Kinda place you gotta love. Just now, right before the author's eyes and no mistake, the Sabah, Borneo waiter delivering a plate of unshelled kacang—for you non-speakers, plenty of local Chinese among you, despite the fact Bahasa is enshrined in the Constitution as the National language—peanuts. Fellow feels himself quite at liberty to paw one for himself immediately before the assembled table. This is not en route, behind the column or quick-flash while no-one is watching. Plate lands on the table in front of the young boy for whom it must have been ordered; young lad who wants it eyed in a particular way…. Everyone looks like an ape gloving peanuts and chomping. Here it was no different. One of those older, big-chested apes in this case, after the nut was swooped a half-cocked head and cool appraisal of the young chimp on the lower branch. Chomping there and then. Plenty at the tables all-round; plenty with tongues hanging awaiting their tehs. Yet this Sabah waiter takes a mom to size up this little fella, while crunching that favourite food for a try himself. Never lose the taste kid, take it from me. Stand you in good stead the old kacang…. As if you were present dear Reader. If such liberty be not your style you have accidentally stumbled upon this poor blog-log of a voyage of discovery and re-discovery. You want table-cloths, lines of cutlery and curtseys, look away now. Something else is on offer here. True enough the man here may just a moment before have been picking his nose. Certainly he's a smoker. (Nicotine stains fail to show on Malay coffee-colour.) Makes no never-mind. We happily swallow it. Sorry to offend. No offence intended. Labu Labi not in any of the Guide books you can be sure. Don't bring a camera if your interest has been piqued and you want to come see for yourself. Twenty months around the place, not a once seen in this particular quarter, not at these tables. Yes, Singapore I'll still talking, where photography is nothing short of a mental derangement. Per capita they out-do the Japs here. Dreadful to behold the false promise chased with such earnestness. Endless delight. Mid-morning for the Hindi love-songs from the Bai Mansor stand re-interpreting the genre with surprising new rhythms; and then show-stopping dusks like this not long gone. Right now soot-black clouds, low, light and voluminous, slit by pale, vanishingly pale blue like a fabric shredded by a sharp blade. In the jotting a few lines back there had been a thin, exceedingly thin sliver of brilliant moon, Islamic and scimitar sharp, difficult to credit three days old. Early days this new year of the Snake. Buried by the shifting cloud as if it had never been, in a trice while you weren’t looking, not the slightest vestige. Here now, then no more like a proper visitation. A form of beauty, elusive. The Shorty peanut cruncher sits now on a stack of three of the fire-engine red plastic chairs. If you want artificial decor and padded furniture with the tahu goreng, best reserve a table elsewhere. Sin'pore is spoilt for choice. Three dollars at L.L.
NB. The tahu goreng—fried tofu—should be noted briefly. Under Mr. Zainuddin's influence, after this odd dish was sampled it quickly became a favourite evening meal—once weekly. Richly sweet from the sugar, yet garlic and chilly laced to complicate the taste on the palate. Bean shoots, tamarind, cucumber, crushed and roasted peanuts with soy sauce. Make what you may of that little adventure. Javanese origin they tell you. (Recipes online.) One last matter too for those completely ignorant of the region, of large parts outside the First World: fingers rather than cutlery as often as not. And spoons and forks rather than knives otherwise.
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