Shiewie

It's 11.20pm now but there should be plenty of nasi lemak stalls open right now.....in KL though! Nasi lemak does hit the spot as a late night snack...or in fact at any time. Which nasi lemak stalls did you go to when you were in KL?

Come visit and you will!

8.40pm now - Have been munching and nibbling throughout the day. Have eaten: - the rest of the orange - more rambutans - a honey murcott mandarin - a chung / zongzi (Chinese tamale / rice dumpling) - the mung bean, salted egg yolk and fatty pork kind - some left-over meatballs and blanched veggies from Friday's night dinner at home - a few seeds of durian (i'm not a fan but somehow eating it sort of made it less smelly - I'm sure this doesn't quite make sense but it did feel so )

Morning! (Though yours started a lot earlier than mine) . Haven't been to a Denny's in a long, long time. That's one American chain that hasn't made an appearance in KL yet. Saturday Breakfast Had an half a navel orange, some rambutans and picked at some some rice cakes fried with bean sprouts, preserved radish and egg (called Chai Tau Kueh in KL but Kuek Kak up north in Penang. Not sure about Singapore - tonkichi?)

Thanks. There were 9 of us.

Had dinner at Shanghai at the KL Marriot. It was a rather dissapointing meal. We had: - Pork Siu Loong Bao (Nice but the skin was a bit too thin. Some commented that the soup had more soy than the ones in Shanghai, China) - Vegetarian Pan-Fried Dumplings (Jiaozi) - Fresh Bamboo Shoots with a smooth peanut sauce (This was nice and everyone liked it. Very different from the normal bamboo shoots. It was very green and crunchy, somewhat like a melon) - Wuxi spareribs (Not bad but again the comment was that they were different from the ones in Shanghai, China) - Double boiled winter melon soup with chicken and ham - Shredded Pork in Spicy Sauce (shredded pork with mushrooms and preserved vegetables in a spicy vinegary sauce. Most found it too salty) - Braised Kwai Fah fish (Fried fish with with spring onions in an onion soy sauce - salty) - Lo Han Jai (A vegetarian dish of Napa cabbage, snow peas, carrots, corn, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and wheat gluten) - Stir-fried spinach (Some thought the spinach was a bit old) - Glutinous rice cake stir-fried with preserved vegetables and shredded pork (quite nice but a bit bland considering there was preserved vegetables in it) - Almond jelly with fruits - Deep-fried glutinous rice balls with black sesame paste filling - White rice Hmmm, it didn't seem that much when we were eating but it sure looks different when it's all listed out here. Guess the servings were kind of small. Some were not quite contented with the meal so we went to another place called Shook for coffee and more dessert. I had a cafe latte and tasted a couple of the desserts - double scoop of sorbets (lemon-lime and passionfruit) and a tiramisu. The lemon-lime sorbet was nice - it had a touch of lemongrass in it but the passionfruit one was too icy. The tiramisu was was not bad but I found it was too sweet.

Time zone?!! Which time zone do you think you're in when you are a couple of miles down the highway ?

Hey !! Maukitten - isn't a foodblog a log of what one has eaten? Dinner hasn't happened yet. Nor has Sunday rolled round.

I buy that. But then again, as you know, I like things spicier than the average American outside of Louisiana and the Southwest. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon! Strangely, the person that I've seen eat the most chillies at a meal was an American client, who's of Mexican descent. We were at lunch at a Chinese restaurant in KL and he mixed half a bowl of cut cili padi (bird's eye chillies) to his bowl of plain rice !! This I have never seen before nor seen again. Mind you, the chilli in the rice was in addition to sauce plate after sauce plate of more cut chillis with soy sauce as dip.

Ate a jambu air (water apple) - it's a bell-shaped fruit that's very juicy, crispy (spongy in the middle) and has mild sweetish flavour. The one I ate wasn't as red as this though - it was a greenish pink. I think the greenish pink variety is slightly sweeter than the red ones. Remembered the cafeteria gets deliveries of Mexican Buns from a local bakery called Roti Boy on Fridays so went to get one. Have no idea why the buns are called such and what's the relation to Mexico. It's basically a soft fluffy very buttery bun with a crispy espresso cream topping. They're wonderful hot but loses a lot of its appeal once its cold and you see the amount of grease that's soaked through the brown paper bag.

