Lunch with Yan and Jue on a quiet afternoon

It's the 4th day of Chinese / Lunar New Year. Though the office today was notably more populated than it was yesterday, it was still relatively quiet, with the majority of the ethnic Chinese staff away on planned vacation for the entire week. I was able to to make a lunch-time appointment with my good friends and colleague / ex-colleague Jue and Yan.

Actually, there'd be a larger group, if it weren't for the fact that practically everyone was still out of office and virtually unreachable.

The original plan was to meet up at "Nasi Ayam Gemas" just outside the Tesco at Cheng, which was a short drive away from Vishay. Unfortunately, seems like they were very much in the spirit of Chinese New Year - closed! Well, behind every good plan is a plan B, so after about 2 seconds of careful deliberation, Yan suggested we fall back to Secret Recipe which was in Tesco itself. As there were no other proposals from either me or Jue, so Secret Recipe it was. For those who have never heard of it, Secret Recipe is an Asian food franchise with over 280 outlets to date (according to their About page on web site : http://www.secretrecipe.com.my). To me, they're more famous for their large assortment of cheese cakes. Great tasting, but with a high calorie count, so with just the three of us, neither of us actually ordered any cheese cakes (since working in a semiconductor manufacturing plant is essentially an office
job with low physical demands). I was keen to try something different, so I ordered a Stewed Aussie Beef Steak. Sure there were some asian dishes on the menu too, but no point coming to secret recipe to eat curry mee or fried rice, right? Plus, it wasn't a lot more expensive compared to the other stuff.

We weren't alone in eating out (as opposed to eating in the cafeteria back at the factory, which usually served very limited food, especially during holiday seasons when the number of potential patrons are not working). At the next table were Lye Yin and Blosson from HR (plus one other lady who's name unfortunately eludes my frail memory at this time). On our way out, also there to pack some cheese cakes were Deva and Kumar. Talk about it being a small, small world....

Well, lunch was over, just in time as the bright sunny sky had a complete make-over and was slightly drizzling in fact. It's great to sit down with friends once in awhile over a meal to break the monotony of an otherwise routine and clockwork-like life.