Laksa

It's about time I educated myself. Here's what my "research" reveals: Taro, I think, is Colocasia esculenta, although I'm also getting hits with Alocasia and Calocasia. The sweet potato is Ipomoea batatas. Yams are any tubers belonging to the Dioscorea genus.

Yep, what everybody's already said. Taro and sweet potatoes. I see "yam" very often but I still haven't figured out what "yam" is. Are they all yams, or really none of them are, and yam is something else entirely? It's called bubur chacha because it's so good it makes you want to do a dance after you eat it! Ok fine, don't believe me. hzrt8w, although I should know better, the fact that you have a recipe for this impresses me. Do you make it often?

Nice work with the camera there chengb02. Are the photos, especially those with "movement", i.e. beef preparation and the sesame cakes taken on an auto setting or did you have to do something special? Which sony cybershot did you use?

Is the cheese more like Indian style paneer or a Western style cheese? Sounds fascinating. I want to use more cheese in my curries.

I added cheese to fried rice once. It wasn't as bad as you might be able to imagine. Traditionally, no. But you do see dairy products used in dishes like butter shrimp (nai you xia) on contemporary menus.

Michael, do those buns look anything like those pictured here and here? I've never had buns like these. Translated from the Chinese, they're called Fuzhou pepper cakes/buns. Edited to add: This page has pictures you can click to make bigger. The fuzhou buns are on the second half of the page. It's interesting that when I was "researching" this topic on the net, all the web references are Taiwanese.

In NZ, ocker = Australian? Not just the subgroup that is boorish and uncultured? That's not very kind...

Is ash a codeword for something else? Or is it some kind of reverse-euphemism? Must be... how can ash be edible? I've had sausages in Malaysia. I believe the meat content is around 5%. When I was in Australia, I boarded with a Mr. Black, a pom from the old country, who loved his bangers and mash, and bubbles and squeak. He told me sausages are called bangers because they look like firecrackers, or bangers in slang. Then again, he was also known for his cockney yarn-spinning.

This page shows you how to set up inputting Chinese on Windows 2000. I'm sure there are other websites out there if you use a different OS. I use the MS-PinYin98 IME. I find that the easiest to use. When in Chinese mode, I just have to type the pinyin in roman alphabet and the software will default to a particular character, which you can then change if it's not the right one. Feel free to PM me if you need help with this.

I've never heard of odading before but I have a long-held belief that any type of dough that's deep fried has to taste good. What does it taste like? Is it more like donut or yu char kway?

To the non-Foochows reading, do you eat any other kind of baked goods during the mid-autumn festival? I remember two other kinds of "cookies" that are extremely popular among the Foochows. I have forgotten what they're called now. One is a rectangular shaped cookie, roughly 1" by 1.5", made from wheat flour I believe, with a sweet and slightly salty taste, and very fragrant with pork fat. The taste and texture reminds me a little of Scottish butter shortbread, if you can imagine substituting lard for the butter, and it's more crunchy than shortbread. The other one is an unevenly shaped cookie, kinda like an elongated gnocchi, with pointy ends. It's very crunchy and sweet. It could well be deep fried, but I can't be certain. I think the name is laoshu bing (老鼠饼), but feel free to correct me. The rectangular baked cookie has been a long time favorite of mine and I eat them whenever I can get them, even though they're traditionally made during the mid-autumn festival.

Interesting that you should think rosemary goes well with roo. I had kangaroo steak once, and it tasted like somewhere between lamb and beef, but more gamey. I guess if you treat it like very lean lamb, you can't go too wrong. Is the kangaroo over-population still a problem in Oz? With so many kangaroos around, I find it puzzling that the meat isn't cheaper than $20/kg that someone else mentioned upthread. They use it in dogfood, don't they? Now, who's had wallaby? How about wombat?

I have heard it referred to as "stoppage time" as well as "injury time" in the soccer commentaries I've followed. Edited to add: Duh! I didn't see that Hiroyuki has already answered your question.

Have you tried Midori, the Japanese melon liquer? It is a distinctive lime green and is pretty sweet, too sweet for my taste. I think the Singapore Sling cocktail is on the sweet side.

I've heard that in some places, kangaroo gonads are considered a delicacy. Any truth to that?

