KUALA LUMPUR: “When the moon hits your eye, like a big roti canai, that’s amore.”
Well, maybe not – but local netizens have fallen madly in amore with a viral video clip of a misbehaving mound of roti canai dough.
Recorded at a popular ‘roti canai terbang’ (flying roti canai) mamak stall in Kedah recently, the 1-minute footage stars a black-aproned stall worker who kneads and stretches roti canai dough with the showmanship of an over-caffeinated circus juggler.
After whacking, walloping and whipping the living daylights out of a mound of dough, the worker steps away from his food cart to perform his signature move of tossing the dough heavenwards.
But the mound of dough doesn’t just momentarily float in the air – it executes gymnastic somersaults as it rockets into the stratosphere, before returning to the worker like an obedient boomerang. (The gimmick is mesmerising and should perhaps be included as a spectator sport in the Asian Games.)
Upon alighting on the worker’s hand, the dough twirls non-stop like a spinning top before taking to the skies once again – but this time, the landing goes riotously awry.
Either due to a miscalculation on the worker’s part, or a rogue gust of wind, the fugitive dough makes a wide turn away from the surprised worker, swan dives and lands splat on the hijab-covered head of a lady waiting for her order.
The mortified worker sprints towards the woman, who seems entirely unperturbed, and meekly peels the renegade roti canai dough off her head.
Meanwhile, laughter can be heard among several patrons as well as the worker’s colleagues – while the lady assaulted by the projectile roti canai remains unmoved, perhaps displaying the most delayed reaction to an event in world history.
I, on the other hand, was instantly won over and am convinced that ‘roti canai terbang’ is the greatest thing since sliced bread.