AUG 2 — A new restaurant, recently open for business in Petaling Jaya, is doing brisk business, and I had to wait for almost half an hour before I could get a seat after failing to get one on two previous occasions.

To be frank, the restaurant is not really a new business as its parent shop has been in operation in Kuala Lumpur for 92 years!

Many would ask if the offerings here are just too good to resist given its robust business.

Not actually. Its food couldn’t have been more commonplace, namely steak, fish and chips, chicken chop and some localised noodles and rice meals. Although the food is not that bad, it is not cheap in any way.

The shop’s deco is nevertheless notable. The tall ceiling, European mosaic tiles on the wall, an enormous ceiling fan revolving sluggishly overhead, English furnishings and cutlery display, well-cultured waiters spreading a white napkin for you before you pick up the fork and knife.

It is as though we have turned back time to the pre-independence colonial era.

Not all the patrons have come here for the gastronomic fares; many have been lured here by the history and characters of this themed restaurant.

This restaurant was frequented by local nobilities and Europeans, including British government officials, business tycoons, local dignitaries, political elites and professionals in the early last century.

It was said even the Governor’s men, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tan Cheng Lock, were regulars at the restaurant. Imagine these notable customers talking about the birth of a new nation there.

Of course, that was more than half a century back.

Today, we won’t see Europeans clad in white suites sitting inside the restaurant nor a handful of distinguished guests save for the most ordinary gluttons.

Customers book a table and wait in line out of nostalgia as they attempt to recollect the memories of the country’s colonial past.

One thing I am very sure, none has come to support the return of British rule in Malaya.

Umno Youth will not accuse the restaurant of sympathising with the colonial regime or running against the wills of Malayans’ desire for independence and self-rule, and subsequently press for its closure.

Neither Perkasa nor the Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia will claim this restaurant is trying to glorify Western colonialism and call for a mass protest in front of the shop.

When I was in Singapore several years ago, a local friend invited me to the communist-themed House of Mao restaurant.

Waiters in Red Army uniform would yell out loudly: “How do you do, Comrade!” the moment you step into the restaurant. And the eyes of Chairman Mao will be watching over you from all directions as soon as you are seated, the unmistakable revolutionary anthems tingling all around.

Holding the “Little Red Book” in hand, the waiter attentively takes your order from a good selection of spicy Hunan fare.

Imagine a communist-themed restaurant thriving in laissez-faire Singapore!

Communism cannot deliver itself out of this world, and in a highly commercialised society, even this can be exploited into a culturally chic, politically themed eatery.

I guess Deng Xiaoping would have been overjoyed if he were to live to see this. As for Chairman Mao, I really have no idea how he would feel.

Outside the shop, no government people were waiting to interrogate me on my political inclination. Neither did I become a “comrade” after dining at the House of Mao.

Even colonialism and communism have become fashionable things nowadays, showing that our world has indeed changed.

Unfortunately, a new village lass falling for a passionate classless revolutionary has rendered the film “The New Village” a “pro-communist” cinematic production.

Shall we get approval next time we visit a restaurant?

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.