Following up from my first venture out in 2 months in this post here, I had been thinking hard how to show some good example on supporting local businesses, especially smaller more weary ones who had to bear the brunt of extreme business slowdown the last over 2 months. One of the things I had decided that wherever possible, I’d like to spend more money outside, especially eating out as often as I could (I rarely eat out usually, as I mostly cook at home and bring home-cooked food daily along for meals). I thought to myself, if I gave myself a chance at this, I might be giving others a chance to continue operating and provide sustenance to their staff members.
[Photo below] This was today, I had parceled food from 2 local shops/stores, enough for dinner, and breakfast the next day, and the food had turned out to be a delicious experience for me. The below was my dinner tonight, 2 slices of porotta (a stretched fried wheat bread), some meat curry, and a piece of very crispy fried chicken. Looked amazing, tasted amazing, and enough of leftovers for breakfast tomorrow morning. But some good food has very humble origins, keep reading.
[Photo below] It was already evening time and I was still in town and finding for some food to get ready for breaking fast, and along one of the usual road that I sometimes pass by, I stopped and ventured into a small local food shop. All the staff was wearing masks and trying their best to socially distance themselves. At first glance, they were not really serving customers, only doing some take away parcel services. Part of the reason was there wasn’t really enough of traffic to deploy more workers to do table service. And most people either cook at home or probably head to one of the “fancier” air condition serviced places in the mall. They had been operating like this for over the last 2 months since the limited movement control. It’s not unique to this specific place, in fact, I would say most of the smaller food outlets had to operate like this. Hence tables were not prep for service and chairs were on the tables to help with keeping the place clean. I told myself I had better try to help with buying some food for the night and the next morning which I will leave in the fridge.
[Photo below] The shop had pre-cooked a few dishes that customers can order and take away from. Selection was very limited. I could understand. It wasn’t going to be worthwhile to prepare too much food since the traffic would be low. As limited as the option was, I was going to give them a chance. So, I had ordered some meat curry which I will eat for dinner tonight.
[Photo below] To make the base of my dinner, i had ordered some porotta (also known as roti canai locally), which the staff had kindly taken to make fresh for me. It was quite mesmerizing to see how a small ball of wheat dough was stretched paper thin by flipping it over and over, and then folded and fried into a thin crispy bread. I had packed some for dinner and some balance for breakfast tomorrow. And I had also packed a piece of fried chicken from another local shop.
So, here I am, at home, just after eating my wonderful dinner. It was delicious and very satisfying. In the simple small shop, it may not have felt as enticing to buy food there and believing it would taste so good. And even more satisfying was that I knew I had contributed a little tiny bit (and collectively, a tiny little bit from each one of us will go a long way) in helping to restart the economy.
I would like to take the opportunity to encourage everyone that whenever possible, we try to give some business to the small local businesses that we may pass by, especially the ones we find weary and need more help. And just like myself today, I was rewarded with a delicious dinner above my expectations, I hope that all of yourselves too will find similar experiences like this.
I will continue to try my best to support small local businesses, and will continue to encourage others to do the same. Some day we will all look back at this time and say to ourselves that we got through this difficult time together.
I will continue to explore and share other ways to help small local businesses. I encourage others to try and also share all the ideas you have.
*For everyone who is reading this, you have my full permission to copy this, and post similar posts (with your own photos) and sharing your own unique experiences, as we jointly help to bring our world economy and wage earners back to work.
