Country Kitchen is my hang out around the corner.
I walk past my whores down the alley, say hello to Penny who is usually cutting beans, then chuck a right past a hotel and then another right into Country Kitchen.
It's here where I force myself to eat vegetables every day.
Simon is the owner.
It took me a while to discover this place.
'Come around for a coffee,' Simon, Chinese and in his early sixties, says.
He's the owner.
The cashier is usually a family member.
They won't trust the mostly Indonesian staff who are all cute as a button with their hard-earned cash.
'One Hundred Plus and Kopi O,' you'll hear over the speakers as the cashier makes a drink order.
It's live theatre.
A drink isn't just a drink at Country Kitchen.
Simon and I chat about all kinds of things.
'You can't buy a meal for two bucks in Australia,' he says, setting the tone.
We talk Fung Shui and how money flows through the building to the back and how it's reflected by Penny the cook who gently nudges it back with her meat cleaver to the cashier, it's rightful place.
He likes it that I'm interested in the Chinese management of money.
'See these tiles,' he says and points at a gaudy pink title, that adorns two of the walls 'got them for one Ringgit each.'
He loves bargains and so do I.
He has a poodle he's always mommying like the great Dame that he is.
'Our business is very labour intensive,' he says. He took over the business in 2009, and he says he had to pay four months backlog of electricity bills from the former owner. 'That's 15 000 Ringgit.'
Figures, he loves talking them to me.
A big sign in Chinese is on the back wall, with variations of that China-glyph surrounding the larger character.
'It means prosperity and all the other signs around it mean potency, good health and many male sons.'
Our conversation is ending. He's about to leave with his wife.
He's carrying the poodle.
I ask him how many sons does he have.
'One.'
It seems he's more interested in mollycoddling the poodle than producing more male offspring with his hot Indonesian staff.
The Chinese way, it can't be disputed, it really works.
I walk past my whores down the alley, say hello to Penny who is usually cutting beans, then chuck a right past a hotel and then another right into Country Kitchen.
It's here where I force myself to eat vegetables every day.
Simon is the owner.
It took me a while to discover this place.
'Come around for a coffee,' Simon, Chinese and in his early sixties, says.
He's the owner.
The cashier is usually a family member.
They won't trust the mostly Indonesian staff who are all cute as a button with their hard-earned cash.
'One Hundred Plus and Kopi O,' you'll hear over the speakers as the cashier makes a drink order.
It's live theatre.
A drink isn't just a drink at Country Kitchen.
Simon and I chat about all kinds of things.
'You can't buy a meal for two bucks in Australia,' he says, setting the tone.
We talk Fung Shui and how money flows through the building to the back and how it's reflected by Penny the cook who gently nudges it back with her meat cleaver to the cashier, it's rightful place.
He likes it that I'm interested in the Chinese management of money.
'See these tiles,' he says and points at a gaudy pink title, that adorns two of the walls 'got them for one Ringgit each.'
He loves bargains and so do I.
He has a poodle he's always mommying like the great Dame that he is.
'Our business is very labour intensive,' he says. He took over the business in 2009, and he says he had to pay four months backlog of electricity bills from the former owner. 'That's 15 000 Ringgit.'
Figures, he loves talking them to me.
A big sign in Chinese is on the back wall, with variations of that China-glyph surrounding the larger character.
'It means prosperity and all the other signs around it mean potency, good health and many male sons.'
Our conversation is ending. He's about to leave with his wife.
He's carrying the poodle.
I ask him how many sons does he have.
'One.'
It seems he's more interested in mollycoddling the poodle than producing more male offspring with his hot Indonesian staff.
The Chinese way, it can't be disputed, it really works.
