Prata

At my old place in Bukit Gombak yesterday, I took a trip down memory lane. While its changed hands and renovated many times, this at least two-decade old Muslim-indian eating place "Alif Restaurant" is still recognizable to old boys like me. While pratas these days come fanciful with chocolate, banana, cheese and whatnot, I only recollect there was only "kosong" (plain) or egg back then. Those who are old enough may also remember that we only had free-to-air channels on our CRT TV sets that would screen horror classics like Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street or Child’s Play every Tuesday or Thursday late night. My elder brother and I would lay our ragged "ti lum" (mattress) on the floor in the living room and scare ourselves silly. Almost every time, no thanks to my brother, he would purposely cajole me to buy supper right after the first horror scene in the movie. I was a chubby kid back then, so I would always get suckered into making that trip for some tasty pratas for supper. However, imagination would get the better of me once I got downstairs, and I would always break into an Olympic sprint to reach the restaurant. Once there, I would forget about the horror scenes playing out in my head and get mesmerized by the malay encik (uncle in malay) who would press balls of smooth dough before carrying out gravity-defying prata-flipping. Then, right in front of us in full glory, he would throw the translucent flattened dough onto the big heated flat pan doused with eight tonnes of oil. As a grand finale to end the cooking, another uncle would display the ultimate act of masculinity by stacking up the ready-to-serve pratas and crushed them mightily in one blow with his bare hands. Once the uncle handed me the hot crispy pratas in my hand, Chucky and Freddy would be back in my head instantaneously. So needless to say, I made another Olympic sprint back home! I guess that’s how I am still alive today. #hawkerpedia