Madam Kwan @ Mid Valley

If you ask any Tom, Dick or Harry and of course Mary and Jane as well, what is good about Malaysia and half or maybe more will say, the cheap food of course! It only makes sense because where else in Australia, Europe or the States can you find breakfast for RM2 ? Keep in mind, you have a mind boggling variety with RM2; a drink with nasi lemak, roti canai or economy mee hoon. You will be happy to find a sandwich and a juice in London for anything less then 3-4 pounds = RM21-RM28 or a decent breakfast meal in McDonalds for 6-7 australian dollars = RM18-21. A clear winner or it doesnt seem to be so?

For those old time readers, you will probably notice that food that i review tend to be on the more expensive side of RM2. It is not because i am sensitive to cheap food or i am too snobbish for a RM5 meal but the fact is cheap food isnt exactly everywhere in Malaysia, right in your face or will keep you alive for long. For starters; cheap food tend to be more carbs then protein, cooked with lots of oil and in less then hygenic situations. Bear in mind, we are living in a country where we have cases of daily heart attacks and diabetes cases in the newspaper or heard by ear; we dont exactly want to indulge in a heart clogging breakfast every morning.

Then again, i am contradicting myself because we also tend to spend money on cholesterol bursting food that costs alot too. Just take a look at your foie gras and chocolate molten cakes; scoops that costs bowls of noodles and yet contributes inches to your pants. But wait a minute, i think i might have digress too much, so without further ado what i want to say is food is cheap but very often people are willing to pay plentiful more to have the same food in a better environment. Maybe its me, but i like to enjoy myself in a place where i dont like i came out from a sauna after a meal or share my food with flies, cats and dogs. Is ambience everything?

Places like Madam Kwan has flourished on dishes that would cost a quarter if eaten in a hawker place. Instead, ignorant people like me choose to pay RM19.90 ++ for this Nasi Bojari because its situated in a shopping complex with air-conditioning. It is probably cooked in a very "clean" kitchen and i can also continue to shop after downing the meal.

Presenting a Nasi Bojari with a big chicken drumstick, prawns sambal and beef rendang..

To be fair to this place, this signature dish tastes very good and they are pretty generous with the serving as well but i am still clueless why people are willing to fork RM20 for this even if they consciously know that they can pay half the price for food that will taste the same if not better.

Since i dont even have a full set of pictures of their other signature dishes like their assam fish, curry chicken, beef rendang, i leave you guys to ponder and wonder again; why do people pay so much more for the same?

Somehow i am in the mood to ponder and wonder and focus less on food..Sigh..What is becoming of me? Have i lost my Mojo??