When rubbish dumps can be turned into open air kitchen

The video above video was taken at 6.05 a.m. this Sunday morning  (27 April 2014) when yarl restaurant's selfish and irresponsible boss turned on his loud and thunderous kitchen hood. You can also view this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQwB1lG7HsU&feature=youtu.be

 The 2 photos above were taken today (27 April 2014) at around 8 a.m. (This article was posted at 6.23 a.m. today and was edited to add these 2 photos).

This morning, yarl restaurant turned on its loud and deafening  kitchen hood at 6.05 a.m. In fact, I should be sleeping now and not writing this article but since Yarl restaurant has already waken me up with its loud and thunderous kitchen hood noise and I can't sleep anymore, I might as well write this article. At this hour (particularly on a Sunday morning) when everywhere is so quiet that you can even hear the sound of a pin dropping, yarl restaurant's  loud and deafening kitchen hood noise is indeed a nightmare for everyone in the neighbourhood. Anyone in their right senses would not want to talk loudly or even turn on the music  at this hour of the day because we know that it is just not right to make noise at such an early hour in the morning. As for yarl restaurant's selfish, irresponsible, and brainless boss who only thinks of his business, chasing everyone out of their bedrooms at such an early hour in the morning is nothing new to him. Whenever anyone complains, he would turn on his noisy kitchen hood a little bit later i.e. at 6.45 a.m. After a few days, he would revert back to his old habit - turning on his loud and deafening kitchen hood earlier and earlier with each passing day from 6.45 a.m. → 6.35 a.m. →6.30 a.m. →6.20 →6.10 a.m. →6.05 a.m.→ 5.45 a.m. and even at  5.20 a.m.  It is indeed a shameful thing to say that yarl restaurant's boss is doing this kind of selfish thing with his eyes wide open despite all the complaints against him and ignoring all the sufferings that he is causing to others and even more shameful to say that this kind of thing is allowed to happen in a civilized country like Malaysia! You can click THE GREAT COVER UP: MALAYSIAN STYLE to read about how the Kuala Lumpur City Hall is covering up for yarl restaurant. Below are some photos of yarl restaurant that I would like to share with my readers. This is what you see behind yarl restaurant. In fact, the situation has been like this since I was a kid i.e. for more than 30 years. That's why this place is known as rubbish lane. 



 

 The above photo  was taken on 20 April 2014. Here you can see yarl restaurant's noisy kitchen hood with the telephone number, 0162314798, on it. On the left side of the kitchen hood, you can see a heap of rubbish. On the right side of the kitchen hood (see the photo below) is the open air kitchen where yarl restaurant's workers prepare their food. The flat dwellers like to dump rubbish from their windows which falls directly onto yarl restaurant's open air kitchen. In other words, yarl restaurant's open air kitchen is also a rubbish dump! The containers for putting food for their catering business are also dumped outside for washing.

 

 The photo above was taken on 20 April 2014 - it was a Sunday - a very busy day indeed for yarl restaurant as there was so much food to prepare that day in the open air kitchen next to the noisy kitchen hood which is very near  to the rubbish dump! If what you can see outside the kitchen can be so filthy, can you imagine what is going on inside the kitchen where you cannot see?

 

The above photo is taken from the Facebook "Sampah Tidak Dikutip". If you read carefully what is written on this Facebook, you would realize that this heap of rubbish was just opposite yarl restaurant. Although this heap of rubbish is already cleared now, the flat dwellers still dump rubbish there from time to time since this is the flat's rubbish dump. What is really ridiculous is yarl restaurant also uses this rubbish dump as their second open air kitchen when they have a lot of food to prepare. Why does yarl restaurant need so many open air kitchens? Is it because their kitchen is so small that they have to make use of the rubbish dumps around as their kitchen?

 

In front of the white car you can see the little "Toyota" used for lifting things parked outside yarl restaurant's kitchen. Behind the white car, you can see lots of rubbish.