Hi again Pan! Have only eaten the glutinous rice tapai and not tapioca ones as we generally get only the glutinous rice ones here in KL (you can even get them in little tubs in the supermarket now!). Hmmm...haven't tried Yati's ayam percik in the Kota Bahru so am not sure how spicy it is compared to the one yesterday. The one yesterday was not hotter than a little dash of tabasco .... so would that be mildly spicy, no? It was different from the ayam percik recipe I learnt though. Corrected typo

Didn't manage to have lunch today as I went for a haircut during lunch time instead. Am now having a couple of handfuls of roasted cashews and a Fuji apple.

greetings from the east coast insomniac...was waiting for the breakfast post...don't read the "sponge" thread. quinn Hmmm...luckily I've finished the sponge cake. Had another slice.

Friday Breakfast Woke up to discover that the Putu Mayam had dissapeared from the fridge so I had a slice of the Chinese steamed sponge cake for breakfast. Drank water.

Another topping (I forgot to mention it earlier) for the blanched pak choy (or other asian greens) - fry some minced garlic or thinly sliced shallots in oil till golden brown. Drizzle the garlic / shallots along with a bit of the oil (and oyster sauce if you like) on top of the blanched veggies. Some also fry tiny whitebait till they're really crispy and spinkle them on top of asian greens. String hoppers are South Indian thin rice noodles that are formed into little flat circles and steamed. They can be eaten either sweet (with brown/ palm sugar and freshly grated coconut) or savoury with dishes. Think another name for is Idiyappam (it's known as Putu Mayam in Malaysia and Singapore though but don't know why - will have to ask friends).

Most of the Malay eateries do shut but there's all these additional stalls that open up in the evenings and they're only there during Ramadan. The Indian-Muslim shops stay open but they might be a bit more grumpy during the day as they're fasting but still have to serve food . That must be such torture - it would most definitely be a torture to me. But I guess they do make up for all the fasting during the day as the newspapers reported that more food is consumed during Ramadan than the other months! There is less choice in the sense that you wouldn't be able to get rendang from your favourite place but you'd still be able to get rendang from a Chinese place or a cafe-type place which sells a mixture of local and Western food.

Hey! Your signature has changed to a durian!

Decided I'd go pick up some food for dinner instead of cooking. It's Ramadan (the Muslim fasting month) now and there are loads of roadside stalls set up at various places selling all sorts of food for the evening meal when Muslims break their daily fast. Bought: - Keropok Lekor - freshly fried thick cut fish crackers that's crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside with a chilli sauce dip - Ayam Percik - a mildly spicy BBQ chicken with peanut sauce from the east coast states of Peninsular Malaysia - Tapai - fermented glutinous rice wrapped in little banana leaf packets for dessert Got some Kai Lan Chinese broccoli / kale) from a supermarket to go with the Ayam Percik. I blanched the Kai Lan with some salt and sesame oil added to water to blanch it. Saw some other stalls outside the supermarket after getting the veggies and succumbed to getting: - Urad Vadai (a fried Indian snack) - Masal Vadai (another fried Indian snack but with crunchy lentil bits) - Putu Mayam (string hoppers with freshly grated coconut and palm sugar) - Pak Tong Koe (White Sugar Cake) and Wong Tong Koe (Yellow Sugar Cake). These are Chinese steamed rice flour cakes. - Kai Tan Koh - steamed Chinese sponge cake I've eaten a couple of pieces of the Keropok Lekor plus a little bit of each type of Vadai while driving back, the Ayam Percik and blanched kai lan for dinner and some of the steamed rice cakes for dessert.

