similar.but.not.the.same

up 'till now, i've been staying in malaysia for 1.5 years already.
how is it so far? well, so far so good.. surprisingly i really like it here.
hmm.. maybe not the same answer if you ask me a year before (yeah)

that reminds me on my farewell party in july 2007. rather than celebrate it in a very ''indonesian'' kind of place, i chose a place that serves malaysian cuisine (hmm..) weird choice, knowing that i will have to live with that kind of food for the next few years.

i've heard nasi lemak before, but back then in katjapiring, that was the first time i-eight malaysian food. although now i know, it was similar but not the same. anything is always better in their original place.


as you can see, katjapiring is the name of the place.
it is a restaurant at parisj van java mall or pvj in short, bandung. we-eight dinner in a big group, maybe around 8-10 person, so we can order many things.

although they specialized in malaysian dishes, they also served nasi langgi garingan simpang lima, it is an indonesian dish.. we also ordered belacan chicken. some of my friends chose nasi lemak, which is the signature of malaysian dishes.


i also found out, talking about malaysian cuisine is always talking about 3 culture, the malay, chinese, and indian. char kway teow is one of the popular noodle dish in malaysia, and also singapore. but the one that we ordered here called fried char kway teow gurney drive. my malaysian friend told me that gurney drive is a famous place in penang state, north side of malaysia. i've been to penang but unfortunately i haven't tried the original fried kway teow in gurney drive.



while for indian food, roti canai is one of the popular dish. you can eat it with chicken or lamb curry or dal curry (vegetable curry). but nowadays, they also make roti milo (with milo powder springkled on top of it), roti kopi (coffee), onion, cheese or anything that you want. what we ordered here is roti canai with curry chicken.

eat.all.u.can.sushi.part.two

while writting post no.8, i remember my first all-u-can-eat-sushi eating experience. it was in 2007 at suki sushi, cathay cineleisure mall, singapore. just next to the cinema where u can get their all-u-can-eat promo for SGD25.00. surprisingly, i found their dishes was not bad at all, big portion, quite fresh and also tasted good.


i-eight double salmon maki, mini california maki, tako and salmon sashimi, unagi maki, chuka chinmi and kisame itako. all in a huge portion, plenty amount of rice also making you feeling full in a short of time, so be careful not to order more than you can eat. but one thing i remember the most was the butter yaki hotate. very creamy, juicy and super delicious (hmm..). i guess i just came on the right time, right day.. complete satisfaction.

*never eat more than you can lift*
-miss piggy (american puppet character) 1990s-

papaya.soup

have you ever tried noodle-papaya soup?
i have.
how's the taste?
undescribable
(hmm...)

not much defferent with ordinary noodle soup, but with extra papaya cubes in it. i don't mind actually and i want to try it again next time, but i can say that this is not one of my favourite food.

may 2008, this is at xin wang hongkong cafe, singapore, inside anchorpoint shopping mall, which is located exactly opposite ikea building at alexander road.

i forgot the price for this one, but i remember i wrote it down. i'll tell you later when i find my notes.

why i choose this item?
let's say i do have a similarity with andrew zimmern, a tendency to try a weirdo kind of food (if in some cases, you still can say it as a food).

i remember there's one time, me and my younger brother want to buy an ice cream.
from all the flavour they offer us, he choose ogura flavour (red bead) and i choose wasabi flavour (hooo..).

in the end, he managed to finish his ice cream, but me? after struggling for almost twenty minutes, i finally gave up (booo). i do like sushi, wasabi, anything, just name it.. but for wasabi ice cream? 'guess i just have to practise much much more on this one.

back to the restaurant. the noodle-papaya soup was my order, but my friends picked something else, dimsum.

dimsum is like japanese sushi, with lots of variety and options. we didn't order all kind of dimsum, only a portion of siu mai, har gau (shrimp dumpling), and gyoza (japanese dumpling).

the dimsum was okay for me, not the best dimsum i've ever had, but okay.

authentic.sundanese.cuisine

i realize after reading back all the post, that i haven't mentioned anything about the best place to eat in the whole wide world (for me at least.) let me introduce you the one and only, indonesia.

first city i would like to tell, well supposely bandung.. but not for now.
i will start with it's neighbour, garut. i went there in 2006 with my bestest friends and we-eight quite a lot. first place that we visited is an area named kampung sampireun.

