Written by lainie at 10:38 AM on September 16, 2009 in Daily Life, Holidays / Road Trip.

I was at Glenferrie Rd earlier today, with Alex and Bao, in the Readings bookstore. Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) was there to promote her latest book, Remarkable Creatures.

Chevalier brought fossils (one she found) as visual aids .

After the booklaunch, we went to a Malaysian restaurant across the road, called Petaling St. It caught Alex's eye, not mine (Malaysian, fail). It's relatively new, and was quite packed when we entered. I went with my usual:

Hainanese chicken rice! It's not the best I've had in Melbourne, but it's still pretty good (the soy sauce was blander than I prefer, but I remain a sucker for this dish). At about $9, it's also affordable.

However, our dinner came with four insects. Three on my dinner (pic: one on my rice), which I picked aside. One was taking a swim in Alex's tea. I don't know why Bao was the exception, maybe she ate her share :D. In this sense, it really felt like I was having food from the dodgier streets of KL.

I mentioned it to the waiter, who dealt with it politely and quickly (after determining that the insect came with my food, and didn't land on it while I was eating .__.). They apologised, and took my dish off the bill. I appreciated that — to be honest, I wasn't expecting that much*.

It's a new restaurant, and it seems there are some teething problems with hygiene. That aside, the food is cheap, and tastes decent (Alex says his Char Kuay Teow turned out gooood).

Will I be back? No. I had my first Melbourne stomach ache tonight, within an hour after my dinner. And, it usually takes a lot to make my stomach cave like that.

Technically, it could have been anything I'd eaten the past few days, but it's too coincidental for me. Still, Alex is fine after his CKT, and Bao is presumably doing okay too. Just my plate? Hrm.

Anyway...No matter how used I am to Aussie cafe prices for Asian hawker food...

...$9 for Maggi Mee Goreng. I don't intend to get used to it at all.

Hee. I miss a lot of friends back home, but I particularly miss the good, cheap food. Which is not to say I cannot get Malaysian food here, I just miss the company.

[ *As opposed to Duck King, Jaya One, whose manager pretended there wasn't lil glass bits in their food after I nearly ate it, despite spitting it out, and incredulously showing it to her. She insisted it couldn't have come from the kitchen, because she "asked the chef". I was there for dinner with Jemufo when it first opened, and was very upset. ]