My last article for 2010 was months ago, which seemingly to be millenias away. After that last posting, work suddenly caught up with me and more time spent in the office, leaving less and less time to try out new eateries, recipes and even less time to write.
At the end of October, Alor Setar was hit by a massive flood. I think it was one of the worst in the history of Kedah. Some blamed the currently in progress double railway tracking, some even blamed the Pedu Dam...though nobody seemed to notice the statistics of so much rainfall during that time, more than what caused the flood in 2005. Well, let's leave them and the speculations. My parents' house was hit by the floods, despite my father's attempt of raising certain portion of the ground level by a few feet. Lucky he did actually, if he didn't, all of his cars would've been submerged. So there I was, in the first few days of November, wading fast-moving, thigh-level waters towards my parents' house, eventually having to turn around and chase my slippers every now and then. My home in Mergong was unaffected though.
It was the scene of some houses, either half or fully submerged, that sinks the heart. While politicians talk of political manuovres and dividing and conquer, the flood water chose no politics, religion or even race in its wake. Properties destroyed, people made homeless and so many things. It was quite a relief to see the federal aid and various NGOs that raced to the welfare of the victims.
The days of wading the cold, smelly, polluted water took its toll on me when I went down with a flu-like fever which went on and off for a few weeks. During that time, I did manage to get better to celebrate my wife's birthday, which was about a week after the floods have fully subsided. As there were not much choice to go during that time, we ended at Kenny Rogers, which was located at Hotel Royale in Jalan Putra. The last time we went to Kenny Rogers was about 12 years ago. To my dismay, Kenny Rogers no longer has my favorite corn-bread...either that or the Alor Setar branch doesn't have any to offer. Largely, I have always favored Kenny Rogers over the boring local KFC and the questionable organic chicken of Radix Fried Chicken.
We actually took a break in December and went to Kuala Lumpur. I also came up with a plan whereby we would go to some of the famed or hyped-up eateries in KL and we'll rate it together for this blog. Amongst the planned premises were Burger Belemoih (Sloppy Burger) of Jalan Tangki Air in Ampang, Saba Middle Eastern Food of Jalan Jelatik and several others. Fate stepped in again, and on the third day of our trip, my wife and I went down with viral fever, which really sapped our energy away. Somehow, we did manage to bring our son to the much talked about I-City of Shah Alam. It was nice, but maybe it's still not completed. Hopefully there will be more addition to it.
After much hesitation and reconsiderations, I finally decided to start this blog again, and hopefully, there'll be more recipes and great eating places in Kedah that we can share.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011
P.S.: I actually wrote this on the 30th of December, 2010, but as usual, after 10 days of holidays, my mind and body seem to get numb and sluggish. It's still another holidays tomorrow though.
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