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.