KL

went up to KL last weekend. bunked in with Cheng. it was a good relaxing trip. ate good food. one particular one that stood out is this mamak called 'Murni'. it's like Al-Ameen of Singapore, only much much better.

Murni was the first thing i ate in KL. it was a few years ago, my first visit to KL. i flew there, Cheng picked me up from the airport and en route to his house, we went to Murni for supper. i wasn't impressed by the looks of the place. it looked like eating food from there will give you a serious bout of dysentry. it didn't help that it doesn't have a menu as such. you either know what you want to eat already, or you don't. or you point to what someone else is having and say, 'yar... that one... that's what i'm going to have...' and then you find out that that thing the other person is having is called Roti Special... then you start to wonder what you are eating... but one thing is sure... whatever it is... it is damn good.

the thing about Murni is that it has such great potential for expansion... as it is, everytime i've been there, the shop is overflowing with customers, such that they have to sit on the curb, by the road, at least a good hundred, 2 hundred meters away from the actual shop. which made me wonder why Murni has not thought of expanding. is it because it is difficult/detrimental (in any way) to teach more people the recipe to its food (the success of Murni is the food it serves, which are rather out of the ordinary)? see... trouble with the food business is that the secret lies in the recipe, you teach that to someone, thinking that that person will work for you, but what if he/she doesn't? what if after learning the recipe, he/she goes off and sets up shop somewhere else?

i do hope, however that someone with the capital can bring Murni to Singapore. the Roti Special,the Claypot Low Xu Fan, the drinks (there's one weird Ribena concotion) are really fantastic. but i don't see that happening soon... ah well...

damn... all this talk about food is getting me hungry... grr...