Sushi King From Taiping

Guess what? I brought this trophy back from Taiping Sentral tonight haha!

Won a trophy in conjunction of Taiping Sentral Food Carnival 2011.

I guess this is one of the most funny thing I have ever done in public, in front of a huge group of strangers. It actually happened in a very random and spontaneous way. I was at Taiping Sentral with my Mom, grandma and sister this evening for a movie outing. 

To those of you who are not familiar with my hometown, Taiping, Taiping Sentral can be considered the most happening and biggest shopping mall in this small town. Yes, it cannot match up with those huge shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur or Penang, but this is the main spot where the local folks hang out, especially during weekend nights. So, going back to my story this evening, we had about two more hours to kill before our movie started, so we decided to chill out at McDonald's first.

We were enjoying our sundae cone and mango peach sundae at one of the tables when we heard an announcement that there would be a sushi eating competition starting very soon at the main stage. It is one of the several eating competitions being held in conjunction of "Taiping Sentral Food Carnival 2011" and it was sponsored by Sushi King. Being busybodies as always, our curiousity made us leave our table and head towards the stage. They were short of four more participants and my Mom kept pointing me to the MC on the stage haha wtf!

I called Michelle and told her I was in an eating competition and her first reaction was to laugh at me haha wtf!

The MC saw me and said, "Ya, budak baju biru, sila naik atas pentas!" ("Yes, the boy in blue t-shirt, please come up to the stage!").

Yes, I was thinking about joining the competition, but the thought of having to eat sushi in bullet-train-speed in front of so many people sounds kinda .... errrr .... you know what I mean, right? However, since I was called up already, I decided to give it a try-lor. I got nothing to lose, some more get to eat free sushi lol! Just before I went up the stage, my Mom said to me I will have no place to hide my face if I lose in the competition. See, straight away the pressure built up already haha!

The competition is very simple. Each person is given two pieces of gunkanmaki (軍艦巻) sushi and have to finish them in the fastest time. There were ten participants and it was held in pairs. There were seven males and three females but looking at their sizes, I was obviously the most huge one on the stage. That is why I think I have already gained some psychology victory over them even before the competition starts. When they saw me, they must be thinking how are they gonna compete with a giant elephant like me haha!

I was already standing there waiting for them to give the cue to start eating. Siap cekak pinggang some more haha!

Looking at the first pair struggling so hard to finish up their sushi, I was a bit worried that they put too much wasabi inside the sushi. I saw some tears in one of the guy and he kept drinking water, which I don't think helped him at all haha! The first two participants finished their sushi in more than sixty seconds, and I thought that was quite fast.

In the second round, I was paired with another guy named Terry. Just before we started, I asked one of the staff if they added wasabi into the sushi and she said yes. How much or how little, she wasn't sure too because the sushi was prepared by the staff from Sushi King. I told myself not to worry too much because in the worst case scenario, I will only have tears rolling down from my eyes haha!

My strategy was to bite the sushi into two and swallow them as fast as I could.

The sushi was kinda dry, so I had to get some reinforcement (read: mineral water) haha!

Almost finished downing my first piece of sushi and piece number two on my palm was already ready to be stuffed into my mouth lol!

I think my time was not bad, but wasn't sure how fast I was.

When I returned to join other participants after I finished eating my sushi, one of the participants asked me how on earth I managed to finish off my sushi so fast and didn't even shed a tear. I just smiled at her and said, "Well, you know me..." haha! Mentang-mentang I have lived in Japan for four years, I die die wanted to act so lan si lol!

Just in case you wonder what kind of sushi we ate, the topping was a combination of super-a-lot raw onion, scrambled eggs and mayonnaise on top of the rice ball and wrapped with seaweed around it. I didn't remember tasting any wasabi actually, so that makes me wonder why some of them were crying haha!

At the same time, I was curious to know my time.

Two pieces of sushi in 25 seconds. That is like 12.5 seconds per piece. Terry was ten seconds behind me, by the way.

The final pair of the five rounds competition. At this point, I thought I had the fastest time, but wasn't completely sure.

That lady in white shirt looked kinda worried before she start eating the sushi haha!



All ten participants with the boss of Taiping Sentral I think. (photo credit: Taiping Sentral)

The competition continued with three more rounds. There was one guy who finished up his sushi quite fast as well and I thought he did slightly better than me. I didn't get to see the time board to check out his time. So I looked at my Mom down the stage and she gave me two thumbs-up. I roughly know what she meant and I just smiled at her.

No prize for guessing the result. Yes, I won the sushi eating competition that evening haha! I thought I might have won some sushi vouchers from Sushi King, but found out that I only got that cute trophy, like those you get during Hari Anugerah Cemerlang in primary schools haha!

Oh by the way, the guy who presented me the trophy whispered to me, "You eat sushi very fast hor?" haha!

