Friday 2 May 2008

Jom Makan - New Port in Town

Went for majlis doa selamat for the new M'sian restaurant in town, called Jom Makan. Located right smack next to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Nice chaps the MD & Director - Zuhri & Zain. Nice set up, very modern. However, am slightly confused with the target market, coz mostly around that area are fine dinings. JM is kinda like fusion between fine dining & modern.

Menu & price has yet to be revealed. Tengok lah camana - may be next month when its launched, I go recce with the guys again. I suspect its gonna be fairly steep to off-set the renovation costs & the running operation costs. Had some mee goreng & satays after tahlil. OK la. Hope they make sure the taste justify the price. Also the need to study food item/price/volume mix. Kalau target org Mesia who usually wanna come and eat a specific item, say, Char Kue Tiaw - may be £6 - 7 of Penang Cafe-like portion will justify. Coz you just target one item. But if you wanna target the thousands of tourists jumping up and down the lions of Trafalgar Sq, may be the portion needs to be cut, add on spring rolls ke, desert ke. Entice them to order a bit of this and that. So portion kena cut (along with the price maybe) so that orang tak kenyang sangat after eating 1 item. Each with different pricing - looks cheaper, but make a killing on price/volume. Anyway, aku bukan terrer sangat pasal meniaga ni (eh, not really. Masa kat sekolah dulu jual rokok - made a killing!!) Hope they will succeed.

On a different note, the doa selamat was done last night to catch the Khamis malam Jumaat thing. Nothing to do with the guys, but amazing how all of us are brought up to believe such magic. May be, other nights the points are lesser? Funny how we are so preoccupied with brownie-points .. Had a Yaasiin session, tahlil & doa selamat. Why Yaasiin? Everybody seemed so expert in reciting the surah, and I bet even without the Yaasiin booklet everybody can more or less still recite it. But I don't know how many can appreciate the surah. Makes me wonder what Yaasiin has got to do with doa selamat. The only ayat I can think of that has "Selamat" in it is 36:58. In fact the surah is an order! Look at 36:3. Yet everybody still refers to our long departed nabi to do the job when it is the reader who the ayat is targeted to. Well, until we become Practical Muslims, rather than Mystical Muslims, I don't think we are going anywhere...

No comments: