An Unexpected Find
After three days straight of lunch and dinner cooking at home by myself as a way to reduce spending, I decided not to give myself further hassle, so I rewarded myself to a dine-out.
I initially was planning to find a random eatery around my place of stay but changed my mind afterwards and headed to the AEON Mall1 nearby instead to buy some supermarket pre-cooked meals.
I then stumbled upon this Japanese style set meal package with a surprisingly complete combination of component dishes, consisting of:-
- two (!) carbs: white rice with some Japanese seasoning sprinkled on top (which might be furikake?), and some pasta cooked with some sort of tomato sauce;
- meat: grilled mackerel2 (or saba shioyaki for a more Japanese-sounding name) with (supposedly) teriyaki sauce (though it tasted more like unagi sauce to me);
- some steamed vegetables (carrot and broccoli);
- slices (dices?) of fruit (cantaloupe)3, and
- two mochis (one with a sweet green bean paste filling, another with a sweet red bean paste filling) as dessert.
Here comes the best part: after waiting until the late hours, near-closing 30% discount kicks in, it only costs RM13.254! You don’t get such a bargain price for a full set meal (excluding drinks) like this in major budget Japanese restaurant chains in Malaysia, or even kopitiams nowadays!
It really worths the extra 5-minute walk and the wait for the discount5!
Appendix
For the curious, here are the photos of some, but not all, of the meals that I’ve cooked for myself during the said three days.
I won’t say they are spectacularly delicious, but at least they’re edible (yes, the bar is just that low; cut me some slack!).
A plate of stir-fried mixed vegetables, a bowl of vegetable soup that comes from the said veg mix, and some noodles (which are actually angel-hair spaghetti…) stirred with a black vinegar, soy sauce mixed condiment and some raw garlic.
A plate of tomato fried eggs, and a bowl of noodles (that angel-hair spaghetti again…I’m sorry Italians!) with a prawn shell stock broth and some steamed lettuce.
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Although it has significant presence in Malaysia and its name sounds Western, it’s actually a Japanese company. ↩︎
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Technically it’s Indian mackerel, or ikan kembong in Malay as the locals like to call. ↩︎
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Cantaloupes have usually orange flesh, and are not to be confused with honeydew, which has green flesh. ↩︎
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Equivalent to around 3.14 USD, 92.37 TWD or 4.01 SGD, based on the rates on 25 July 2025. ↩︎
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To be fair, the wait was not too boring to me; the entire mall (which includes the supermarket itself on top of various other stores!) was pretty big for a good old window-shopping anyways. ↩︎