like bandung, garut is a part of west java. the people in west java are mostly sundanese, so you can also find any sundanese food you want here.

eating sundanese food never be complete if you don't have these items, kerupuk emping (melinjo-nut crackers), sambal ulek (crushed chili paste), and jambal roti (salted dry fish). sweet-thick soya sauce also very important, along with lalab (raw vegetables).

about this lalab thing, there's a proverb i found in the web, it says sundanese people will never be starved even if they were left in a jungle as long as there are plants for them to eat.

this is only a joke, but it's true that the sundanese people have been used to this habit of eating plants, such as lalab, for generations until today. sunda is just a land of paradise for lalab lovers.

talking about vegie's, for appetizer i immediately ordered karedok. gosh, this is just the best salad for me. only a simple mix of traditional salad with peanut sauce. but you know what they said, you don't know what you are missing until it's gone and that is exactly what i felt these day. i miss indonesian, specially sundanese food, so much.

anyway, we also ordered nasi liwet, nasi tutug oncom, ikan bakar, sate, sayur asem, tempe and tahu goreng. i'm not sure how to explain these food, but let's try.

nasi liwet is a traditional steam rice dish with coconut gravy and vegetables. we ordered nasi liwet ikan asin (with salted dry fish). very tasty hmm...

while nasi tutug oncom, as the name itself nasi (rice) tutug (mix) oncom (similar like tempeh), so it's a grill rice-mix-with-oncom dish served with traditional fried chicken, fried tofu, sambal hijau (green chili paste), lalab, crackers, and also ikan asin (salted dry fish). see, sundanese food never complete without all these simple-but-very-impotant items.

ikan bakar is grill fish (we ordered gurame fish), sate is satay. you can ask for chicken, beef, or lamb satay. sayur asem is a sour tamarind soup, a popular vegetable soup in sundanese food, while tempe and tahu goreng is fried tempeh and fried tofu. overall, the food was excellent.

i told you before, we-eight quite a lot in garut ... so we have not done yet, next stop was a place called mulih ka desa (return back home to village).

here, we wanted to try a very traditional sundanese food and snacks. so we ordered singkong goreng (fried cassava), another tempe goreng (fried tempeh, we just LOVE tempeh), rujak buah (fruit rojak), and tutut bumbu kuning (snail in yellow gravy), with complementary kerupuk rangginang (traditional crackers), sambal terasi and sambal hijau (dry shrimp chilli paste and green chilli paste). for beverages, we choose tea in pot and two glass of cingcau hijau (jelly with syrup). all served in a very traditional way. but bottom line is, all these food are just amazing.

amazing food, amazing place, amazing friends... that's just about everything.

*one of the delights of life is eating with friends*
second to that is talking about eating.
and, for an unsurpassed double whammy,
there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.
-laurie colwin 'home cooking'-

late.nite.heavy.supper

have you heard about nasi lemak?

it's a famous dish from malaysia, similar like nasi uduk in indonesia.
normally nasi lemak (steamed coconut-milk-rice) served with sambal ikan bilis (anchovies in chilli paste) and boiled or omelet egg. you can also add chicken, or sambal sotong (squid in chili paste), or anything that you want. as long as you got the secret recipe, which is the nasi lemak itself.


last friday nite, we went to this nasi lemak place around seapark, petaling jaya. it's a hawker-style kind of place, but was so crowded. they also got nasi goreng kambing (lamb fried rice) and other menu, but the nasi lemak is their speciality.


i normally eat nasi lemak as a breakfast, so the idea to eat nasi lemak at nite was.. hmm different (for me). no complaint here though, just take note, it really is a big heavy supper. but it wasn't for the same reason i didn't eat that nite, not because a diet reason or anything (hmm..) i just have to order a take-out. so the next morning, i re-heated the nasi lemak and tried to serve it nicely. i took few snaps before i finally eight it.


the nasi lemak was suberb . . . very rich, you can taste the coconut milk flavour, along with this chocolate colour sauce also anchovies and fried groundnut they put in it. hmm . . . although i don't think it's a similar chili paste sauce you get from any other nasi lemak stall.



on the other hand my friend was right, the fried egg and the fried chicken is a bit oily. the chicken skin was okay, but the meat itself is rather tasteless or plain for me. but for a portion of great RM4.50 nasi lemak ayam, i totally recommend it.

how to get there? well.. i'll have to ask the person behind the wheel for that, will update later on.