yoke kai yik, since kai yik is cheaper than kai pei, price ? chicken rice with siew yoke kai yik complimentary chinese tea and thong = rm2.20, where to get, of course these are all prices some 13 years ago.

in the absence of chak fun and chicken rice ? chow fukkin mee, all that wa tan hor, lam mee, yee min, jangan main. alternatively there is always mamak and tom yam. there use to be roti bawang, but dont seem to have now. bak kut teh ? the man will ask about individual item to add, which are french to me, so no thank you. how about wan tan mee ? kl wan tan mee, is different from my kampung, the noodles here are thin like bee hoon, our is more fatter. and when you order wan than mee, you get everything, chicken floss, char siew, wan tan, veggie. here you get what you order. you know that overprice wan than mee around chow sow lin ? first time i ate there i actually got culture shock as the bill for 3 buggers was like rm20++.

this reminds me of my current chicken rice shop. man sells mainly phak kai, the way he sells it, is chicken by chicken. so if the current chicken has no wings nor drumstick, he'll tell you, mow sai cho, when you ask him about that 20 chicken hanging there, li ko yau yan teng chor ! so now my kantonis is slighty better, i now eat siew yoke kai yee tow. so i ordered kai yee tow, the man replied, nei chee kay thai lah, mow chor yee tow, ngo hoi chi sor, nie man man lam har. what can i say, pei hei char tow! so he came back, ask me, lam tow mei ah ? no wings, no kai pei, i dont eat breast and no kai yee tow oledi, that's my max in chicken ordering vocabulary, the man look at me, then suggested, ngor pei nei kai mei, kay how sek, then wink at me. every freaking time i order chicken rice from this guy i get the same treatment. and when i want to ta pau the thong, he said emm tak hang, tiu nia ma, emm tak hang. so i went into the kitchen and got the indon to ta pau for me.

i still eat there cause the chicken is really good. but now i eat pak kai hong.