Ooops - sorry - should've included a link. Like Torakris, I forgot that not everyone may know what I'm talking about . Kangkong / kangkung (Malay) is an asian vegetable also known as Ong Choy (Chinese). Have a look at these other threads http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...850&hl=kangkung and http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...490&hl=kangkung.

Yes we get dried cuttlefish - it adds great flavour to soups. Also used in a salad with blanched kangkong and is wonderful in snacks - freshly grilled ones, crunchy ones with chilli or chewy sugary ones. Am still too full from lunch to eat anything now but have just gone to peer at the common food stash to see if there's any around - there was some a couple of weeks ago when a colleague brought some back from a holiday on one of the islands but it's all gone now. What are you eating now mighty quinn?

The ones that we get in Malaysia are probably imported from China - don't think plums or apricots can grow in the tropical climate here (but then I could be wrong). So perhaps it is the same type of fruit but prepared differently? Hey! It is a lot more fun when someone is posting in a similar timezone .

Is that sour plum similar to a Japanese umeboshi? Had to check the umeboshi thread first to see what it is . Shuen Muii looks similar to what's shown in the umeboshi link you gave but way more wrinkled (it's dry) and with specks of salt coating it - perhaps I should call them preserved salted sour plums? Herbacidal may know another name that they're known by. There are various kinds of shuen muii - some are reddish, others are darker and sweeter - they're usually sold as preserved fruit snacks. Tried to google for a picture but haven't been successful. Wena - have you any pics of shuen muii? The ones they used in the kalamansi drink are also used in Teochew style steamed fish if that's any help.

Yes - think it must be yaki-nori. We also get wasabi and kimchi flavoured yaki-nori here but I like the plain ones best . Think I overate for lunch and it feels as if there is a bowling ball in my stomach right now. I wanted to have Indian food for lunch (was thinking of freshly fried spicy fish cutlets at a banana leaf rice place - South Indian eateries where your rice is served on top of a piece of banana leaf instead of a plate and you eat with your fingers) but the rest didn't agree with my choice . We ended up at one of the local coffee-shops close to the office. I had a KL Style Fried Hokkien Mee - fresh fat wheat noodles (something like udon but slightly thinner and fatter) fried in dark soy sauce with cabbage / napa cabbage (some use choy sum instead), pork slices, shrimp and pork crackling. The better ones have squid, liver and fish slices (some use slices of fish cake) in them as well. (There are also halal ones fried without lard and crackling and uses chicken instead of pork). It's served with some sambal (uncooked) or raw minced garlic in dark soy sauce (yes - RAW garlic so you won't be too popular after eating this ). The Fried Hokkien Mee I had is KL style coz of the dark soy sauce. There are Penang and Singapore renditions of fried Hokkien Mee but they use a different noodle and it's minus the dark soy sauce. I also shared a side of "Siew Yook" (Chinese roast pork) which I dipped into chilli sauce - the same kind of garlicky chilli sauce you get with Hainanese Chicken Rice. Drank a kalamansi juice with a preserved sour plum (shuen muii) added to it to try and get rid of the icky I'm-way-too-full feeling .

It's like living in an upside-down world! Think the seaweed must be either deep-fried or toasted as they're really crunchy. It's not Malaysian though - the seaweed are Japanese and Korean snacks - Torakris might know how the seaweed is prepared? Mmmm I love salty snacks like seaweed, keropok and crisps. The Malaysian equivalent of crisps would be keropok (fish or prawn crackers), tapioca crisps, banana chips and Indian crunchy snacks like murukku. I like my steak!!! I usually just pan fry rib-eye, season it with some salt, pepper and a dash of red wine. Cook some fresh shitake in the pan juices with some butter, soy sauce, mirin, more red wine and water and serve it with some blanched baby pak choy (the green stem ones) and roast potatoes. Do post on how your steam fish and pak choy turn out. Just ate a handful of cashews and am off to lunch soon.

Ok just ran down to the cafeteria and got me a couple of packets of crunchy Korean seaweed and some soy milk. Am happily munching away now but bits of seaweed and salt are getting all over my keyboard .