The New Nusantaran Diet : where is it?

Fine dining - this week I've had to revisit the concept a bit, and here are some brief thoughts about fine dining in Malaysia today. Hm. All monetary figures in USD for convenience. And nothing in this article refers to Malaysia alone, as the case is the same elsewhere also.

I was first presented with the concept of "fine dining" around 2006, when I was working in Kuala Lumpur - and I had to try very hard not to laugh. While my colleagues from the consulting firm ordered food, I ordered a cup of tea. I really wasn't going to pay $ 11 for spaghetti when I made a gross of $ 453 per month. I did enjoy the company of my peers, though they probably enjoyed my company a little less that evening - they made only a little more than I did, and I spent most of the evening smirking at their idiocy.

Many expensive dining experiences in Kuala Lumpur are exotic, and yet by and large they fail tests of finesse. When people in Malaysia say "fine dining", they also have a tendency to refer to "fine dining as it exists in other countries" - and this mistake is the first and last reason why "fine" dining in Kuala Lumpur, with few exceptions, tends to be shit.

To be clear, the high prices are often justified by bringing in ingredients from outside the region using grossly polluting methods ( air freight ), and then sold with minimal preparation as "naked". I kid you not - I don't understand people who don't think this is funny - they basically express a lifestyle which says, "I'm too cheap to go to this other place, so I'll fly their indigenous food over here, and that's how you know, I'm fine". 

In 2021 Malaysia's hourly minimum wage hovers around $ 1.38. Just yesterday in Petaling Jaya ( basically, greater Kuala Lumpur), I had "nasi campur" or self-serviced rice, curry, vegetables, and fish ( high-quality protein ) including some 10-30 ingredients for  $ 1.67 - now this isn't the most nutritious way to spend 1 hour and 13 minutes of minimum wage. But it is an example of how you could spend that much on FOOD AS A SERVICE, and get sufficient nutrition to make a human body economically productive at either manual or intellectual tasks. So let this be a benchmark for food service at the level of essential services. Let's teleport out.

Now in order to buy a basic sandwich and salad in first-world nations takes roughly the same number of minutes of minimum wage in those countries. But for 4-8 hours of minimum wage you can get a meal in a more formal setting, also known as "fine dining". Let's now teleport back.

Today "fine" dining experiences in Kuala Lumpur are nominally $ 36 for lunch, $ 70 for dinner, and ranging up to $ 200 or more. This means local restaurateurs hawk a cultural experience to naive locals for 26 to 173 minimum wage hours. But where is the finesse? It doesn't matter how pure and fresh the food is at these prices, it's simply not relevant to the average citizen. And what isn't within reach of the average person, simply doesn't qualify as fine. It's blithely over-engineered. (Which isn't to say, I'm not frequently the culprit of grossly over-engineered projects, myself.)

I'm just going to cut this rant short by posting a slightly "localised" version of Noma's manifesto. Brain this, if you will. I'm waiting for the ASEAN luxury food exports to take off ... but no one wants to make it happen ...

;)

recap : 2011-2021

It's been a long decade. It started out the year after a two-year contract managing web developers in Bangsar. I ran small gigs for $4,000/mo, helped my friend to run public relations for YTL Comms, SAP, EMC, and Microsoft, and started practicing stock trades on the KLSE. I bought a tablet to study PDFs.

I was dating someone I'd met at my first post-college interview six years earlier - she didn't really like me - probably explains why I was only offered an internship. We went to Bali and Bandung - I'm not much of a tourist ... but I'll travel for business, and women are good business. We were supposed to do Yangon, but I screwed that up, because I sucked at planning. I bought my first Kancil for $1,400, because she'd made me drive her TT back after dropping her at the airport for a business trip ... and it was pretty scary driving without any practice. So I practiced, and crashed the Kancil within a month of getting it. I got the car fixed.

I figured that I should start investing in real-estate - I was 28, and with a first car I could drive out far enough to actually afford something. I settled on a cheap $20,000 flat in Kajang. I ended up living there for less than 18 months over the decade. Right now it's unkempt, and covered in dust and dead birds - we'll need to hook up the power and water again. I'm waiting for my PA to spare me a few days.

It was 2011. I spent most of 2012 studying functional programming at home, and my imaginary friends were the Bloomberg anchors. Facebook, Apple, Herbalife - that was an interesting study. 2013 was spent entrepreneuring as a business consultant, and learning about speciality coffee. I sold the tablet to my client as a POS. I set up some Facebook group that flourished, then resigned as it's administrator. 2014 I worked four jobs, clawing back from $400/mo to $4,000/mo. The third job was so monotonous, that I learnt how to swim ... just doggy paddling with my head above the pool water. 2015 I met the love of my life, and founded my own business, which ran for five years before I was arrested. We sold the trademark, and buried the operation. People died.

It's 2021 now. Every single one of these experiences has turned out to be foundational for the work I do today. I don't know what I'll be doing in ten years, but it feels ok right now. I'm on track with what i thought I'd do between 20 and 40. I'm 38 this year. Right on track. Why ain't I dead yet? IDK. I guess I still haven't pissed off the right people. I still haven't bought insurance. When will I die? There's only one way to find out ... oh, but I gave up waiting for Apple to unify the iPhone, iPad, and Macbook ... so I got an Android tablet, and that's where this is being written. Let's see if consolidation works.