Thursday 14 July 2011

New Nada Budaya Restaurant in Nottingham

As promised, this is my first diary of setting up the new restaurant. I will share my knowledge, experience, up and low of setting up this restaurant. I hope they will all be ups...no lows! :)










The Logo for Nada Budaya Restaurant...very posh! :)

I am actually quite nervous with setting up the new Nada Budaya restaurant. For what I went through when setting up Ning Restaurant, somehow amazed me I want to go through all the hard work again. It's all about satisfaction but luckily this time I have my Auntie Maziah who is based in Nottingham will be running the restaurant with her husband. My job is just to set it up and get it running for her. Post work ie running the restaurant will be done by her and co which requires such commitment.



Briefly on Nada Budaya Restaurant, it will be 54 covers restaurant serving Malaysian food. Why Nada Budaya? Well here comes the story, my Auntie used to be in the pop band in 70s called Nada Budaya (Culture Rhythm). Yes, that's true. Well knowing the existing Malaysian restaurants in the UK mostly have Malaysian flower names, we thought why not to be different. We made it and do well with Ning Restaurant in Manchester, the name again was recommended by my Auntie believe it or not.

Today we met the Contractor on site. There's tons to do. I'm trying to remain calm. When it comes to setting up a restaurant, it's all about DECISION DECISION DECISION. All the decisions have to be made promptly after appointing the Contractor without delaying their works, which will cost us more. The electrician was present too, clearly whatever your decision is should not be affected by them. Some Contractors can use this opportunity to rake more money from you but my gut feeling the Contractor we appointed is very reasonable. Well perhaps too early for me to say that. We shall see! My style of making decision is to be simple, less headache, quickly make decisions and move on to next set of works. That's how I work.

Demolition works to start in two days time and next week will be more clearance done. They have 4 weeks to complete the works. 14th August should be the completion date and our soft launch to be on 25th August. Not long to go.

I hope this journal will assist whoever have a dream to set up a restaurant! Give me some feedbacks of what topics or ideas you want me to share with you. :)

Friday 4 March 2011

My Malaysian Trip and Malaysia Kitchen Campaign!

Assalamualaikum and Hello All

As promised, here you are my first blog for 2011. I did write previously and as I have been attacked by the L.A.Z.Y bug, so I stopped for a while. A friend of mine told me to write this again as this will be a good record for my journey promoting Malaysian cuisine in the UK. That is a mission and I am looking forward to this journey.


Scene of me with 'nenek' looking for Bachang fruit. Blessed her, she was so nervous when told to do a bit of acting and she never stopped istighfar throughout the scene (reciting Quran words to calm herself down)

I have so many things to share on here but because I don’t want to bore you with such a long blog, I will try to keep it brief and I promise not to mention about the incident with Etihad Airways! For those who have been following my facebook MALAYSIAN CHEF NORMAN MUSA will understand why I have been nagging about this airline previously! grrrrr... hehe













Gorgeous and delicous food served by Auntie Aini at her cafe.

I was in Malaysia for 10 days and all I can say is it was AMAZING! Many meetings attended and all of them I can say were very good. I am glad my movements in the UK to promote Malaysian cuisine being noticed by my fellow Malaysians and they are willing to collaborate to make my presence in the UK stronger. One of my activities during this visit was filming with this very talented director/producer. I can’t mention her name yet as I want to keeps the suspense going. It was a privilege to be working with her and seriously I can’t wait to see the final result. I know it will turn out beautifully. You have to wait and see. We were in Nilai to capture the Malay kampung (village) atmosphere.












Market scene and look at the people around me acting as if nothing happened (or maybe they were not to bothered anymore as this happens in their market almost everyday..haha) and photo of me with Auntie Aini's family enjoying their lunch

We were there from 6am until 10pm and it was an amazing experience. To be there and to get to know Auntie Aini and her family was just wonderful. I grew up in the Kampung before and it was good to be back in that kind of environment again. The smell and sound you hear in the kampung plus Auntie Aini’s cooking of Negeri Sembilan cuisine were good enough to make me wanting to go back there next time I’m in Malaysia. I arrived back in Manchester this week to join the Ning team and Lotus restaurant for two days exhibition, funded by Malaysia Kitchen Campaign under MARTRADE. I missed out the first day due to the incident mentioned earlier. So I arrived back at 6am and at 11am, after few hours nap...I was out there at the exhibition trying to look fresh and chatting to the visitors. You can judge by looking at the video below whether I look fresh enough. Haha. The event was a success. The purpose of this is to create awareness of Malaysian food and from what I have witnessed the team did so well.


Video of the Malaysia Kitchen stall we organised to promote Malaysian cuisine

This coming Sunday I’m flying back to Malaysia. Yes it’s true and I’m crazy! Haha. There is an important meeting I have to attend. My diary in March is mad and if my projects from the meetings I had last week taking off then 2011 and perhaps 2012 will be double busy for me. All I can say is Alhamdulillah (Praise to God) for the good things happened.