Shiewie

It's called jau paeng in Cantonese which translates to wine biscuits which like trillium and yetty have posted, is used to make rice wine and tapai.

Yetty: Beautiful picture! And you still deny that you are a professional photographer? There is also another Cantonese name for the rice cupcakes: Boot jai go. Same meaning. Cakes that are molded from a small bowl or dish. The red bean cake is just... red bean cake. (Hung dao go[Cantonese]) ← And I love them both because of the chewy texture of these cakes. Yetti, you should be called "mistress of food porn"....with sadistic tendencies towards people like me on the kuih-deprived prairies! I get to granny-sit for a couple weeks in Feb, so I will have to get my mom to show me how to make these. ← While we all wait for Dejah's mum's recipes for woon jai go, hung dao go and boot jai go (it's also called chwee kueh in Hokkien for the savoury ones and kueh kosui for the sweet ones), here are links to some recipes for anyone who would like to try making them in the meantime: - hung dao go - woon / boot jai go / chwee kueh(savoury 1) - woon / boot jai go / chwee kueh(savoury 2) - woon / boot jai go / chwee kueh(savoury 3) - woon / boot jai go / kueh kosui (sweet 1) - woon / boot jai go / kueh kosui (sweet 2). There's also a Vietnamese savoury rice cake, banh beo hue, a Hue specialty, that's similar to woon jai go - it's a less chewy version though.

Hi Yetty The name for the rice cupcakes in Cantonese is woon jai go, which translates to little bowl cakes. I haven't tried any with red beans in them before. The sweet ones that we normally get in Malaysia are either green (pandan) or brown (gula melaka) in colour. There are also savoury ones - these are white in colour and served with a minced preserved radish that's been lightly stir-fried and topped with minced garlic oil, teem jeung (bean sauce) and chilli sauce.

Pitchblack70, kew has a recipe for kuih sago on the kuih/kueh thread. Perhaps this is the kuih you're describing.

Frozen baos are pretty decent (especially if you buy fresh ones in bulk and freese them yourself ) but what I really don't like are the fried dim sim you get in the fish and shops in Australia - they're sort of like deep fried floury siu mai !

Happy birthday in advance from me too Yetty! Great pics as always - that rujak buah looks very similar to the rojak buah we have in Malaysia. Please do post pictures of your birthday celebrations.

Yumm! Elie- that looks like a very nice dinner indeed. I like my falafel sandwiches with tomatoes, parsely and tahini sauce with pickles on the side. The best falafel sandwich that I've had so far is from Mohamad Ahmad in Alexandria, Egypt - we had to get a quick take-away as we were short of time so I didn't manage to take any pretty pictures. The falafel patty there is perfect - it is hot and crispy on the outside and wonderfully tender once you bite into it. It was heavenly with the juicy tomatoes, soft pita bread and lashings of tahini sauce - even when it was eaten in the van inching our way across town in the traffic jam. We had 3 falafel sandwiches, 3 gibna beyda (fried white cheese) sandwiches and 1 ful sandwich from Mohamad Ahmad for 10 LE (approximately US$1.60). If anyone is in Alexandria, Mohamad Ahmad's address is 17 El-Shakur St., El Raml Station. I did manage to get a picture of a falafel maker at work back in Cairo but these falafels were a dissapointment after the ones from Mohamad Ahmad.

9 out of 11 ... and I got the one on China wrong too (and I'm ethnically Chinese)! Like Ling, the grown-ups used to tell us that we had to finish all the rice on our plates/bowls. Some used to say that if we didn't we'd end up with a pockmarked spouse! I think there may be slight confusion in interpretation for that one - I think one's considered a bad host by Chinese customs if all the food (not necessarily on one's plate since dishes are shared) is finished - it means that the guests may not have had enough to eat. HSBC in its ad campaign "The World's Local Bank" has an ad which shows this - a guest is presented with bowl after bowl of noodles by his Chinese hosts as keeps finishing all the food that's put before him.

Hi Dejah We normally cut chayote (hup cheong qwa / futt sau qwa) into slices or julienne it and stir-fty it plain with minced garlic (sometimes together with a couple of slices of ginger), toss in shredded carrots at other times or with slices of pork, chicken, dried shimp or egg. Chayote is like a milder tasting, firm version of the hairy gourd (moe qwa). It's great for quick-stir fries.

Thanks folks for all your help, especially FoodMan for painstakingly looking at all the pastries in each picture.

Have some pics of some pastries from a little pastry shop in the oasis town of Wadi Musa (next to Petra) during a recent trip to Jordan and Egypt. Apart from baklava (the first picture), I'm not sure what the rest are called. We just pointed excitedly at what we wanted. Can somebody please help me identify them? Some of my favourites were these filo pastry casings with a cream cheese filling (sweet ones and savoury ones) and also crescent-shaped shortbread like ones, either plain or with a date filling. Yumm! Would anyone possibly have recipes for these ( hopeful)?