  

In fact, there is rubbish everywhere on this lane. If you click to enlarge this photo, you can see rubbish inside the drain outside yarl restaurant's kitchen. The biggest rubbish bins can also be found on this lane. That's why there are so many big, black, fat rats scurrying all over the place! 

Yarl restaurant's noisy kitchen hood with two rubbish packets in front of it. Here, the flat dwellers like to dump rubbish. The rubbish always falls onto yarl restaurant's open air kitchen. On the left are two rubbish dumps as you can see below.
 

The rubbish dumps next to yarl restaurant's loud and deafening kitchen hood.

                           

IT SEEMS THAT MALAYSIANS JUST DON'T CARE HOW AND WHERE THEIR FOOD IS COOKED. THIS IS OUR MALAYSIAN CULTURE. THEY JUST SIMPLY EAT WHAT THEY CAN GET HOLD OF INCLUDING FOOD PREPARED IN THE OPEN AIR KITCHENS AT THE RUBBISH DUMPS ON RUBBISH LANE.

Do Malaysians really care about dirty restaurants or are they more interested in the taste of the food? We complain about dirty restaurants but some of us continue to patronise these places. Perhaps, Malaysians don’t care about hygiene as long as they can eat the food they are used to. If you sit beside the smelly monsoon drain, which is blocked with rubbish, you don’t think about the drain and your proximity to it. You just want to be served quickly and savour the food. The dirty rag which the waiter used to wipe a mess on the floor is then used to clean the table, and you think nothing of resting your hands and cutlery on the table. Very few of us request fresh cutlery, if the ones we were given are encrusted with bits of hardened food. Others who find lipstick stains on the rim of the glass simply turn it around 180 degrees. Diners who see a fly hovering over food, may find on closer scrutiny, that the fly has laid eggs – tiny clusters of pearly white lozenges, almost invisible to the naked eye. Have you ever wondered how many times the garnish adorning a dish has been used? You might wonder if the bread has been on parade in the bread basket.

I have seen my friends removing the ants from their plates of rice and then continuing eating. The question is: Can we go on eating when we know that there are ants in our food? Well, the answer is: Dirty foods are okay for Malaysians. I have seen (last Friday) restaurant workers picking up the pieces of fried chicken that they have dropped accidentally at the food counter and putting them back onto the tray. Did anyone mind? Everyone was waiting impatiently to be served that they didn't mind at all. I was the only one who walked out of the restaurant that day. Some time back, I saw a worker in a restaurant in Brickfields picking up the chicken leg that has fallen onto the floor and putting it back onto the tray when he thought that no one was looking at him.  I have seen rats scurrying around in a restaurant, but the patrons merely laughed at the “playful” rats, and carried on eating. Produce, like vegetables, is stored on the wet floor, next to the toilets but you shrug your shoulders and wait patiently for your meal. We have seen some hawker stalls in which dishwashing involves dunking dishes into a bowl of murky water, before being stacked up for re-use. If the parts of a restaurant that you can see are dirty, what about the bits you cannot see? As a rough guide to the standards of hygiene, try and check the toilets. If the customer toilets are dirty, just imagine what the kitchens are like, where only members of staff are allowed. Just go to the back of the restaurant and you will see things that you hope you wouldn't see!

Dirty toilets and kitchens, rubbish and unwashed utensils piled up in back lanes, and giant rats and roaches scurrying across the floor and nearby drains are common sights in food courts, hawker stalls and restaurants in and around the Klang Valley. Despite such a revolting environment, people don't seem to mind patronising these places. They may be disgusted by such sights, but the attitude seems to be to simply ignore the surroundings and "enjoy" the food, opening themselves to infection and disease.

What does the rubbish contain?

Enterobacteriacea: Can cause stomach upsets.

E.coli: Some strains cause illness.

Yeasts: Can be harmful and also causes food to rot.

Pseudomonas aerugino: Causes food to spoil.

Moulds: Speeds up food rot and odour.

Bacillus cereus: Can cause vomiting

Staphylococcus aureus: Known to cause stomach upsets.

Clostridium Perfringens: Causes similar sickness to salmonella, though not fatal.