Malay Hawker Food

Last night the Cheez, Crinks and I went to see the Sweet Lowdowns at Manchester Lane. The band were fine, though the general consensus that they needed to kick it, bring it, get cookin' or perk up a bit to really get us pumping. This is the Light side of the dixie/oldskool/charelstonmusic world. Virus is on the Dark side. The band also needed to learn these goddamn songs. If they have the numbers on their cd, they should know the charts. I'm not impressed by sight-reading at gigs like this - it makes for a duller performance.
We punished them by talking and telling each other incredibly funny jokes, making stunning one-liners and generally demonstrating our absolute mastery of Wit for the whole 2 or 3 hours. We laughed so much our jaw bones ached and there were moments where we were all laughing so much we were silent and rolling back in our chairs holding our bellies.

Bow down before Us, ye of lesser wit.

But the real excitement of last night was our trip to the Malaysian Hawker place. And we documented it*.Now, we're all a bit povvy (well, Crinks and I are), so cheapness is next to godliness for us. Success. Band: $5. Dinner: all mains under $10 - total restaurant bill: $39 for 3 mains, 3 roti, 3 drinks. All mains also pretty dang 'authentic' (though we'd need D to verify that). At any rate, we were the only skips in there, and we found our meals kind of scorching.
The Cheeze and I expected this, from previous visits, so we ordered pre-emptive Sweety drinks. Fantas for us, young coconut drink for Crinks:

We added Crinks for interest in this one:

Cheeze's dish arrived first: Laksa. Not for babies:

Here's a bit of a close-up (man, this food styling/photography thing is tricky. Where to focus on a dish like this?).

Here's Crinks' noodles-in-potato-sauce thingy (NB the roti: not a patch on Bisme, but pretty nice anyway):

Crink decided it was like Malaysian spag bog. It was nice, kind of sweet but a bit plain for us hardcore types.

But here she is tucking in, regardless:

We'd like to know what the weirdo dry rock-looking-like tofu things were scattered on top.

In fact, here's Crink and Cheez eating up while guess who waits for their meal?

But, finally:

Nasi Lemak Special!! I know it's a breakfast thing, but I LOVE it.

yumm!

We did also eat a sweet roti, but it was just a normal roti covered in sugar. We didn't think it warranted a photo. And we forgot about documenting our dinner by then.
We also forgot to take photos of our cake (which didn't really meet our standards - Manchester Lane is frigging expensive, too: $10 a cake!), our hot chocolates or the Squeeze's scotch and drys. You can imagine them. And imagine us laughing our guts out and talking louder and louder so we could hear our own voices over the band.
We also forgot to take pics of the band for FSP, which was one of the reasons for our going to see the band (so I could review it). Oh well. I guess we were just more excellently entertaining than the band.

Was that Wrong and not in the true spirit of Jass? Hell, if a jazz band can't make you sit up and listen without having to boss you into it (take THAT, bennet's lane), then they don't deserve your attention. That's what I think, anyway.
I did buy the cd, because I'm on a bit of a cd binge atm, and it's ok. It's best when the girl singer (who reminds me uncomfortably of that heinous madeline peyroux wench) doesn't sing. These guys do need to get a bit of a kick up their arse. Could be the mellow dinner vibe of Manchester Lane, but the CD is similarly low-key/groovy. Which is weird for gypsy jazz. Anyhoo, it's got some neat songs on it, I'm supporting local jazz and I like it.

*Brought to you in honour of D. Who can eat more roti at one sitting than anyone. Ever. And would have told us what to order.