Chinese takeaway

The Barrets were good people and they treated me like one of their own family. I stayed with them until Pappy died. Mum and Spot moved into an old person’s home and the house and car were sold by the son to his uncle. I moved into a small flat on Burwood road sharing with Pierre, a Frenchman.[1] Again my room was the lounge and it was luxuriously large, with glass on two sides. I had a HMV stereo player and many LP records, a brand new Honda 350 twin motor cycle and a full time job as store man at HMV in Hawthorn! My future became more uncertain when I changed job and went to work in the factories at Fisherman’s Bend, making washing machines. I changed job again and became a cook!

Danny Koh was a qualified accountant. After the May 13 1969 racial riots in Malaysia, his father sent him enough money to set up a business in Australia and he was told not to go home to Ipoh. He married an Australian girl and had two children. He operated a Chinese takeaway business at Sorrento beach during the summer months. He needed a full time cook and I applied and got the job! He spent a week training me in the kitchen and I was left there in sole charge most of the time. He did all the shopping and I, all the cooking! There were also two kitchen hands to help me prepare the food. He employed a blonde hair blue eye, part time cashier; but mostly he sat at the cash register and also did all the shopping at the Victoria market.

He put us up in a rented property with very little furniture. I remembered sleeping on the carpeted floor with Leigh because there were no beds. We did not need much any way because we went back there only to sleep. The hours were long, from 10 am to 10 pm! We opened 7 days a week during the summer months and closed for winter.

In front of me were 9 woks: one always steaming Tim Sims, another with boiling oil, ever ready for quick frying of all the meat dishes. Another is perpetually boiling chickens; the soup is used for stock. The cooked broilers is skinned, deboned and cut up, ready for use. Beef is skirt steak cut up into small thin pieces, seasoned in black sauce, corn flour and cooked by deep frying in the hot oil for about two minutes, no more. One wok is used for fried rice, another reserved for a special dish, Chop Suey. It was invented first by restaurants in San Francisco. Originally, it was nothing but leftovers from the night before! However, because of the popularity of this dish the ingredients were specially prepared from freshly chopped vegetables: cabbages, carrots, cauliflower and celery. These were partially cooked by boiling briefly the night before and stored in the cool room on trays, all ready for the following day.

To prepare chicken chop suey: - put a measured portion of cooked chicken into an empty wok; turn the gas up to maximum. Add chicken stock, add one scoop of chop suey mixture, add some MSG and soy sauce for taste and colour. Add some corn flour to thicken. When it boils, stir well and put into a plastic container with lid and push it through the hole in the wall with the order docket. The boss or cashier on the other side will collect the money from the customer. If I add one teaspoon of curry powder to the chop suey, it was called curry chicken! There were also beef, lamb and roast pork[2] chop suey and corresponding curry beef, curry lamb and curry pork chop suey! The Tim Sims was our most popular and lucrative line, next was fried rice. I still cook very good fried rice even today! The secret is in the ingredients. Make sure that there are more ingredients than rice then people just love it!

Winter came, the Sorrento beach became deserted and the shop was closed for the year. I decided that it was time to go home to Malaysia. I have been an over stayer for over two years. The External Affairs department and the commonwealth office on La Trobe Street were overjoyed when I came out of hiding and contacted them on my own accord. After repeated failures in my studies, they were forced to discontinue my scholarship and they had been trying to find me unsuccessfully for the past year! They gave me a one way ticket for Kuching and I came home after six and a half years holidaying in Melbourne! It was time to find a job.
[1] House No: 8 sharing a flat with a Frenchman, Pierre.
[2] boiled pork with red colouring!