Stop 4: Lankawi Island

Lackadaisical Island Living

Taste & See: The only problem with island life is the happily lazy pace makes it hard to work up the constant hunger that comes with frenetic sight-seeing. Get up late, lay by the pool, walk down to the beach, read until I doze off . . . with all this busy laziness, I have so little time to get hungry. This, of course, creates a real difficulty, since ideally I would be consuming (Malaysian) island food in great quantities.

Proximity to the sea obviously makes for fabulous seafood, e.g., shrimp the size of tennis balls, ordered at a Chinese 'pick - your - live - seafood - from - the - tank' style restaurant, across the street from the ocean.


Small convenience stores all along the main road display lovely produce of all shades, like this magically shocking pink Dragonfruit.


Within easy walking distance of our hotel were at least a dozen restaurants, some obviously catering to backpackers & tour group buses, others barely a stand with a couple stools and hastily scrawled menus in Bahasa Malay. You might be able to guess what caught our eye . . .

Some things are the same everywhere, so we were pretty sure what we were getting into when we asked for Samosas:



The rest of the time ordering was kind of a game, picking out words we'd seen (and eaten) in different contexts and trying to make our best guess. Below, Mee Goreng, or fried noodles, a dependable standard:


And a surprise, based on the point - to - a - random - dish - on - the - menu method: lovely fat Mushrooms in Spicy Sauce with Scallions. No complaints here.


On days of excessive lackadaisicality, when walking to the beach & back was about all the activity I could muster up, I was content to eat the happily authentic Malaysian food at the hotel restaurant. For example, Laksa- a fish based soup in a spicy broth with egg noodles.


This was Curry Laksa, or in Penang, Curry Mee, one of several variations of Laksa found in India, Malaysia, Singapore & China. This Laksa has chewy egg noodles, a hard boiled egg & a broth of curry and coconut milk, unlike other variants of Laksa in the region. The soup is chalk full of tofu, fish cakes, and shrimp-- and would usually have cockles, but for the tourist setting. [Well, maybe the hotel was not so authentic.] The soup is accompanied by sambal chili paste and Vietnamese coriander.

Another traditional dish, Nasi Lemak:


Strewn on a banana leaf around rice are various toppings, such as marinated prawns, shredded chicken, spinach, peanuts, cucumber slices, dried anchovies, hard boiled egg, pickled vegetables & sambal, a spicy-sweet sauce. The name means "rice in cream," which refers to the cooking process: soaking & steaming the rice in coconut cream, sometimes with knotted pandan leaves, lemongrass or ginger for extra flavour.

At night we often opted for some of the more upscale restaurants in the area, which tended to set us back a whopping $10-15 per person, twinkly lights, candles and drawbridges inclusive.


A for ambiance:


And attention to decor detail:


The food at this place wasn't bad, but I can't help thinking the dollar samosas and mushrooms from lunch would have been equally enticing. We are clearly paying for the atmosphere. And the English menus.

Mixed Vegetables:


Chicken Rendang:


Rendang is a popular festival dish for Malays. It may look like a curry, but it is actually quite different, at least when it is authentic. It is typically made with beef, though we had chicken, above. Many other kinds of meet, or even jackfruit or cassava, can also be used. The meat is 'marinated' in coconut milk and spices like ginger, galangal, tumeric, lemongrass & chillies for several hours, boiled slowly until the liquid is nearly gone and the meat is coated in flavour. Then the meat is fried as the liquid evaporates. The long slow process makes the meat very tender.

Steamed Fish with Vegetables:


And finally, my favorite meal of the island, and the most egregious example of inactivity leading to inability to fully consume the feast before me, the Nasi Campur Kampung sampler. For a total 69 RM, approx $21, A & I had a full tray of a dozen small dishes of beautifully presented Malay food.