Helen, I was probably the one who brought them up when I wrote about "whad dan hor", or soupy scrambled egg flat rice noodles. I found a recipe at a Malaysian site but I can't attest to its quality as I've never attempted to make the pickle myself. From the sounds of your Malaysian food experience, you've probably eaten this stuff before. It's always made with green chillies, but not the very small birdseye chillies. I have no idea what variety of chillies are used but they are between the size of Thai and Jalapeno, and not as hot as Thai. I see it more as a "sweet and sour" chilli than a pickle. You could probably get good results with Jalapeno (is that commonly available in Japan?), but I would not use Thai. The pickle needs to have a good balance of sweet, sour and hot. Michael, I have found that a lot of the wait staff at the Malaysian restaurants in NYC may not know how to speak Malay as they are probably not from Malaysia. Sanur is at 18 Doyers St, and that's where I got my kuih. The owner of Sanur is Malaysian but I don't know if he has Malaysian or Indonesian chefs. Maybe neither? I think next time I'm in NYC, I'll give them a try. Michael, I view NYC Malaysian food somewhat differently from how you do. For me, it's a nice way to remember the food from my childhood so anything is better than nothing. The quality is of secondary importance. As long as it has some semblance of what I had in Malaysia, I will be satisfied. Janet, did you try their cassava kueh? It's a brown in color and it's one of my all time favs. It's actually a Chinese kueh （树薯糕） I think but they give it a Malaysian twist by adding palm sugar. The last two Malaysian restaurants I've eaten at have been Penang and Singapore Cafe. I liked the Char Kway Teow at Penang but at Singapore Cafe it was much too dry. However, Singapore Cafe has a delightful habit of adding crispy pork crackling to their noodle dishes. I had a very good "Lu Mien" (not lo mein) there as well as good whad dan hor. You can probably guess by now that I'm a noodle fiend. At Malaysian restaurants outside SE Asia, it's very likely that they've scaled down the heat. Wherever I eat, I always ask for sambal belacan no matter what I order. (I even do that in Malaysia). Chances are you'll get something closer to sambal oelek, but at least you can use it to customize the heat to your liking.

I was there for Sunday brunch two weeks ago but didn't see these shrimp balls. Are they something you have to special order?

Sausages and beans? Makes me think of cassoulet.

When I was a kid, my mum cooked snake beans all the time, so much so that when I moved out of home and had more say in what I eat, I subconsciously stayed away from them. Now, many years later, I'm starting to miss snake beans. Looking forward to see what you do with them. Is that dining table made of teak, or some other tropical hardwood? Whatever it is, it looks beautiful. Looking forward to your blog.

Yeah! That was me and my wife! What are the odds?? In a city of 8 million, and we don't even live in NYC! What I remember was that among other things, you had a rojak and I think your dining companion had a Tsingtao beer, right? Still finding it difficult to believe. I should go buy a lottery ticket. Yetty, you're right, I was taking pictures of everything for my blog. Don't tell me you were there too!

I believe laowai is 老外. I'm guessing lowfan is 老蕃?

I saw a Monstera (the name does not bode well, does it?) at a local grocery store recently but didn't buy it because I didn't know if it would taste good. It was a pretty ripe fruit, and the scales were coming off. Looked like a grass snake that's suffering from a rare skin disease.

Malaysian bone tea thing? Are you talking about bak kut teh?

Every time we buy zuchinni, we cook it in a stir-fry. Will be trying your stuffed squash recipe next time, with cousa if I can find them. RE: raw kibbe, is the meat or the wheat raw, or both?

I bought frozen Thai Monthong (translated as golden pillow, but can you imagine sleeping on a durian?) in NYC for $1/lb, which is almost exactly what you're paying in Bandung, by my reckoning. Doesn't seem logical, does it? NYC is so much further away from Thailand! Maybe they're not exactly the same type of durians. Do yours come with a blue ribbon and medallion thingie and a "warranty"? Thai durians are all very good, and are a hell of a lot more consistent in taste than "kampung durian" but for my money, I like to gamble with the local stuff. Every now and then, just when I'm least expecting it, I would encounter a durian that is so magical, so mind-blowingly good, it leaves all the Thai durians in the dust. Sure, I may have to eat through a truckload of duds and "so-so" durians to find a true gem, but it's worth it. One the plus side, durians are subject to a clustering effect. Once you've found a really good one, it's quite likely that its siblings from the same tree aren't far away. You could identify them by shape, by size, by divination, or simply by asking the vendor.