At first it seemed like a good idea. But sometimes when you are hungry every restaurant suggested seems like a good idea.
We were told that Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown was the place to be to shop, people watch, and eat. I don’t remember what it was we had done that day to make the four of us so ravenous, but here we were in the middle of Chinatown ready to chew off our own arms. Dwayne’s style of finding a place to eat always consisted of lots of research and checking out at least 50 places before deciding to go back to the first one. I chalked it up to a strong hunter instinct. The kids chalked it up to’ Dad’s nuts’.
But at this point the kids and I were done. We stopped and dug in our heels only like a true Belleau can.’ We are eating right here’, we insist and sit at a table. The menu looks good, and there are people all around us eating delicious food. Turns out that wherever that food came from would not be the kitchen our food came from. We knew with the first dish that the food was mediocre. The second dish was not great, and the last dish was downright bad. Bad enough that for the first time on our trip we sent it back and refused to pay for it.
Dwayne made it quite clear to the owner that the food did not just taste poorly but that we could taste that it was bad. Bad as in rotten. Now we were all freaked out that we were going to get food poisoning. Dwayne took charge, and we went to the nearest 7-11. Dwayne comes back out with a mickey of vodka. And there on the street, this little Canadian family passed the bottle around and drank the vodka until it is gone, the irony of what we were doing not lost on us.
“This drink has a magical power. It strengthens the weak, and revives those who have fainted. Those tired after work and physical activity can return their life forces by this drink much sooner than by nourishment. … It works as a diuretic, an appetizer, an antitoxin.” – Carolus Linnaeus (18th-century physician documenting the effects of the vodka)