shi pin tian tang [food heaven]
As I left the KL airport this morning and boarded the bus bound for the city center, I found myself surprisingly anxious, and realized that although I've done a reasonable amount of travelling in recent months, all of my travels since my trip to Vietnam last April have taken me to various places in China. So Malaysia--a country I know very little about, the first Muslim country I've visited, and not much like China at all--felt, at least at first, like a surprisingly big challenge. The fact that the airport ATM refused my card, forcing me to take a handful of Hong Kong coins and small bills to the bureau de change and beg them to give me some ringgits so that I could get into the city and find another bank, did not help. Nor did the fact that the airport bus driver's "abilities" reminded me of why, despite my growing fear of flying, I often prefer planes to land travel in Asia. On a fear scale of one to ten, one being "I couldn't look at the road because I thought there was a chance we might all die" and ten being "I was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we would definitely die," I'd give this ride about a four. Fortunately, Kuala Lumpur has an extensive if bizarre public transportation system (the city has both a monorail and a ground commuter train, which seem to duplicate the same routes most, if not all, of the time), so I'm hoping to avoid buses and cabs entirely.
After two terrifying hours on the bus, I finally arrived at my guesthouse, which is incredibly clean, air-conditioned (a first for me in Asia, I think--and given that it's about 90 degrees here and very humid, I'm very grateful) and run by extremely sweet and generous owners who leave toast and teabags and jam, in addition to city maps etc., for their guests. The best thing about the guesthouse, though, is that it is surrounded by food.
I'd heard that KL was a great city for foodies, full of cheap, clean hawker stalls. So true. The block that my guesthouse is on probably has fifteen food carts, dai pai dong-ish establishments, and inexpensive indoor-outdoor restaurants. Most only sell one or two dishes--a few types of roti, the Malaysian version of a crepe (and which, like a crepe, can be sweet or savory, although the savory rotis, often served with some kind of curry sauce, seem most popular here), or tandoori chicken, or sweet, milky tea poured back and forth between two tall teapots with skinny, foot-long spouts before being served (apparently this aerates the tea. Whatever it does, the result is delicious--similar to the Hong Kong lai cha I've become addicted to, but less chalky). I was starving after my airport and bus adventures, so I went to a stall around the corner where, while looking for my guesthouse, I'd seen a man grilling whole fish over charcoal.
Anyone who has heard me talk about Xi'an knows that grilled fish and I have a history. When Cyndi and I went to Xi'an in September, we ate the most amazing spice-coated grilled fish, cooked on a grille on the sidewalk outside a restaurant which had, bizarrely, a cow tied by its nose to the lamp-post outside. While I don't think the experience would have been quite the same without the cow sitting on the sidewalk in perhaps the busiest part of a busy Chinese city, the fish was unbelievable--probably the single best thing I've eaten in China.
I wouldn't be surprised if, even after spending a week here, today's grilled fish remains at the top of my list of Malaysia's greatest foods. Crispy and spicy on the outside, sweet and most inside, it came to the table literally bubbling juice. As I sat at one my little plastic table, alternately tearing chunks out of my fish and grinning at it, a steady stream of motorbike-riders pulled up at the stall, picked up a piece of brown wax paper, folded it into a cone shape, and filled it with rice and six or seven different curries from a hot table. When they were finished choosing their meal (there were probably a total of twenty dishes on the table) they showed their cones to one of the women running the stall, paid a couple of ringgits (about 50 cents U.S.), and drove off on their motorbikes, holding the cone in one hand. I'm tempted to follow their example tomorrow--the curries looked delicious--but that would mean foregoing another grilled fish. It's a tough call.
After two terrifying hours on the bus, I finally arrived at my guesthouse, which is incredibly clean, air-conditioned (a first for me in Asia, I think--and given that it's about 90 degrees here and very humid, I'm very grateful) and run by extremely sweet and generous owners who leave toast and teabags and jam, in addition to city maps etc., for their guests. The best thing about the guesthouse, though, is that it is surrounded by food.
I'd heard that KL was a great city for foodies, full of cheap, clean hawker stalls. So true. The block that my guesthouse is on probably has fifteen food carts, dai pai dong-ish establishments, and inexpensive indoor-outdoor restaurants. Most only sell one or two dishes--a few types of roti, the Malaysian version of a crepe (and which, like a crepe, can be sweet or savory, although the savory rotis, often served with some kind of curry sauce, seem most popular here), or tandoori chicken, or sweet, milky tea poured back and forth between two tall teapots with skinny, foot-long spouts before being served (apparently this aerates the tea. Whatever it does, the result is delicious--similar to the Hong Kong lai cha I've become addicted to, but less chalky). I was starving after my airport and bus adventures, so I went to a stall around the corner where, while looking for my guesthouse, I'd seen a man grilling whole fish over charcoal.
Anyone who has heard me talk about Xi'an knows that grilled fish and I have a history. When Cyndi and I went to Xi'an in September, we ate the most amazing spice-coated grilled fish, cooked on a grille on the sidewalk outside a restaurant which had, bizarrely, a cow tied by its nose to the lamp-post outside. While I don't think the experience would have been quite the same without the cow sitting on the sidewalk in perhaps the busiest part of a busy Chinese city, the fish was unbelievable--probably the single best thing I've eaten in China.
I wouldn't be surprised if, even after spending a week here, today's grilled fish remains at the top of my list of Malaysia's greatest foods. Crispy and spicy on the outside, sweet and most inside, it came to the table literally bubbling juice. As I sat at one my little plastic table, alternately tearing chunks out of my fish and grinning at it, a steady stream of motorbike-riders pulled up at the stall, picked up a piece of brown wax paper, folded it into a cone shape, and filled it with rice and six or seven different curries from a hot table. When they were finished choosing their meal (there were probably a total of twenty dishes on the table) they showed their cones to one of the women running the stall, paid a couple of ringgits (about 50 cents U.S.), and drove off on their motorbikes, holding the cone in one hand. I'm tempted to follow their example tomorrow--the curries looked delicious--but that would mean foregoing another grilled fish. It's a tough call.
posted by Sara at 9:20 PM
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