RM45.00 Fish Head Curry

I have just finished reading Harian Metro, the online version and I was amused by this report where somebody is complaining about the price he has to pay for the fish head curry (kari kepala ikan aye). RM45.00. Too much? Well it depends on who’s paying. If I’m paying, may be it is a little bit on the expensive side but looking at it otherwise, if we are able to pay RM39.90 for a piece of meat we call steak (be it mushroom, black pepper etc) then we should be happy if our kari ikan aye can stand up and compete with the western food or delicacies.

The thing I don’t understand here is that why we put steak so high and we are able to pay a premium for the steak and not for the kari kepala ikan aye? The report goes on saying that the guy actually went to the market to check on the price and he told the newspaper the price of the ikan is only RM19.00. Of course the market would sell you at that price and the most will be RM25.00 (depends on the location of your market and the size of the fish). However the guy forgot to calculate the other costs such as employee costs, going to the market costs and of course making the fish into a fish head curry costs. Right? And a fish only has one head. That’s why it is so expensive. If fish head comes like octopus limbs then I don’t think it would be so expensive.

(rationalizing here)^

Same thing when you go to the market and get yourself a nice chunk of tenderloin (1 kg for steak), the highest it will get is RM25.00 nothing more. But nobody question when the bill for steak comes and says it is too excessive. And you don’t get the whole 1 kg of the meat. The most you get is 450gm.

The moral of the story is always ask for the price first before you buy something (especially food) and always appreciate your local food and not forgetting once you enjoy the food and if you don’t check the price first, just pay… don’t have to be so sour and make people business run to the ground…