Finally after all those long weeks of planning and juggling 15 balls in the air, the circus known as The Annual Foodsters' Awards came to town. Well it came to Pannaz in a cosy little corner of Damansara Perdana but in our world of FriedChillies it's a big deal indeed, worthy of a Big Top, fanfare and dancing elephants on tightropes. It's our first awards of many to come to mainly celebrate the very best of Malaysian street food and mom and pop eateries. Before we get down to the nitty gritty of the night, we like to give a shout out to our generous sponsors, Maggi for all the lovely hampers and goodie bag stuff and HTC for their sleek sexy phones we used to GPS the winners. Also to Chef Anas of Pannaz who shifted out 80 main courses promptly and throwing in the canapes for free. A FriedChillies salute to all of you.
On the night all the guests got one of these little babies. We've done a ziploc goodie bag before (to keep your gifts fresh) so now what better way to celebrate an awards about food than to bring home a nice brown paperbag 'tapau'. It's got a FriedChillies mug for you to drink your morning java in, Maggi products for you to cook for your loved ones, 2 delicious cupcakes from Aida our Chef-in-Residence for supper and 50 guests even got some special toothpaste because well you have to keep those pearly whites clean after all that grub (err.. Chef Anas' sister is a dentist in Lucky Garden).
First Course: Prezzies!
We invited 80 people for our special award appreciation dinner a combination of friends, bloggers, clients, fans, voters and facebookers. The restaurant after everything is laid out looks pretty fantastic.
Next year my friends, bag an invite
After days of trudging around filming, editing, falling in the IKEA carpark (that's me), carting stuff, bagging stuff, chasing RSVPs and meal selections, reassuring people, reassuring ourselves and various other event mayhem; when the night finally came all we could do really is grin manically and hope nothing more than a dodgy knee would affect the night's shenanigans. Fine. Keeta on the right looked stunning, I on the other hand looked like a stunned mullet.
Ms. and soon to be Mrs. Cheese
The night kicked off with Eugene doing MC honours and then a speech from Adly, our CEO.
Everyone give it up for my team!
Our street food is worthy of world recognition but it has to start with us
Adly didn't keep to our 1 minute speech rule but how could he? There's so much to talk about when food is concerned but he kept it short and set a nice tone for the evening. Despite the rain, guest turn-out was almost 100%. We had a Full House!
Suddenly quietness descended and all that could be heard was the sound of munching
And we had really wonderful guests. When we showed the videos of the winners everyone clapped and cheered every single restaurant. We were also delighted that two of the winners made time to come and dine with their fans and voters. Mr. Kannan from Raju (Best Roti Canai) and Mr. Mervyn from Yut Kee (Bet Kopitiam) took their bows when announced. The audience went nuts! Among our guests there was even Auntie Helen from Taste Good (a Malaysian eatery- killer Assam Fish Head folks!) in New York who was in town and came with her daughter Elaine to join in the fun.
We like to think that everyone made some new friends and had a great night, enjoying the food, company and entertainment. It was also a lovely night to be out. The rain cooled the evening and often sweet breezes would waft in between sentences and laughter.
No way! I went to school with your sister, KL is so small...
During dessert, we had a treat. SlowJaxx a cool singer-songwriter in the Indie scene serenaded the crowd with some of his songs. He even did a one up and brought along his saxophonist.
Here's a little something sweet and mellow from me
Afterwards many of our guests lingered to just drink some coffee and catch up. We had a final surprise of the night. We actually got the unsuspecting winner of our voter lucky draw in the audience. Rebecca thought she might have to go up and sing karaoke hence kept quiet as a mouse when Adly announced her name. Finally she fessed up and got a RM200 voucher from us to 'belanja' herself and her friends 'makan' or maybe a new pair of shoes. Girls can't have enough shoes afterall. Thanks for voting and reading Rebecca.
I've been practising 'I Will Survive' in the shower for a whole month but this is so much better!
So ends our night. We like to thank everyone for coming and celebrating our first awards with us. Thank you for reading and caring about our street food and food culture. To floggers and food journalists, thank you for writing about our local food scene with passion. We at FriedChillies are honoured to be able to do this awards which we think has been long time coming. Thanks to Pannaz and their hardworking staff, our sponsors Maggie and HTC and especially to all the food vendors and restaurateurs, you are our heroes and cultural icons. We thank you most of all.
P/S: And the eating did not stop, later Adly and Riz (our Creative Director) went with some of the floggers to Ampang for a post-dinner Sloppy Burger at Om's. It's that last shot of the egg, cheese and grease dribbling down the side of the burger in our award video that did it for them. Slobber...
Updated : Related Links
1. The 1st Annual Foodsters Award
Winners
2. AFA Winners Jump Vid -
Day 1
3. AFA Winners Jump Vid -
Day 2
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