grEAT is a vegetarian establishment in 1 Utama, Bandar Utama, Malaysia that creates meals
based on color theory and one bowl full nutrient fulfillment
"Ni hao!" "Thanks, I'm good. How are you?" "Still alive."
That was my conversation with the person taking my order — Shah. It is Chinese New Year season, festive music is playing, and I appear to be Chinese. Unfortunately, I don't do mandarin too well. Shah on the other hand comes across as rarely honest. He has an interesting story. Later, I come to know he's spent time with the industry for a few decades, and has a lot of knowledge regarding food safety/halal certifications, health compliance, machinery, supplier methods, so on and so forth. He mentions he's old, but perhaps young at heart.
I receive my meal on a tray, Sesame Japanese Rice & Mushroom Tempura accompanied by minestrone soup of some rendition. I eat, slowly, placing each ingredient in my mouth and tasting it bit by bit. It is appetizing, feels nourishing, and looks great. The tempura mushrooms have an interesting sprinkling of salt of some kind, and it becomes addictive. I start to feel full, and noticing other patrons doing this, I bring my tray to a little trash sorting station. I box the rest of my meal and say I will have it for dinner tomorrow. Shah looks surprised and asks me how often I eat in a day. He also doesn't always eat 3 square meals a day, says he eats to live, and doesn't live to eat. Most days he finds 1-2 meals sufficient. We agree on this. I get my takeout and regret I didn't bring packaging of my own.
Shah is somewhat like the manager of the eatery. He also happened to be the person who sources and procures food items and ingredients for the eatery. I ask if he knows the owners personally, he says "kind of". But he knows the customers extremely well. He remembers their names, listing out close to 10 of them to me, where they are from, and when they usually come in to eat. grEAT has only been open 8 months, and Shah seems to be the glue besides the food, that keeps customers coming.
I ask about the ingredients and tell him I'm interested in just knowing "where my food comes from". He says that he picks food based on their color and freshness. He starts to share, inter-spacing with the occasional excited digression about sourcing food suppliers and how one would know if a supplier was reliable and what questions he asks them. He lights up when he talks about this.
He also drives to pick up soy bean products from a small manufacturer on a regular basis. The small manufacturer uses machinery. I haven't got around to asking where the soy beans are from.
He says that organic food is not necessarily what we think it is. He says hydroponics are new, modern technology but it feels synthetic. He says we have come far in agriculture and food technology. Chickens that grew in 60 days now grow in 4 weeks. I ask him if he thinks that is a good thing. He says "no, they inject them". I agree in that it does feel slightly more distant, literally, farther from the ground and source. I wonder if we have come to associate food as coming from the ground, and everything else as unnatural. What is source, really?
Sometimes Shah takes a break and goes on holiday. He snorkels and dives,and manages to relax. I can smell tobacco on his breath. Thinking about all the experience he's had with the food industry and his contentment with sustenance, I state "it's a good life eh?". He says "not really". We'll definitely be seeing more of each other.
