Chinese New Year aka Time of Feasting

The past few months for Sautern had been spent quite uneventfully, and perhaps a little too dourly too. So what better cure is there than to have a get-together meal to outline future plans and to discuss current issues.

As always, the dinner will be somewhere off the beaten track, to dine and maybe wine where not many have done before. No prizes for guessing that McDonald's will be out of the question here. Instead, Tommy, being the experienced connoisseur that he is, recommended a German themed place somewhere in Tanjung Bungah. Well, as far as I am concerned, German eateries do not exactly come to mind when Tanjung Bungah is mentioned, so I guess I will have to wait and see.

Crunch time came in a flash and Tommy was already at my place, along with a carload of the rest of us, Jupes, Chong Yang and even Lee Xin. On a tangent, a very ironic and funny remark was made by Jupes the moment I got into the car. He was surprised by the sight of 'a rat the size of a cat' (his own words) scampering across my path as I was approaching. My level of shock was decidedly zero as this was quite common to me, after all I do live in Pulau Tikus, which literally means Rat Island. Anyway, back to the journey to the mysterious restaurant. It really was off the beaten track, or rather it was not situated along the main road.

On first sight, it has a European feel to it, German theme notwithstanding. The restaurant or to be specific, restaurant/bar was quite small, occupying just a single shoplot. Slightly less than half of the internal floorspace was taken up by the bar, and the walls were filled with German memorabilia. The place had a warm feel to it, literally as it was quite smoky, about the only negative for the atmosphere, pun unintended.

In terms of service, we were given our menus quite promptly and the waiters were quite helpful. Not long after, we were joined by Jupes' mum and sis. As for ordering the food, we were probably a little spoiled for choice, and I was at a lost. Of course, dishes with names like 'schadenfreude with broiled schwarzenegger bratwurst with sauerkraut' did not help, or at least that's what they looked like to me. I am a guy whose eyes glaze over from prolonged reading food names with more than 5 words in them. I guess, it's apt that I settled for the mixed grill in the end. As for the rest, I have already mentioned my inaptitude with German food names, so do not expect me to recall what they ordered. I did remember that Jupes ordered something with minced meat in it and his sis ordered something with sausages.

Ordering is one thing, but waiting for the actual food to be served is another though. In this respect, I already downed my Lite Coke before the food came, and I was drinking slowly. The food did come though, eventually. Overall, the food itself was enjoyable, though I feel that some of the meat was slightly overcooked, a sentiment shared by Chong Yang.

Dinner dealt with, we got straight down to business, namely a serious discussion on what the future lies. I have to admit that this has been a bit long in coming, since I guess most of us are not too keen to discuss about the possible end. Unfortunately, we cannot continue keeping our heads in the sand anymore, since Jupes, me and Chong Yang are going to face a major exam later this year and not all of us will remain here next year. We spent quite some time discussing this thorny issue, but in the end, we still have not decided on a really satisfactory solution.

Nevertheless, we proceeded straight to the next item on the agenda. During these past few months, we stumbled upon a new business idea. To the layman, it will probably look like nothing special, but there is a reason why entrepreneurs exist, and that is to enterprise. Since this nascent idea does not have a known precedent, there are many kinks to work out. It is like building up a new software programme from the ground up, and we have to do tons of debugging for it to even look workable on paper. Despite the progress made during this discussion, it will be quite some time yet before Sautern can debut another branch of business.

Serious stuff aside, we adjourned to Tommy's place where Jupes tried to get us hooked on Google Earth. And as we found out, trying to find our own place on planet earth is no mean feat, Sautern will surely attest to that.