Malaysian Munchies!

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Hello everyone,

Hopefully your all enjoying the great British summer (tee hee!) though to be fair you only really know rain once you visit the tropics. When it rains here it RAINS! Drizzle is not even a concept!

From Bandung it was another slightly disorganised departure by AirAsia. The flight had been re-scheduled, again! Still we were put on a flight only about an hour later than originally intended. It was quite amusing hanging around though as Bandung aiport is TINY! Anyone who has been to the Faroeese national aiport or an aiport like the East Midlands one will have some idea but not the whole picture. The entire aiport including check in departures, arrivals et al was around 15m by 40m (40 foot by 100 foot ish in old terms!). The highlight though was when it came to customs and us emigrating. At the gate I was OK but the officals took Sars passport and after about 5mins of tutting and passing it around and looking at her she got the fateful come with me look and a bark! The look on her face was a picture... somehwhere inbetween "I dont want to go to an Indonesian jail for the rest of my life Dean" and "Im innocent I tell you!". So yes there we stood in a boxy Indonesian immigration police back office. The room completely filled with smoke and the offending smoking officers. The top guy fired a hundred questions at us until it became clear that the problem was that the rushed immigration guy in Bali had not completed Sars visa stuff correctly and left her arrival card in there. After a few smiles and "her visa is the same as mine just hers was processes wrong" conversations he scribbled all over it in purple felt pen and sent us on our way! Fun and games. Though I am waiting for trouble in London when we get back and both passports have been in the Mekong so have a fair bit of water damage and thats before you take into account the wear and tear from 9 months constant use and stamping and stapling and...!

Still the flight was as smooth as ever and I really must commend Air Asia on offering a great value set of flights. They just need to be a little less keen to reschedule things, or if they do, to tell people! We arrived into Kuala Lumpur (KL from here on) at about lunch time and set of for Jonathan and Jennifers house in central KL.

A bit of recapping for some of our more foregetful or intermittent readers is probably in order here. While on our Halong bay cruise in Northern Vietnam we met an incredibly friendly Malaysian Chineese couple names Jennifer and Jonathan. They graciously offered that we should stay in their apartment in KL when we visited there in a few months time, we less graciously bit their hand off!

So... We jumped on the shuttle coach (great value @ a pound but so disorganised! Time for some serious pushing / shoving and 'creative' queing). From the KL Sentral (spelt that way!) station we jumped into a taxi, apartment address in hand and set off. After a bit of faffing and getting lost we found the apartment, located in Taman Desa which is the Solihull of KL and on the 4th floor of a tasteful modern low-rise block complete with a gorgeous pool and super-security! Jennifer (Jen from here on) met us there and showed us around, and boy had we landed on our feet!

The apartment is a duplex (aparently thats american speak for two floors) and has three big bedrooms. The apartment is completely empty, as they moved to their new house a while back, bar a sofa in the living area and bed in one room. Jonathab (Jon from here on) is an interior designer so the house is predicatbly modern with white marble floors (about 4 acres of it I reckon!) through out and is nearly entirely open plan with a funky floating stairs up to the second floor. Theres even one of those huge art deco arches windows up the stairs! Needless to say we were both majorly impressed and grateful. Hotel Sarah and Dean for as long as we want and for free! And its air conditioned! No really I will stop now and just add some pictures of it....

As well as being super genrous offering us the apartment they have both gone way way out of their way to make sure we are settled in and having a great time. That first night they showed us round the neighbour hood in Jens swish Toyota saloon. Theres all manner of shops and restaurants and the internet cafe were in right now writing this. The jewel in the crown though for us is a full on genuine local food court. In Malaysia these food courts are EXTREMELY popular and are unlike street food anywhere else we have visited. Essentially they are small aircraft hanger style buildings (or are sometime open air). Inside all the way around the edge are raucous food vendors, each with a wheelie stall say 10 feet wide with every imaginable kind of local food. That night J & J set about educating us on the basics of Malay food. And this will be the theme of this blog. Food, food glorious food! There is going to be endless listing of what we ate in both languages and with accompanying pictures. If your not interested in Asian food you would probably be best of putting this down and going to watch some TV or maybe go for a jog!

