Shiewie

Tepee - Ah Wa is that shop next to the Shell station in the Jalan 222 area I think. Is that right JC?

Mmmm... could do with some rendang with nasi lemak for a 2nd breakfast right now .

Bak Kut Teh (Hokkien) translates to Pork Rib Tea or Yuk Gwat Cha(Cantonese). Think there are 2 variations to it, the darker Hokkien (Fujian) version (with dark soy sauce added to the soup) and the lighter Teochew (Chaozhou) version. Like aprilmei says, the dip of light soy sauce with freshly cut red or birds eye chillies is the essential touch to a yummy mouthful of meat, soup and rice. I think it must be Chinese in origin, brought over to South East Asia with the diaspora and popularized in areas where there is a concentration of Hokkiens and Teochews such that it is now thought of as a Malaysian / Singaporean dish such that even tourists from China visit Klang for Bak Kut Teh as part of their package tours! For more on Bak Kut Teh, here are links to a couple of articles and a recipe (for those who can't get access the pre-packaged herbs) - The origins of Bak Kut Teh - The Broth of Life - Amy Beh's Bak Kut Teh recipe

Hi Tad I've been to some of the restaurants before - think I may have mentioned them in the Eateries in Malaysia thread. Some of us are planning to go to the gourmet festival this year (haven't decided which restuarants though - still browsing the various menus). PM me if you'd like to join us while you're in town.

Hi Gul_Dekar Sorry! Have been away. Think I have a recipe for roti canai in one of my Malaysian cookbooks ... not that I've tried it though. Will dig it out and post it for you soon.

Hi mudbug I just came back from Prague, Budapest and Vienna earlier this month. Have compiled lists of places to eat there from earlier threads here, chowhound and some other places. Will e-mail you the lists if you like (err.. they're in the office PC so can only do this on Monday). Will also get off my butt and post reviews of the places I ate at .... soon, need to dig out my notes and sort my pics. Eating in Prague and Budapest is generally q cheap compared to western Europe.

Well...not beer exactly, but there's a common pork rib dish cooked with Guinness Stout (huk peh pai kuat) in Malaysian Chinese restaurants - similar to the one with Coca-Cola but stout is used instead. The pork ribs are deep fried and then coated with a thick dark gooey sauce with stout in it.

Have made the Epicurious recipe Ling posted several times (2/3 recipe but with reduced sugar amount) together with the icing, each time to rave reviews - it's my standard frosted chocolate cake recipe. Will try again with nightscotsman's variations this weekend and see whether the testers taste any difference.

Oh yumm esp that the geung yoong wan yue (steamed grass carp with minced ginger)! Hey Tepee - curious whether it's Yook Woo Hin you guys went to in Petaling Street or Yook Tho Hin in D.U. Uptown?

Hi Krista Glad you had enjoyed your trip here. We had a great time meeting up with you and James and introducing you to hawker food.

I don't believe you've asked me this before. Yes, I've tried it a couple of times. The ayam laut is offered as one of the ikan bakar (grilled fish) choices, very smooth meat. ← Yeah, and a really fabulous taste! Genuinely a bit chickeny, I thought. ← I haven't tried ayam laut before! Tepee - which ikan bakar stall should I go to for ayam laut?

Typical recipes would include stir-frying the balitong in a spicy sambal or cooking it in a curry (a turmeric coconut cream one, masak lemak). The pointy end of the shell is chopped off before cooking. Eating it is quite a messy noisy affair too - one sucks on the pointy end to dislodge the meat and then at wide end to extract it .

This is called "ngan foot thoe jak" (Cantonese for our eyes were bigger than our stomachs) mah ! And now to further aggravate the matter, have a look at boo's pictures !

Wonderful pictures! I can almost taste the crunchy little garfish, with a squeeze of lemon. Starving now. Note to self - don't look at food pictures when one is hungry ...

