“Customers are the backbone of our business,” says Angela.
Like a sweet, old couple who always arrive before the takeaway opens, order the same boiled rice and beef curry to share, and always ask after the family. Thankfully, there are lovely regulars too. “The counter and waiting room are in a state.” There is racist abuse to contend with too. “When the boys finally leave, we let out a collective sigh of relief,” she says.
Customers are the best and the worst part of the workĪngela recalls a group of teenagers causing chaos in the takeaway: lying on the bench, rummaging through the glass bowl of sweets for customers and “throwing chocolate bars at each other.” Then, they shovel their food in, letting mountains of rice and splotches of curry sauce fall to the floor. We’d bring back our hauls to our tiny rural corner-shops, delis, newsagents, takeaways and restaurants.” Without this trip to the wholesalers, Angela’s family wouldn’t be able to cook the exotic dishes that their livelihood depended on. “We were all immigrants with immigrant food-businesses – trying to make a living, provide for our families and stay afloat. “As I grew older I realised we were all there for the same reason,” she says. Angela describes the other shoppers: an Indian man stocking up on sweets a Somali family browsing spices another Chinese man lifting a large sack of onions. This meant a trip to the cash-and-carry wholesalers. “Mum calls fried foods ‘yeet hay’, a Cantonese phrase that means ‘unhealthy’, and literally translates to ‘hot air.’” “Contrary to popular belief, we rarely eat the food we serve customers,” says Angela. They would have food like steamed Jasmine rice and lap cheong (Chinese sausage), and lap yuk (Chinese cured pork belly). You probably don’t eat the food you serveīefore service, Angela’s mum and dad would make the family dinner. “In a way, they were my extended family,” she says.
Cinderella nails tv#
Other nights, in between orders, he’d be standing around reading the papers and watching TV with me and Cecilia,” Angela recounts. Often, he’d have the kids in the car strapped in the baby seats while he did his delivery rounds. “He was a lanky, dorky blond Welshman who laughed at his own jokes. There was also Dewi, the delivery driver. “Cecilia took me under her wing, fended off drunk customers and was probably the closest thing I had to a grandma.” “She hobbled about on a crutch and smoked like a blast furnace,” says Angela. Even staff outside of the family start to feel like relativesĬecilia, a Welsh lady in her late sixties, was the Lucky Star counter assistant.