That night (after Jon had finished work) we ate Pau (steamed red bean filled rice buns), char siew wantan mee (BBQ pork noodles with a side wonton soup) and char siew chee chong fun (amazing rolled flat noodles filled with spicy soy pork). We also developed a love for popiah (uncooked spring rolls filled with hoi sin sauce and grated boil turnip, really sweet and more-ish!) All washed down with crushed ice blended drinks of mango and honeydew melon. Needless to say, having not only culinary tutors but also translators who could converse on our behalf in Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin etc was invaluable and was a welcome break from the last 9 months of pointing at something that looks a safe bet! After eating more than our fill we retired to the quietest nights sleep we've had in months.

So yes we are smugly enjoying an absolutely brilliant time in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia! Over the following few days we made a stab at 'seeing' KL. To be fair one of the main attractions (especially for Sar) was the shopping. Birmingham may have the bull ring but KL has like 10 malls around the same size!

The first day was spent entirely in the Mid Valley Megamall. Mega by name and mega by nature, it is stupendously big and modern. We arrived at around 11am and left exhausted at about 8pm having covered only 3 of the 5 floors, insane! The reason we cane here to shop was two fold. We havent been able to buy anything other than souvenirs while travelling as we have had zero backpack space to carry it. Secondly it KL's version of the January sales in August here, so discounts aplenty (up to 70%!). Now we have both brought a cheap wheelie case to use as our 'hand luggage' on the flight home were ready to spend what little spending money weve kept back to fill it with clothes for work etc.

The second day was another shopfest. This time we made us of the AMAZING public transport in KL and went accross town to the Bukit Bintang mall. Where we are staying though busy is like a suburb really to get around we grab a taxi to Mid Valley as it has a station and then from there you can go anywhere in KL and the surrounding area via a heady mix of interlinked transport. Theres the KL monorail (great fun!) the KTM Kommuter and about 3 other rail type lines that Ive forgotten the names for. Best part? One trip on anyone costs about 1 ringit per person i.e. 18p! Bargain, pull your socks up Britain! That night J & J met us at a local street corner restaurant that is famous amongst locals for its beef dishes. We gorged ourselves on hor fun (tender beef fillet stir fried with flat noodles) keylang (BBQ belly pork) yee mee (seadfood with fine egg noodles) la la (fish with ginger and spring onions) mixed satay and far far too many Carlsbergs. Not only did they show us what to eat (and how to eat it!) but they also paid for it all too, awesome!

The next day we needed some anti shopping remedy so we decided to get on the tourist trail and see some of the 'sights'. First off we headed over to Chinatown. It was amazing the difference here to the area we are staying in (which is almost entirely Chinese). It was way more comercialised and generally a lot more frantic. The market was quite fun as there were hundreds of vendors crammed into the streets making the whole thing into something the crystal maze would have been proud of. There is literally just enough room to squeeze through, think hedge maze made of fake Gucci handbags and you nearly there. Though you have to the smell of streetfood and background cackle of sellers offers "hello sir you watch" and "madame looky new handbag very nice". After realizing there wasnt all that much for us there and that the areas we had visited locally were probably more authentic we decided to take an early evening stroll along the river towards the Merdaka (centre) square. Along the way there were great night time city vistas, I dont know whether its because were both country kids at heart or that KL has some really high buildings but we were both captivated by the skyline. Its just so alien to us Brits, a tall building at home might have 5 or maybe shock horror 10 floors. Here think more like a hundred floors of spangly mirrored windows. God help us if we ever went to New York! About half a mile away we came to the Merdaka square which is the Malay independance square. Theres a pretty impressive flag pole and a big green square which is a welcome respite from the citys traffic. More interesting though is that it is nearly entirely encompassed with tudor (yes as in medieval) and colonial buildings. On the right was the twinkly fairy lit courts (see pic) and on the left was a long street of white and black beamed 2 storey tudor buildings. So out of place with a glitzy skyline as a back drop. We also grabbed a few seriously fresh and tasty daahl and naans from an indian place before heading back accross town to 'our' place before the trains closed down for the night.