During hawker food brunch at Tepee's cum meet-up with Krista G a couple of weeks ago, the topic of an outing to buy seafood fresh off the fishing boats at Kuala Selangor (means at the mouth of the Selangor River) had cropped up. After some humming and haaing about when to go ecr and maukitten decided that the past Saturday was as good a time as any to go . So off we went (ecr, "Mr. ecr", maukitten, boo_licious and me. Tepee had to pull out of the trip as she had a 8th moon 15th day family dinner.). The game plan was to get there around 3pm when the dishing boats pull in with their day's catch, make our purchases and go back to cook our bounty at ecr's. The drive to Pasir Penambang, a sleepy fishing village at Kuala Selangor, is about 1 1/2 hours away from KL - we forgot to take a shot of the picturesque scene of wooden houses on the banks of the river ... so guess we'll need to go again yah . There was a wide variety of seafood there, fresh and cheap compared to KL prices. maukitten was seen buying up half the market ... guess that's what happens when you let a cat (maukitten) loose at a fish market ... anyway, we filled two coolers (one was huge) to the brim. Top left: Balitong - a species of whelk Top right: crabs ... uhm don't know what kind Bottom left: Mantis prawns Bottom right: Mackerel (ikan kembong) After making our purchases, we got some pulut panggang (glutinous rice with a dried prawn and kerisek filling, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled) from a hawker next to the veggie stalls and we sat at a road-side drinks stall savouring these and cooling off with ais-kacang (shaved ice dessert), young coconut water and sugar cane juice. Dinner was: - mantis prawns (lai liu har / hare kor) - maukitten did a yummy chilli-tomatoey dish with these - perfect with copious amounts of white rice ... which we didn't have as we needed to concentrate our efforts on the seafood; - humongous prawns (maukitten steamed these with a fragrant home-made lemongrass oil); - clams (lala) - boo_licious prepared these with ginger, garlic, chilli (mirin?) all wrapped in a foil packet and grilled by the grill-master "Mr. ecr" - a great big red snapper (sang hoong joe) - ecr baked this in the oven with Indian-style spices and lots of cilantro; - a sea bass (siakap) and some little mackerel (kembong) - I marinated these with Chermoula, a Moroccan herby spice mixture of cilantro, parsley, garlic, cumin, coriander and lemon juice and grilled by the grill-master - a "love fish" (ai ching yuaccording the fish monger - strange looking creature that had no scales but a tough leather like skin, I was too busy struggling with my putong hua to take pictures so am waiting for "Mr. ecr's" slides) which was steamed with Kikoman fragrant soy, sesame oil and a dash of mirin; - our free fish, a tenggiri (I think ... a type of mackerel) which the fishmonger threw in for free - doused it commercially bottled nasi lemak sambal and added some shredded kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut), thinly sliced lemongrass and kalamansi juice, wrapped it in foil and tossed it on the BBQ. Err... we bought more than this of course ... personal purchases for use later this week ecr also made a garlicky oven-roasted beans while boo_licious also whipped up a chicken mango salad and cucumber, pomegranate and mint salad. Dessert was a beet and polenta cake from ecr and a plum torte from me. Top left: maukitten's ass-kicking sweet n' spicy mantis prawns Top right: boo_licious' grilled clams Bottom left: Chermoula grilled sea-bass and mackerel Bottom right: ecr's garlickyy oven-roasted beans (My pictures of the other dishes didn't do justice to the food ... am waiting for boo_licious' pics). While doing the prep, maukitten and I started panicking at the amount of food we had ... so we quickly rustled up another couple of reinforcements as ecr had threatened that no-one was leaving her house till all the food was gone or we had to go home with leftovers. Any volunteers next time ? Edited for typos

A selection of seafood at the market in Pasir Penambang, a sleepy fishing village near the town of Kuala Selangor on the west cost of Malaysia. Top left - balitong - a species of whelks. Top right - uhm.. not sure what species of crabs these are sorry.. Bottom left - Mantis prawns. Bottom right - mackerel

Welcome mflo! Am more familiar with Penang Nyonya food than Melaka or S'pore Nyonya as one of my grans was a Penang Nyonya. Am enjoying your posts and am looking forward to more .

Personally, I haven't seen it in KL or PJ before, Kuching is keeping it all to herself since it's a low-yield variety. I do keep an eye out for it, since I love it over white rice. The beauty of this rice is not only you get fiber out of it, it's not coarse or dry like brown rice...and it's so fragrant! If you run out, just pm me. Yes, the grains are not perfect...although the branded ones are more perfect than the unbranded ones. ← Not sure whether it's the same thing but have seen red bario rice sold in the health/organic food shops in KL/PJ... but it's pricey. There is also a Thai frgrant brown rice that's pretty good ... just slightly chewier - will bring some on Sat. Ok ok I confess I'm the unorthodox chopstick holder and it's pretty darn effective too as I can pass the "pick up a peanut with chopsticks" test . Had a little corn on my thumb as a child so adapted it to a more suitable way for holding chopsticks and pencils/pens. Had to switch to the "correct" method whenever granny walked past but mum said it matters not as long I can write .

