KL volunteering day 1 & 2

Today I started volunteering in a little family run restaurant/ cookery school. It specialises in Peranakan cuisine, which is the ancient fusion of Malaysian, Chinese and South Indian styles of cooking, dating back 500-600 years ago when Chinese merchants settled down in Melaka.
I got to the restaurant at around 11 and was greeted by Lili, who runs the place and her mum, Popo (78) who helps out. They rely on volunteers so have no other staff, and coincidentally I actually met the other volunteer, a German guy called Leon, in our hostel in Melaka. We divided up the shifts, so Leon would help out 11-4 and I'd do 4-9. The restaurant itself opens 12-8, and probably only has the capacity to seat 25 people, plus they mainly operate by bookings and pre-booked meals.
It wasn't super busy on my first day so I helped up with cleaning and did a little bit of food prep. After dinner, Lili drove us to a produce night market, to pick up a few things she needed for tomorrow. It was full of fresh fruit and veg, a lot of it I'd never seen before!
The next morning I didn't wake up in time to join the rest of the team to the morning market, but was greeted with a little box of food Lili had picked up for me when I went downstairs for breakfast. I then met up with the aussie girl I'd previously hung out with in my last hostel for brunch, and we ventured to a cool little modern art gallery with some quirky paintings and statues. I got back to Sarang (the restaurant) just in time to start my shift and again just did some food prep and then waitressed for a few tables.
Pretty much all the food here is provided, Popo cooked us dinner. She doesn't speak a lot of English, but is a very sweet old lady and we manage to communicate through broken English and body language. Every time before we eat she asks if I'm hungry and my answer is always yes! 😁Read more