Today started off as a really regular workday for me. Things have been going really well with the company lately so I’ve been able to take a bit more of a breather. I was supposed to meet Zhon Wei and Rachel for lunch at Avenue K when just about ten minutes before I left, Shorty gave me a call. She said she was on her way to bring Fighter to visit her grandma but her grandma had a last minute thing she had to attend to. So Fighter was in the car with her and she thought since she’s already out she would just bring him for lunch with me.
Half an hour later I was with Fighter at Bankara Ramen,
Fighter’s routine when with us at restaurants is always like this. He sits quietly and is really well behaved when we first get to the restaurant all the way till the food comes. The minute the food comes… that’s it. He starts getting really grouchy like this and insists not only just on being carried but being walked around the entire restaurant. So at least one of us has to eat first while the other walks around with him.
Joanne told me yesterday that Fighter is going to have us wrapped around his finger. I think her prophecy may turn out to be true. I find it so hard though to not give in to a face like this.
Bankara Ramen’s co-owner is a friend of mine… Meng. We were hanging out yesterday after a session of golf. Meng is a really successful entrepreneur who brought Din Tai Fung to Malaysia. We were talking about the F&B business and how difficult it was given how competitive things were and how it’s really dominated now by the big boys.
I’ve always told everyone that my dream one day is to start a steamboat restaurant. Some people dream of starting pubs or bars… I just want a steamboat restaurant. One day if I’m no longer involved with Netccentric, I would love to have a steamboat restaurant. While owning a restaurant looks fun, I’m under no illusion that F&B is easy. I know that from my friends in the industry. They tell me day in and day out it’s difficult having to manage and find good staff and having to constantly deal with malls raising their rental rates on you every day. But I guess as Meng said… no business is easy.
After lunch at Bankara I went to visit Library Coffee Bar on the ground floor of Avenue K. My friend Hoay Ming happens to be an investor there so I bumped into him as well as my other forum mate Jeremy who is in the property business.
The Library Coffee Bar at Avenue K is a really nice cozy place.
We tried to take a group picture with Fighter and this is what we ended up with.
Fighter doesn’t make it easy for us to take group pictures. We tried again though and we got this.
On a final note, I don’t know if you guys have been keeping up with my Dayre and Fighter’s Dayre. There were some interesting pieces I shared recently. You can read them here.
1) My Thoughts on Christianity and Religion
2) The Story of a Pen Salesman.
And for Fighter… make sure you read this one.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space