A day with the King of Grill

This morning we woke up in time to meet Brian downstairs to drive to Bangsar Village II. We grabbed a coffee and walked around for a while before we went upstairs to the seminar room for our workshop with TV chef Robert Rainford.

We arrived reasonably early and got good seats. The audience was primarily made up of Malaysians with very few expat faces. Chef Rainford arrived in time to rescue a chicken that was in flames on the rotisserie! He obviously wasn't too impressed with his assistant chefs.

Despite the shaky start, he showed us three great meals - prawns with love sauce, rotisserie chicken and pulled beef sandwiches. We got to taste all the dishes. My favourite was the prawns with love sauce but the steak sandwich was also hard to beat. He uses a lot of spices in his cooking so it looks like we'll have to stock up!

He was pretty funny during the workshop, cracking jokes and playing to the crowd. After the workshop Chef Rainford stayed to take photos with everyone. He was a really nice guy and we chatted for a few minutes and had our photo taken before leaving the workshop.

We walked up the street and had lunch at Tewali Street Bistro, a great restaurant/ bar. After lunch we went down to BBQ King to buy some new BBQ tools for Ross. We managed to bargain a discount because we went to the workshop. From Bangsar Village II, we drove up the hill to look at the antiques store to show Brian. They had some lovely things, particularly a partners desk that Ross has his eye on!

We drove home and spent a few hours relaxing before meeting Brian downstairs again to walk to Trader's to catch a cab back out to Bangsar for the Robert Rainford dinner. We arrived about 6.30 and found our way to the rooftop. Big marquees had been set up with tables and really nice decorations. We stood on the roof watching the sunset with a Tiger in hand (although I did have to do some sweet talking to get the first beers!).

The dinner was due to start at 7pm. By about 8, it hadn't started and the MC came out to apologize and explain that we were waiting for the VVIP guest - the ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia. In typical style, he was over and hour and a half late so in the end, the served the meal. Robert Rainford finally came out just as everyone was finishing their meal and did a quick demonstration to show us how to cook a beef tenderloin with blue cheese stuffing. It looked really good! Will have to try that one.

It was a nice night despite the time delays. We had a young Malaysian guy named Patrick sitting at our table. He was pretty quiet but a nice guy. Ross, Brian and I stayed around till about 10 and made the most of the free flowing beer before heading up the road to Finnegan's for a quiet last drink. We got home about midnight after a great and different way to spend our Saturday.