Uhmm.. I think this stall uses charcoal - have seen them removing the wok to toss in more charcoal during other times I've been there waiting for my ta pow. Not sure about the pump though - don't see them using a hand-held fan so maybe it's a charcoal gas-pump combo

Great timing - wil be in Budapest for 6 days end Sep - early Oct. Robin - would love to hear about the markets you visited and places you ate at. zaelic - you mentioned on another forum (have been trawling through this board, other forums and sites for Budapest restaurant recommendations), a pub called Wichmann at the corner of Kiraly and Szekely utca that hasn't got a signboard but has the best home cooking as the owner's mother cooks a very limited home-style menu not found in regular restaurants - the post was some years back - is this still open? Thanks

Thanks Tepee for being not just a lovely host but also doing the write-up and the lovely pics . The jambu air was straight from the tree, plucked by Tepee's DH when we arrived at their house! A most artistic presentation too I must say! Really nice shots of the noodle fry-up sifu and his able assistant in action. The KL style char Hokkien mee at Ah Wa's is definitely one of the best around ... lardily tasty with just enough thick gooey gravy to coat the fat noodles and loaded with crunchy lardons / jue yau ja / bak yu pok fried over a roaring charcoal fire . If you like all the greasy goodness to be absorbed by the noodles, the Hokkien char bee-hoon is a darn good alternative ...slurp. The little plate of sambal was artfully placed there to cover up the hole that someone had dug into before the food pictures were taken ...yes a technique passed through generations, no less Wonder how Boo's pics turned out? edited to add the Hokkien mee is at Ah Wa's

Veggie xiao loong bao?!! Errr... actually there is a mixture of both halal and non-halal Chinese restaurants in the hotels in KL - for e.g. the ones in Mandarin Oriental and Sheraton Imperial are halal. Have tried the halal dim sum there and they're actually quite good - Mandarin Oriental's is innovative dim sum while Sheraton's is more traditional Cantonese. All the hotels have separate banquet restaurants that dish up halal Chinese food for wedding banquets, birthday dinners etc held at the function rooms.

Hmmm...ok here are my suggestions if you're looking for Chinese food in fine surroundings with good reputations in the vicinity of KLCC: - Noble House - there was a recent write-up in one of the local papers and the exec chef has an impressive string of awards. - Xin Cuisine at Concorde Hotel - this is an old favourite ... sigh wish my office was still next door ... I need a dim sum fix - Golden Phoenix at Equatorial Hotel Other reliable Chinese restaurants in KL (not as pretty surroundings though) are: - Oversea (Jalan Imbi outlet) - Tai Thong (Imbi outlet ...but Selangor Dredging outlet is probably looks more impressive, easier parking too) - Hakka Restaurant If you'd like to impress the girlfriend's parents with abalone and sharksfin, Ah Yat Kor at Swiss Garden Hotel might be a good choice.

Hi origamicrane There's various recommendations in the pinned thread Eateries in Malaysia. On where to take your girlfriend's parents, what type of cuisine are you looking for? Is this in Penang or KL?

Here's what I know... but I'm hardly knowledgeable on this as I come from a non-observant background. The daily altar offerings are generally fruits (heard recently that there are some fruits are a no-no but can't remember who mentioned it so got to check) but on festival days, poached/steamed chicken complete with the head and feet and siu-yook (crispy roast pork) are usually offered by southern Chinese. Some offer the favourite foods of the deceased ... one of my aunts includes bacon and eggs in her Qing Ming offerings for my grandfather as that was what he used to have for breakfast ...though I'm not sure whether he receives it as he used to dismiss all this as mumbo-jumbo and didn't allow an altar in his house. I also vaguely remember someone mentioning that if one offers vegetarian food to the deceased at the wake, the offerings thereafter have to be vegetarian. Oh besides food, entertainment is also provided to the wandering souls during the Chinese 7th Moon Festival . Temporary stages are set up, usually around markets (my mum's explanation for having the stages at markets is that the wandering souls are attracted to markets as animals were slaughtered there ... but then again my mum is a banana so she might have it wrong) where Chinese opera or other singing performances are held - the first few rows of seats are 'reserved' for the wandering souls.