Grand-uncle

I'm now officially a grand-uncle and my wife a grand-aunt. Sudah naik pangkat, the two of us. A few days ago, a nephew came to distribute a baby full-moon nasi kunyit meal set to us on the occasion of his new-born son completing his first month (mua guek) in this world. Freedom for the little boy and a happy occasion for the father, Alvin, our nephew. Congratulations!

The meal set turned out much better than I had expected. The yellow kunyit glutinous rice had been steamed to perfection. Soft and springy with just the right amount of santan to bring out the flavour when eaten with the chicken curry. Then there were the hard-boiled eggs with the shells dyed red. To complete the picture, the box came with two pieces of ang koo and another two pieces of ang ee, The ang koo is standard for all boxes but in order to distinguish between a male or female offspring, it's either the ang ee for a boy or the ang thoe for a girl. 

Our nephew also left two KFC food vouchers with us, meant for my son and daughter who were not given the full moon meal set. Seems that this is rather the norm nowadays. Some younger people do not appreciate nasi kunyit which is quite a shame as this is part of our nyonya culture and our tradition. But I'm sure my son and daughter weren't consulted on their preferences. Nasi kunyit or KFC voucher? KFC voucher or nasi kunyit? Mmmm.... 😋

Anyway with my son being home for the weekend, we decided to make use of both vouchers. So off he went to redeem the two KFC three-piece chicken sets. Actually, I'm quite apprehensive of KFC nowadays. In my opinion, their meals are not quite the same as before. And I was right when my son returned. Among the chunky pieces of fried chicken, there were two small pieces of breast meat but boy-oh-boy, were they tough and rather.....challenging! 

We expected to get two small boxes of coleslaw and potato wedges with a meal set but somehow, the KFC staff had quietly substituted them with two small boxes of mashed potatoes. They did not even bother to inform my son about this and anyway, he couldn't tell because the meal sets were packaged in enclosed cardbox boxes. Unless one were to open up the boxes and check the contents before leaving the fast food joint - and how many people would do that - their staff could do anything they wanted and the customers would be none the wiser!

So on these two scores - the unappetising chicken breast meat and the substitution - I would say the standard at KFC had dropped substantially. Boo to them!