What you see below includes the following, from left to right, back to front:

Row 1

Satay Ayam Dan Daging - Chicken & Beef Satay
Kurma Daging - Beef in Mild Curry
Ayam Gulai Kampung - Spicy Chicken
Rendang Tok - Marinated Beef
Bayam - Stir-fried Spinach

Row 2
Cucumbers & Onions (for Satay)
Ikan Alu-Alu Bercili - Barracuda with Chillies
Nasi Putih - Steamed White Rice
Nasi Kuning - Yellow Rice
Sambal Sotong - Dried Curry Squid
Rice Chips

Row 3
Peanut Sauce
Masak Lemak Labu - Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Curry
Udant Kapitan - Spicy Prawns
Pajeri Nenas Dan Terung - Pineapple & Eggplant Curry
Jelatah - Pickled Vegetables

The Pineapple & Eggplant Curry, simply divine . . . a bit sweet & tart from the pineapple juice, rich, smooth, complex.


And after dinner, home to bed to work up energy for another day of loafing & eating. What a lovely lackadaisical life indeed

Stop 3: Penang (Part I)

No other activity besides eating.

Taste & See: Welcome to George Town, Penang, where the motto is "Leading, We Serve," and there is, according to one travel guide, "Don't look for any other activity besides eating." Which does not, in fact, present a problem for me.

Immediately following the early arrival of the KL train in Penang, we begin day one with a groggy search for one of Penang's famous food courts (hawker centres). Unfortunately, the eagerly-awaited food court is mostly closed at 11 AM, so we are left to look for something to tide us over until 1, when we are promised it will be open. Happily, I find one delightful fruit of globalization, and one of favorite foods-- first sampled as imported by the Chinese to Thailand and now as done in Malaysia-- Giow Ba Mee Moo Dang [see linked article for photos in Thailand].

Of course, this meal- as all my meals- included the delightful Teh Tarik (as mentioned in KL entry; thanks to this blog for the photo):


Later we return to the food court for meal #2. The food court itself is perfectly situated, right on the water, providing a fresh breeze & views.


Equally fun to watch, Malays enjoying snacks:


Even more fun, joining in. I see a woman sit down to a big red pile of sauce poured generously over bits and pieces of nothing I recognize. When she notices me staring I ask what it is and how to get some. She calls it by what I suspect is a local slang, in any case, something other than rojak, the Singaporean- Malaysian- Indian mixed salad I had expected to hear, and insists I try it so I don't "waste my money to buy something I don't like." I gladly assent-- and am immediately hooked by the flavor of the chili sauce.

She directs me to a vendor with bowls of unappealing brown fried things, and I initially can't conceive of how this could become the beautiful bowl you see below. Thankfully, her husband shows me how to load an empty plate with the objects for my salad and whistles over a mustachioed Indian man, who promptly chops up my potatoes, eggs, fishcakes and shrimp fritters into small pieces, throws on a handful of sliced cucumber, and drenches it all in the glorious red sauce:


The lovely Rasa Malaysia food blog describes Rojak: "Rojak is a Penang-style salad. Ingredients such as cucumber, jicama, pineapples, jambu (water apple), bean curd pieces, and cuttlefish are tossed with Hae Ko (prawn paste), chili, roasted belacan and topped with ground peanuts." I'd have liked to tried more fruit, less fried brown things, but that will have to await another visit.

Later that night, the endless Christmas lights bejewling this food court draw us across the road from our majestic Cathay Hotel, with its forgotten, dust ballroom of a lobby.


A lone performer strums on a guitar and croaks out entertainment, reminiscent of the food courts in the middle of Thai night markets, minus the katoy shows and kitschy Thai dancing. This does not appear to be for tourists. I'm amused to observe this appears to be an international food court; are the Philippine & Japanese food stands exotic treats amidst the "mundane" Nasi Lemak & Mee Goreng?


We try two kinds of skewers: Beef - look so succulent, but sadly mushy, unable to be saved by the gooey brown sauce.


Mushroom - sad and limp but so flavorful with a perfect chewy texture.


Ah well, appearances can be deceiving! Coming up next, Penang Part II- Indian food.

Second Stop: Kuala Lumpur

An assault on the senses, in the best possible way.

