During the days when we were in campus, some friends would organise dinners on Sundays. That was when about ten of us would head off to a Chinese restaurant in Kajang, a small town in Selangor, to have a proper Chinese dinner. Most of the week, we would just have our food in the canteens in the university ground, Malay fare for all the time; since the canteen in the university were monopolised by Malays. Usually, we would go by bikes and yours truly, having no bike of my own, would ride pillion with a friend. Dinner was not not the usual economy rice sold in Chinese eating shops where one would get a plate of plain white rice and small portions of three or four dishes to go with it. With our pooled money, we were able to get better food. The organisers would order meat, fish and all sorts of dishes which we would dig into. One morning, my niece packed a little lunch box for me. It reminded me of those days when we had a dish called 鸟窝 bird nest. Of course, this was not the expensive bird nest, 燕窝 swallow nest. The bird nest in question was actually a vegetable dish where the nest was made of yam and filled with an assortment of vegetables. My niece's version was smaller, tastier too...
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