Dinner with Malaysian Trade Commissioner, Tuesday 3rd April 2012

Kiong dissecting the fish

On Tuesday night, we played host to En. Shaiful Sharif, The Malaysian Trade Commissioner and his colleague, Ms Selina Lee, who came up from Sydney for a short visit to Brisbane. It was Shaiful's first visit to Brisbane since he was posted to Sydney last year and it was also Selina's first visit, although she is a Sydney-sider. We took the opportunity to bring Shaiful and Selina to Yahoo Restaurant in Waterford. Yahoo serves authentic Malaysian food in Brisbane, and is one of several dozen Malaysian restaurants in Queensland.  A small group of members and supporters enjoyed a great meal and chat over dinner, which included fish head curry, butter oat prawns, sambal squid, and a whole asam fish. And then a delicious dessert - sago pudding or deep fried ice cream were the choices most of us went with.

Hello asam!

Shaiful emphasised to us at dinner that their visit was to meet stakeholders in Brisbane, and build relationships. So it was quite an informal affair, with a good chance for our members and supporters to meet up and get to know our MA Trade counterparts.

After dinner, some of us then adjourned to Park Road at Milton to see our own mini Eiffel Tower.  We popped into La Dolce Vita for a coffee and to continue our chat. It was very interesting to hear about Shaiful's previous experiences during his postings in Mexico and Moscow, and also hear Selina's perspective on Brisbane, as a first time visitor from Sydney. It was a very enjoyable evening and a wonderful first meeting with En. Shaiful and Selina. We look forward to collaborating with them in future.

From Left: Shona (me!), Ben, Elfi, Selina and Shaiful.