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PDF1. This is my 5th or 6th year at this event, and when I started mine was the only Malaysian stall there. Since then other high-profile Malaysian restaurants have joined up and have been given pre-event shout-outs/write-ups about their participation by the Sydney Morning Herald. Am I slightly irked? You bet I am 😉
I remain to this day to have completely eluded the SMH’s radar, but the fact that I continue to maintain one of the longest lines at Hyde Park, I think, is testimony to the power of social media and word-of-mouth referrals. So thank you all 🙂
Photo courtesy of http://milkteaxx.blogspot.com from Instagram post – http://instagram.com/p/f5FFvJKRqr/
2. Great start to the Hyde Park Night Noodle Markets, a period that traditionally draws the biggest visitor numbers to my site – when my webserver crashed on the first day. Thanks, hosting company. And thanks for the bonus of forgetting to transfer my email account across when you offered to transfer me to a new server so that my emails suddenly stopped working as well. Nobody does it better, as Carly Simon would say.
3. This time last year Noah was still in the ICU at Westmead Children’s and I was travelling back and forth each day to visit him. Whatever difficulties I encountered having Noah with me every day during the event this time around, I consider them blessings compared to the stress of the previous year.
4. Noah has his own fan club judging by the number of people who dropped in asking to say hello to him. I should just rename the business to Jackie & Noah Inc., maybe.
5. I’m kind of a big deal in Holland, apparently. Malaysians, I get, but Dutch nationals wanting photo-ops with me on more than one occasion – quite curious.
6. Biggest number of new crew members ever, most of whom I would rehire any day. One did go missing after gradually turning up later and later for work and displaying passive-aggressive tendencies towards other staff members. I hope he didn’t hit his head and develop amnesia – the poor baby could be wandering aimlessly around Hyde Park as we speak, trying to locate my stall. ***
7. “Cookbook $12” sign obviously needs to be 5 feet tall and in flashing neon for people to not assume it’s free for the taking. (www.TrulyMalaysian.com)
8. You like my laksa; you really, really like my laksa.
9. Several weeks ago I got a new comment posted on one of my YouTube videos. Always leery and suspicious (YouTube, for the uninitiated, is full of trolls), I nevertheless answered this guy’s question about high pressure burners with remarkable restraint and civility. I finally met him at Hyde Park – a kid who looks all of ten years of age. Apparently he followed through with my advice and got his parents to buy him a high pressure burner to practice Malaysian cooking with. Now his mom’s worried he might get hurt using it – justifiably so, I would think. Aren’t kids that age meant to be playing computer games? If you’re reading this, I’m kidding, young man. Keep at your craft and one day, you too could be an underpaid, overworked Malaysian restaurateur 😉
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-POHciAbUQ&w=560&h=315]
10. Left Noah in the van for 30 seconds when I ran to grab some empty milk crates, and got berated by two female passers-by who earned themselves a 3-minute diatribe that began and ended with “you sanctimonious silly-billies”. Alright, I may or may not have used a more succinct s-word than “silly-billies”.
11. Returned to the carpark on my last night at Hyde Park, to be greeted with the sight of my van that I at first thought someone had crashed their vehicle into. Turned out it was a guy high on drugs invoking Don Quixote and trying to attack my van with a fire extinguisher, destroying the back door in the process. I was meant to have run a stall at the Balmain Sailing Club the next morning, so instead I have all these perishables I’d bought that I’ll have to write off.
That’s it for another year, and thanks again to all our customers and visitors – the nice ones anyway 😛
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jSzxo5jqiY&w=420&h=315]
*** Re: point 6 -why am I naming-and-shaming here? Because as a result of his no-show he not only caused me to lose a significant amount of takings but also put my baby in harm’s way. And yes, I know exactly what happened – he found another job and didn’t have the decency to call and let me know.