Jonker Walk Revisited

Took a bus from Bandar Tasik Selatan and was picked up by the girlfriend's Mom at Melaka Sentral.

I went down to Malacca for six days last week to see my girlfriend, Michelle, or now more commonly known as Dr Gan haha! As she has started her housemanship for several weeks already now, I hardly get to see her nowadays. Even when we Skype, we only talk for less than thirty minutes most of the time. Sometimes, when we are too busy and tired, it gets so short that it can be just for a few minutes!

Just in case you wanna know her working hours, technically Michelle works seven days a week, averaging over one to two on-calls in that period. Crazy isn't it? So, you might wonder, don't they have breaks or off-days? They do, but very minimal - just eight off-days in four months. That is like two days per month! So, although they might be earning slightly more than other jobs, the time and effort and sacrifices doctors put in their job is far more than what they should be getting.

Home-cooked dinner, by the girlfriend's Mom - Nyonya sambal chicken and stir-fried Chinese sawi.

Nevertheless, it is a "noble job".

That's what Michelle and I always tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, whenever her busy schedule made us unable to spend more time together. And at the same time, I will tell myself it is okay because I will get "good karma" (hopefully, haha!) too as I make myself understand that she is busy with her job haha!

The stage for the local folks to sing karaoke every weekend nights. I will be honest here; their singing is errrr... quite not okay lol!



And not surprisingly, the "fans" down the stage listening to them was also from the same group age haha!

Just like a couple of months ago when I went to Malacca, the first place we went for dating (not sure if going to pasar malam can be considered a date haha!) was Jonker Walk, which is just located nearby Michelle's house. Jonker Walk is popular for its weekend pasar malam stalls, which attracts tourists and local people alike to spend their weekend nights there.

We have taken our dinner earlier that evening but yet, we ended up eating quite a lot that night at Jonker.

The streets along Jonker Walk was still decorated with lanterns and red papers written with some Chinese characters, although Chinese New Year was one month back.

First stop was at "Perfect Ice-Cream", which are egg-shaped ice-creams with different flavours.

Our yam-flavour ice cream was already broken into two, so the lady sold them for RM2 per egg. Normal price is RM3 for an egg.

Malacca tart was our next stop. I cannot really differentiate this with Portuguese egg tart.

The burnt part of the egg in the middle gives a crisp feeling when you bite the tart. Worth a try.

Fried ice-cream. I think I have never tried this before. I'm a jakun, I know haha!

Although the outer layer is fried in hot oil, the ice-cream inside didn't melt.

A traditional candy sweets called gula ketuk, literally translates as "sugar hit".

It was quite pricey for one small packet of this candy cost RM3. It was kinda hard, so if you feel like testing the hardness of your teeth, biting on this candy can be a good test haha!

Taiwan sausages. Very common thing to see in any other pasar malam, I suppose?

This small little girl was so serious (and a bit lan si actually lol!) when I handed her the money. I offered her a friendly smile to her, but she did not reply me and just buat tak tau haha!

Muar otak-otak - a must-have thing every time we go to Jonker.

The lady from the next stall suggested me to take this shot from this angle to show how the otak-otak are prepared, using charcoal.

Cotton candy, one of the girlfriend's favourite pick of the night. You just have to see how excited she became when she got this haha!

So, now you can roughly get the idea how much food we stuffed our stomach that night.

Alright, I shall move on to some random shots taken along Jonker Walk that night. It was a Friday night, so the place wasn't as packed compared to Saturday and Sunday nights. And most of the people there were local people. I guess you get to see more tourists during the weekend nights. So here are the remaining shots from Jonker Walk.

Some café, which used to be a guild during the olden days, if I am not mistaken.

Beautiful red lanterns were still spotted hanging along the street.

This time, I took a photo with a dragon at the Taman Warisan. It was with an elephant on my previous visit here.

Terompah (in Malay), or kha kiak in Hokkien. What do you call this is English?

 Smaller versions of kha kiak, for decorative purposes. They are magnets and key-chains.

Colourful alarm clocks with supersonic loud sound, that will guarantee you to be awake every morning haha!

Melaka's 60's fruit tea. We didn't try this, so I cannot really say whether it's nice or not.

Nice graphic design t-shirts with catchy phrases.

Trishaws lining up at the end of the street, ready to pick up passengers to go home.

Ohh yea, by the way, just before I forget, one of the thing I like about Jonker Street is introducing the concept of smoke-free zone. I hope this idea can be expended to more public places in town and perhaps, raise the awareness about the danger of smoking among the smokers, especially towards the secondary smoker like most of us.

Remember, you gain nothing through smoking.

It is a non-smoking zone along Jonker Walk.

So, why not use the money you use to buy your cigarette and buy otak-otak instead. It can make your stomach full, and maybe, smarter too!