Over the next couple of days we took it a bit easier and met up with J & J for one particularly nice dinner that deserves mention. Jon said that the best food for us to try while in town was his fave crab restaurant accross town. So one eveing they picked us up and took us out to the fairly fancy Chineese crab/seafood restaurant. Packed to the gills with middle class Malay Chineese the restaurant was obviously famous for its food as its location was a way out. We settled into one of the the biggest feasts among feasts! We tried suin lat hai (2 sweet and sour whole HUGE freshwatercrabs) la la (ginger fish again, its so good!) special anchove fried rice and the sweet fried buns to dunk in the crabs sauce. They were massive (see pic) and it was a real experience as I dont think many tourists would ever get the chance to go and try them, another great slap up meal! As we were so full J & J said they would come back to the flat with us with some fruit as there was no way we could sleep yet (@ 1am!!) on the way home they took us to thi little rickty roadside vendor that was selling these special rambutans that are totally different to the normal ones and it only cost us 3 quid for 3 kilos i.e. a carrier bag full! We all sat up shelling sweet rambutans and chatting until we were finally able to get up the stairs to bed!

Next morning over roti canai (thin flat breads similar to a thin naan served with hot chilli curry sauces) and roti sardin (spicy fish filled version) and roti telur (egg filled version) J&J offered to take us up to Penang island in Northern Malaysia for the weekend on a foodies road-trip the next day. Predictably once again we jumped at the chance!

Penang is the far end of the country but due to the super smooth motorway and their swish car it only takes 4/5 hours to get there. That would be presuming we didnt stop for food, which by now Im guessing you understand weve been doing A LOT. Jon pulled off the motorway at a completely inconspicious exit and said he was taking us to the best and most adventurous seafood place he knew. Out of nowhere a myriad of over signposted restaurants appears all jostling for position on the local road. All of which had a slew of tour buses parked outside stopping en-route to or from Penang. We casually drove by as Jon said they were all copycat places that had sprung up to capitalise on the success of one original legendary place. So we made our way down this tiny lane to a small boat jetty where fishermens boats were unloading tonnes of seafood onto waiting lorries. Physically part of the jetty was our place! With crates of still dripping wet seafood to choose from we would have been totally lost (thats if we had ever know about the place!) thankfully Jon in a slew of Cantoneese sorted out a spread for the four of us. I wont pull any punches and say that it was THE SINGLE BEST seafood meal weve ever eaten, and weve done some serious research! We had har kou (huge prawns that actually look like preying mantis) chee lor (spiky perfectly formed spiral shellfish akin to the shells you cololect at home!) patin (steamed fish that resembled a cat fish) boiled octopus tentacles (possibly the best tasting ugly looking food I have ever eaten, and I hate octopus!) with a side of emporor veg in sambal chilli. As we were 'on holiday' J & J let us pay for the meal, which we could barely finish. Guess what all that with drinks came to 60 ringits, about 9.50! Not only the best seafood meal ever, but also by far and away the best value! Bargain.

After our seafood stop over we carried on up to Penang. After crossing the impressive bridge similar to the new Severn one we checked into a smart hotel in Georgetown the colonial heart of Penang. We had come to Penang for the food but to work up an appetite for eating me and Sar first had a look around the colonial centre and little india. Little India was a captivating hark back to our months in India that seem like a lifetime ago now! The hindi music blaring from the shops, the bollywood stars shimming on TV sets and the general smell of the place 50% spice, 40% inscense and 10% sewage. How it sends you back, we couldnt resist kicking things off with a 10p samosa for old times sake. For that brief moment we felt as though we were back there 😊

That afternoon the gourmet action began for real. Just opposite the hotel on a junction is a mish mash of local cart based food hawkers that have apparently been doing it for years. We kicked things off with penangs 2nd most famous dish char keaw teow (white noodles stir fried with oysters and prawns = susan heaven!) udang mee (prawns and egg noodles in a spicy curried coconut broth) oro chien (big oyster omlette, I kid you not!) and Malay carrot cake. Being clueless westerners we assumed the carrot would be well carrot flavoured cake, wrong again! Carrot cake in Malaysia contains no carrots and is not a cake (who ever named it deserves a slap!) it is infact tender boiled turnip cubes mixed with a pancake style batter and the fried on a grill, and it is absolutely delicious! We also got to travel our taste buds by trying some chee chop cheok (wait for it... rice porridge with crispy grilled pigs intestine, difficult to describe how amazingly nice it was!) leg chee kang lak mee (one long name! it is infact a dessert type drink with lotus,gink bilboa, red dates, jelly and all sorts of other stuff) needless to say we were both thouroughly impressed and exited by it all. The photos give you some idea of it all. Bellys swollen we got bac in the car thinking we might be heading back to the hotel or a bar, oh no! This is Penang and its all about the food baby! For supper we headed to the breezey and buzzing food court on the water front that is insanely popular for late night eating. We tucked into chee cheong fun (flat noodle thing we had on 1st night but done totally differently) koi char (another wait for it... BBQ chickens feet and giblets. Again you are obviously expecting it to taste vile and it looks exactly like you think chickens feet and guts would. But tastes oh so very good! If a little oily.) We also had a take away snack (why not?!?!) of buns filled with chicken floss, dont ask me how they make fibre glass wool out of chicken but they do!

