I came I saw I hunted at the Klang Valley Food Hunt

Ever since the last Food Hunt I went to way back in 2007 I’d been itching to go on another. So when Beetrice told me about the Klang Valley Food Hunt 2009 guess who was just raring to go?!

After asking around we formed a team – Beetrice, Rinnah, Pinkelle and I – 4 Blogger Babes raring to get out there and win ourselves something… or die trying! Yo!

Last Saturday saw me getting up early. I never get up early on a weekend! *groan* We got to the National Science Centre for the flag off at about 7am – some had already been there since 6.15am! Eager beavers!

By the time we flagged off at 7.54am, I don’t know about the others, but I was already a bundle of nerves as we pored through the questions on Leg 1. No tulips, just aimless driving around 4 different parts of the Klang Valley finding answers to cryptic questions. A bit of a misnomer calling it a Klang Valley Food Hunt though. We did not really hunt any food unlike my last outing in Penang, and we seemed to be guinea pigs for Maxis’ latest venture <- but more on that later. We were also only restricted to 4 areas – Bangsar, Solaris, SS2, Mont Kiara, Kota Damansara and Damansara Uptown. I expected we’d go into the city but we didn’t.

The Food Challenge at Leg 1 saw us trying to identify 10 spices from black and white pictures on the wall within 90 seconds. I reckon we didn’t do too badly. We had 3 heads at work after all

Leg 2 saw us following tulips and solving even MORE head cracking cryptic clues. When we saw some of the answers at the end, we were gobsmacked – we just never thought of it that way!

What really stumped us were the treasures we had to collect. We got 1 but failed 2. Sigh… The final challenge saw us having to toss roti canai – a challenge Bee gamely took up. Very valiant effort if I might say so, that earned her an honourable mention at the recap during the prize giving ceremony

Maxis Finder301 sucks eggs and then some!

Apart from solving cryptic clues that made our brains hurt, we were also required to make use of the new service by Maxis – Finder301. What you do is to send an SMS to 301 with your food request and based on the area you are in, Maxis will then give you a selection of places and you can download data on how to get there. This what we were told at the briefing 2 days earlier.

During the briefing, Bee and I tried the service out. By the time we got home, we were still receiving suggestions up till 11pm! Efficient? No! But that aside what really bugged us was how it screwed around on the actual day of the hunt.

We sent our food requests to the Finder301 programme fully expecting to receive relevent suggestions of restaurants in the locale so we could get some tasks out of the way – includes taking photos. Dammit! In Damansara Uptown, we were given suggestions for Old Town Cafe in 1 Utama and as far away as Bukit Bintang in KL city! This when we were standing right in front of the Old Town Cafe in Uptown – you tell me efficient or not?!

The other thing is, they only give you 3 suggestions and you have to keep asking for more and we finally got the desired address at suggestion #20. What does this tell you? We had to send 7 SMS to Maxis to get what we wanted = RM0.10/sms x 7 = RM0.70. By the end of the day I must have spent over RM5 just on that bloody SMS service. Doesn’t cost you to receive but costs to you send and SMS and if you don’t send you can’t receive can you?!

Yes we had to PAY to use the service. And we did not only encounter problems 1 time, it was near impossible to find anything we really wanted. I felt like Maxis was using us hunters as beta testers – and not even letting us use the service for free! You can safely say that I’ll NEVER use the Finder301 service outside of the hunt. Sucks!!!

Venue at Kompleks 3K @ Subang Jaya was a mistake!

We ended our hunt early handing in our answers at 1.24pm – 1/2 an hour ahead of our alloted time! Dinner and the prize giving was at 7pm at Kompleks 3k in Subang Jaya.

I think that was a great mistake because the roads were abominably jammed! It took us more than 1 hour to get there and most times we were barely moving in the standstill traffic. I don’t know if its the usual jam or if its just 139 teams trying to get to Kompleks 3K at the same time that caused it, but it was HORRIBLE! Might I suggest that the organizers DO NOT go anywhere near Subang Jaya in future? The traffic system there is notoriously bad! But fortunately, we took the back road and got to the hall, starving before most of the crowd arrived. Food was decently good even if the queues were a mile long, which was a bit of a plus.

Did the sponsors employees win?

We overheard something after the prize giving that left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths. Apparently some of the top winners might have been employees of one of the sponsors. I can’t be 100% sure but it sounded that way and rather bugged us how they seemed to know they had won even before the prize giving had started and no photos were shown of what won them the perfect score for tossing a roti canai – a feat not easy for anyone who does not make roti canai for a living!

I won’t begrudge someone for winning – I wasn’t expecting to win the top prize anyway – but if they were really employees of one of the main sponsors then I feel its not ethically correct. If they weren’t, well and good. If they were, I hope the sponsors take note that if employees want to participate in future hunts, they should be placed in a separate category from the public. Otherwise, its so easy for the public to look askance at the credibility of such hunts in future.

Placed 31/139 isn’t bad!

In the end, a couple of horrid incidents notwithstanding, we ended up being placed 31 out of 139 teams. I’d say it isn’t a bad ranking at all for a newbie team

We didn’t end up tearing out each others’ throats and I think we made a pretty good team overall – Next time, maybe we’ll place high enough to win a cash prize!

Yes, there will be a next time!

Great job Beetrice, Rinnah and Pinkelle! Onwards to the next Hunt! Tally-ho!

PB