Food Truck Food [Life Hack]

Everybody loves food truck food. Even better, it’s one of those things that people are so proud to declare their love for OMG. I can’t help but hear the undertone of condescension – deliberate or not – when I’m in the midst of friends trying to outdo one another with their love for food truck food along with all the other novelty, kitsch items that our perpetually hipster generation gushes about. OMG YES, I just LOVE being POOR, it’s so BAD, is really what I hear (and also say, let's all be honest).

Whether it’s buying things at flea markets, or living without furniture, or driving a beat-up car, I guess we get so tickled by the idea that we’re just not poor enough to have to really, unironically suffer through them. I feel this the most when I get my food from the food truck parked outside our office here in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Unlike the food trucks in popular culture, this one is a stark reflection of not only tradition and culture in Malaysia, but also of how hard life can be in Southeast Asia. Our neighborhood food truck serves Malay/Indonesian food, and makes a delicious, cheap alternative to home-cooked meals. A lunch pack consisting of rice, meat (chicken, beef, lamb or fish) and vegetables would set you back about US$ 2.00 on average. It’s all packed into a Styrofoam box and handed to you with a napkin and a plastic spoon. To put this in perspective, the average office worker here spends about US$ 4.00 on average per day for lunch. Obviously, that’s still relatively low, but I’ll ignore most things (like food truck hygiene issues) to pinch pennies.

Food vendors outside our office - food truck way there in the back.

Our food truck chef (or maybe he's not) is, according to my work friends (because I never
asked him myself), Indonesian. He's a jolly guy, sometimes giving me a discount towards
the end of the month when he knows our paychecks haven't come in yet, or giving his
customers a free apple along with lunch. He talks to me and my non-Malaysian
colleagues in Malay, to help us "practice the language."

I buy my lunch alongside other office workers, but mostly migrant workers or laborers and cleaning people who can’t afford eating at the restaurants that have marked up servings. While I’m in it for the food (I love Malay food for its similarity to Maranao food, which was festive food prepared by my mother when I was growing up) like the other office-clad customers, I’m also in it for the savings like the other low-paid workers.

What a luxury to not feel embarrassed about being poor.

~END~