5 Angry Chefs
Technorati tags: Humor, Food, Advertising, Ramadhan, Buffet, Malaysia, 5 Angry Chefs, Over-eating, Godzilla, Professional Wrestling
Last Sunday, Walski & the Mrs. were mucking around the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall, bringing some overseas guests we were having over, on some jalan-jalan adventures. Because the weather wasn't cooperative, the shopping mall became the refuge of choice. Walking through the adjacent Pyramid Tower hotel lobby, we came across this large advert banner.
Come feel the Ramadhan indegestion is probably more like it... you know, uninhibited face-stuffing and all that.
OK - fair enough, being Ramadhan and all - although these buffets, to Walski, are nothing but a bad excuse to over-eat. But just look at the tough, no-nonsense, mean-looking, group of chefs! The 5 Angry Chefs...
We just kinda stood there looking at the ad, when the Mrs. quipped, "Gee, it almost looks like they're getting ready for a fight!"
WHAMO!! Immediately, synapses began to fire frantically in Walski's brain, and all kinds of strange imagery began to unfold right in front of Walski's eyes... okay, imagined imagery...
(Misadventures of the 5 Angry Chefs in the full post)
And yes, you may accuse Walski for having too much time on his hands... heh-heh.
But you have to admit, for some strange reason, many Malaysians actually enjoy watching pro-wrestling on TV. It's a fascination that Walski has never been able to figure out. Fake as it is, those who enjoy watching it really get into the action... hopefully these folks do realize that it's all show-biz. Right?
However, pro-wrestling's not everyone's cup of joe - and the raging synapses continued to fire other ideas into Walski's twisted mind. And it was around that time that Walski imagined another popular scenario that these 5 angry-looking could find themselves immersed in.
Bear in mind that Walski's never actually tried this Sunway buffet, so he's merely making an assumption that there would be baking of some sort within the spread... cooking's a given, though.
While Walski isn't exactly a big fan of the Survivor reality show series (what is it... 9th or 10th season now?), you have to admit that it has been a phenomenal hit worldwide. Somehow, having a bunch of people eliminating each other for the ultimate prize money has its appeal. Now, if the series revolved around a bunch of people eliminating each other - literally - now that would be another kettle of fish altogether. Walski's sure that international insurance corporations would fight tooth and nail to sponsor the series - who knows, maybe even Takaful Malaysia!
Then, the synapses conjured this thought: what if, while (un)happily cooking during the Ramadhan buffet, some mysterious cosmic rays, amplified by the Sunway Pyramid, suddenly zapped our 5 Angry Chefs into another dimension - or maybe even a time-travel experiment gone wrong?
Would teh tarik go well with that?
Yes, boys 'n girls, Walski's a sci-fi fan of sorts. But the script for this time-travel movie is still deep in the darkest recesses of Walski's warped mind. There definitely will be, however, suspense, discovery of pre-historic spices, and plenty of dinosaurs... and maybe a confused cave-person or three...
Speaking of large, pre-historic beasts, Walski just had his first (and probably only, this time around) Ramadhan buffet yesterday evening. You know, it's truly mind-bogglingly amazing how large the scale of these seasonal buffets have become. The one Walski went to (not the one at Sunway, by the way) occupied an entire ballroom in a hotel nearby the office. And the amount of food... Walski probably won't have to eat anything else for the rest of the week. Seriously, the humongous spread kinda defeats the purpose of fasting.. 500 people chowing down several rounds of food is usually a sight at large wedding dinners, not a Ramadhan buffet...
But the scale of these buffets these days will probably require a large pre-historic beast's worth of meat, and miscellaneous parts, to prepare the amount of food served. Which brings us to the last image Walski thought of for the 5 Angry Chefs.
In all likelihood, Godzilla would taste like chicken. Just about every exotic meat, Walski's been told, tastes kinda like chicken. And think of the omelettes you could make from even one of Godzilla's eggs. Probably just about enough to feed the hungry denizens Walski saw yesterday evening at the Ramadhan buffet. Which was free, by the way, courtesy of one of our vendors.
And so, in a few days, a month of Godzilla-sized buffets will once again come to a close. Until another 11-day-short year later, that is. It's no wonder some people have commented that they actually gain weight during Ramadhan. And with the dawning of Eid in a week's time, it will be another month of eating frantically... and you wonder why your cholesterol level's thru the roof?
The lesson to be learned, for the advertising folk at least, is this: next time, make sure the chefs look a little less menacing. Unless, of course, they absolutely hate having to cook for ballrooms full of hungry folk with nothing else on their minds than filling up their innards after a day without food... If that's the case, then maybe the ad agency got it right, after all.
Be that as it may, you never know what image Walski will spot next year. So, ad-people - don't say you haven't been warned!
