Planters’ Curry Tiffin

Again this year our former President and Secretary, Jeremy Diamond has organized a trip to the Club House on Lima Blas Estate for a traditional Planters’ curry tiffin.

The estate, which is situated some one and a half hours drive from Kuala Lumpur, was opened from virgin jungle in 1928. The club is located in over 120 acres of pristine jungle reserve. There are many species of monkeys and a big population of wild boar but you are unlikely to see the latter as they are rather shy. Occasionally, hornbills fly overhead – they nest in the high jungles trees.

We had hired a coach to take us on the visit so that everyone could relax and not worry about driving. As we got to the estate, the road leading up the hill to the Club was too narrow and steep for the coach so most walked up while the less mobile got into a four-wheel drive vehicle from the estate. This gave us ample appetite for the lunch.

Before lunch members were given a presentation about how Malaysia’s “Golden Crop” - palm oil is produced by the Manager, Mr Tan Tay Guan. As per tradition, beer was served before and with lunch and for the adventurous ‘pink gins’ and ‘stengahs’ were on offer (usually before the meal). The former was originally a drink enjoyed by officers in the British Royal Navy but subsequently became a firm favourite with the planters. The latter is whisky with water or soda water, also drunk in abundance by the planting fraternity.

The curry tiffin (a word that originated with the British Raj in India) was buffet style full of curry flavours: Chicken curry, rendang, prawn sambal, sweet & sour fish and many other Indian delicacies.

Just as well that we had a coach to get us back to KL!

Because of the modest size of the club, numbers were limited to 35 pax who all enjoyed this exceptional outing. We thank Jeremy and the Management of Lima Blas Estate for organising this most successful event and hope it will continue as a yearly feature.