The hotel was a class above our usual haunts and we got a great nights sleep ready for the next days eating! For breakfast (I hope you still awake!) we had tam (steamed bun cakes) ecang mee (stir fried noodles for breakfast, you know it) more prawn curry soup and more chee cheong fun but this time in a peanut butter an soy sauce. We also had some really nice drinks made from boiled up barely and sugar. All this in a hot roadside food shack playing techno music. Were definately not at home now!

We then went for a wander around George town again. The old colonial arcitecture was in amazingly good nick with white house esque main buildings and back streets packed with old shop houses with peeling paint. You did have to get away from the main roads which were pretty souless to get the feel of it, but when you did it was a really nice place to just be and wander. Preditably lunch soon came around and we got our chance at Penangs signature dish assam laks (sour hot tamarind based noodle soup with fish) and washed it down with chendol (coconut milk based drink/dessert with lots of brown sugar in it and bright green spagetti stuff!).

That afternoon we hooked up with two of their bst mates who happened to be in town Choung and Melanie. We spent the rest of our afternoon wandering around some of the Chineese temples that were actually linked to Melanies family. They were all incredibly ornate with decoration upon decoration all in suitably bright Chineese colours. The level of decoration was really something though, each generation is expected to add something and because it has to all be symmetrical it just gets crazy! After this we visited the house of a famous entrepreneur who was one of the worlds richest men, a bit like the BillGates of Christopher Colomos' day! It was fascinating and Sar also decided we need to do some Fung Shui (spelling??) when we get a place. Fine by my unless we have to bury pots of gold like they did!!

That night was the foodies version of the last night at the proms! En route to dinner we stopped off for a snack (why not) a tasty mix of bing chang kureh (sweetcorn and brown sugar crispy pancakes) and nasi palut kaya (blue sticky rice dessert with egg and coconut filling). At dinner proper the six of us got into some serious eating with all of the following making an appearance of during the evening. Grilled otak-otak (fish cakes) more chee lor (spiky shellfish) rojak (fruit and vegetable salad covered in sweet soy) ja heu ing (dried cuttle fish with chilli dip) ja heu chai (boiled cuttlefish) tau fau fah (sweet tofu based custard dessert) bak kwa (BBQ Chinese sausage) and so many more little dishes I havent got them in my little food notebook! Oh there was a shitake and salmon kebab too I just remembered but thats about it I swear. At about 7 o clock we headed for home, still time for one last stop off? You bet!

In Ipoh half way home we stopped of for the last part of out Malaysian cookery adventure. Ipoh is famed for its steamed whole chicken with beansporuts and rice. A refreshingly mild antidote to the flavours of the weekend and worringly healthy. Well apart from the fact that the beansprouts are GM'ed to make them the size of normal beans! We were virtually sleepwalking by the time we got home and fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows after our food filled whirlwind weekend away.

Since then weve been taking it easy. We have visited the bird and butterfly parks in the KL answer to Central Park which were both pricey but amazing. The ostrich photo is amsuing, nealry lost my camera to it!Weve bee enjoying having a space thats not a hotel and generally gorging ourselves on the fruit. Its the middle of their best fruit season here and so everything is in season weve been eating lots of our favourites like mango and star fruit but also ones we havent been able to get like jackfruit and others. Weve manged to loose the Cambodian copied Lonely Planet: Malaysia so were back to Indonesian levels of cluelessness on where and how we are going! Still we know that we are going up to the Perhentian Islands on the east coast for 2 weeks of tropical island getaway action before we come home to office style jobs! So you wont hear from us for a couple of weeks at least and there will probably only be 2 more blogs full stop!

Scary isnt it how quick time goes by! More scary is how the money goes, need to do some Robinson Crusoe action quick sharp!

Look after yourselves everyone and we will speak soon! Oh and sorry for the lack of videos, I know you all love them but we simply havent taken any yet!

Dean and Sar.

x

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