Taste & See: I will ever associate Malaysia's food with, as my traveling partner A put it, "an assault on the senses-" power food, if you will:


Malaysian cuisine incorporates tastes from China to India, and the myriad places in between, including predictable regional staples like flaky roti, fried noodles, curries and rice, but with distinct notes of flavors you don't expect. It's as if the Malay chefs at an ancient culinary convention sampled the best their neighbors had to offer and said, "that's nice, but wouldn't it be better with a dash of . . . ."

The food as a whole looks like fall in the Northeast, with healthy doses of vibrant spices like nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves turning piles of rice bright yellow and infusing chunks of meat with a rich earthiness . . .


And making soupy curries in crayola shades like burnt umber, pumpkin and saffron.



Kuala Lumpur, or KL, with its 1.6 million people, felt small compared to Bangkok's sprawling urban jungle of 12 million. This, despite the presence of the famous Petronas Twin Towers, currently the tallest twin buildings in the world.


However, KL definitely won top prize in the "Inventive tropical Christmas decorations" category. And in a city (country, really) where no use of twinkle lights are spared, and no tacky decoration is turned away, this genius Santa depiction surely takes the cake.


Most of the good food I had in KL came from poorly-lit, undecorated, cafeteria-esque restaurants with unwiped tables and aluminum trays. The fancier places I saw tended to serve foreign food. I wonder if this steakhouse is halal? Most food in Malyasia is, as to be "Malay" is to be Muslim, though there are substantial (non-Muslim) Chinese and Indian populations as well.


Each of these groups represent a specific strain of Malaysian cuisine, which also include Mamak, or Indian Muslim food; and Nyonya, invented by the Peranakan people of Singapore and Malaysia and combining Chinese and Southeast Asian ingredients (Inter-Asian fusion!). But the purpose of this particular entry is not to give you the history of Malaysian cuisine, especially when people more knowledgeable than I am have already compiled such a guide. The purpose is, rather to make you hungry, so let's get to the good stuff.

If you see this:


You can expect you'll soon be eating this:


Those pudgy white balls become roti canai when grilled in massive amounts of oil, a flat, stretchy bread served with a small bowl of a curry sauce as a dipping sauce, eaten with the right hand. The tea in the photo above is teh tarik, or pulled tea, a Malaysian tea-cappuccino. It gets a frothy, foamy top (though not visible in the picture above) as it is poured back and forth between two containers, which also conveniently mixes the (usually thick and gooey) condensed milk into the tea. Teh halia is another delicious version, adding ginger for a bit of a kick. I had at least one, sometimes two, steaming, foaming glass at every meal.

Roti canai is so tasty, it is eaten twice a day in Malaysia- for breakfast, and after nightfall, for the fourth meal. Take that Taco Bell.

These photos are from a very satisfying respite eaten at Restoran Shukran, one of the unpretentious cafeterias, on New Year's Day after a long day trekking to Hindu caves and shoving my way up and down Chinatown.


Most of the restaurants of this sort offer a little of everything, from stir-fried rice or noodles . . .



To buffet trays of veg, chicken and mutton (here, goat, not lamb) curries splashing exuberantly overboard.


The roti-maker takes a break:


As does this satisfied customer:


The next day, while exploring Masjid Negara, the national mosque with a bright blue jaggedy rooftop symbolizing loyalty, an 18-point blue dome representing the 13 states of Malaysia and the 5 pillars of Islam, and purple choir robes available for rent to improperly dressed visitors; & the lovely Islamic arts museum nearby, I was pleased to discover a tidy little cafeteria directly opposite the mosque itself, saving us from the white-linen, embossed menu cafe at the museum. How to choose from such a feast?


For my traveling partner A, mutton curry, saffron rice, and pickled cucumber salad + iced milo= the picture of happiness:


For me, mee goreng, fried noodles with chicken marinated in thick red sauce, doused with a bit of lime:



I'm continually amazed by how the most beautiful dishes, full of life and color, come from the dowdiest restaurants, the humblest chefs. Malaysia is definitely an sensory assault I'd like to keep coming back to.

More to come- next stop, Penang.