Nice - looks pretty authentic too! Have you ever tried making the thicker version?

Oh yum - see gwa! Herb - here are a couple of links where there are pictures of see gwa - http://www.agrohaitai.com/fruit&gourd/luffa/luffa.htm and http://www.kitazawaseed.com/seeds_luffa_angled.html. It's also great fried with eggs (see gwa chow dan).

Do they look like these http://yulabme.textamerica.com/?r=618072? If it's that, they're called kuih keria. It's usually made from sweet potato though ... but cassava (that's tapioca right?) could be a Perak variation. Don't have a personal recipe for kuih keria but TP may still have the kuih keria recipe she learnt in school. TP ? If not, I should have one in some recipe book at home and can PM you it if you like.

Yes ... and I still do! We get 2 kinds of jue jie bang here - there's the flat animal shaped ones with no filling, just pastry. There's also the 3-dimensional piglets with lotus paste (leen yoong) filling. I like the flat just pastry ones ... think they're like the Chinese version of gingerbread men.

Have a look at Renee's latest post on her Shiokadelicious blog for beautiful pictures of different types of mooncakes - Cantonese ones, snowskin, chao zhou... Talking about strange mooncake fillings, have seen ads for a sambal mooncakes and abalone mooncakes here in KL . Hmmm...

Ahh - you may be thinking of or nee - the Teochew mashed yam sweet soup - lard is added to it to make it smooth. It's sometimes served with cubes of boiled pumpkin in it. Have tried a tau fu far and or nee combo in Singapore - sounds strange but it's actually quite good. Yes mudbug, how was the party? What desserts did you do in the end?

It's called "bubur cha cha" in Malaysia - momojaja is the "Cantonesified" (if there is such a word) pronunciation of it. Bubur means porridge in Malay ... not sure about the "cha cha" part - need kew's help here. Yetty - what is it called in Indonesia? There is both purple yam (taro) and orange sweet potatoes in bubur cha cha.

Stir-fried beef fillet slices with tomatoes, ginger, garlic, bean paste and onions.

Hi Joel Am living vicariously through your posts here and on your site. Pictures of the food please . The Chinese in Malaysia (and we're almost all Southern Chinese) used to eat dog here too ... once upon a time ...and preferably black dogs. They used to sell them in the Petaling Street market in KL. This is not very nice but there's a saying that the Cantonese eat everything with their backs facing the sky, with the exception of hunchbacks! Shiewie

Hi PCL The satay guy at Tien Chun used to slap a plate of satay on each table whether one asked for it or not . And once it's there ... you just can't help but eat it . This no longer seems to be the case though as he now asks tables whether they would like some satay. Was going to post a shot of Tien Chun to remind you of Ipoh but can't seem to find the images I had stored earlier in the newly reformatted site .

Am inspired by TP's post on Terengganu so will get off my butt and post about my short day trip to Ipoh a couple of weekends ago - this was was solely a trip to eat. Unfortunately there aren't enough hours in day to eat all that we had planned so we'll be making some return trips shortly . Ipoh is a 2-hour drive to the north of KL - it's a sleepy town full of faded colonial buildings that was once the center of tin-mining boom in Malaysia. Ipoh Railway Station Ipoh Town Hall We started off early in the morning so that we could reach Ipoh for a dim sum breakfast. There were lots of Hong Kong style dim-sum shops in the Greentown are of Ipoh - we went to one called Ming Court. It was pretty good - we were there at about 9-ish and it was packed with local families. We had planned to delicately savour a few dishes only so that we'd have space to eat at other places later on...but we soon forgot about our plans once we saw the food. Here's some of the dim-sum we ate. We then moved on to a tau foo far (sweet bean curd) stall - it was quite a novelty to us as this was a "drive-in" tau foo far stall - no pictures though as it was kinda difficult trying to snap pictures holding a bowl of tau foo far in one hand and fiddling with the camera in the other. Next it was on to Nam Heong for some Ipoh Old Town White Coffee. It's called white coffee coz the coffee beans are roasted in butter - you can see a layer of oil on top if you have it black. Most normally have it tarik (pulled) with some condensed milk - it's frothy like a cuppacino. We also tried a plate of char kuay teow there - slightly different from what we get in KL as there was a dollop of chilli sauce on it. Lunch was at Then Chun which is famed for its Ipoh Sar Hor Fun (flat rice noodles in a chicken and prawn broth with shredded chciken, prawns and chives) and Creme Caramel. We also had some deep-fried stuffed chicken wings, sweet potato balls and popiah (no pics of the popiah as it looked kinda of messy) There was no time for dinner at Ipoh this trip as some of us had dinner appointments in KL. We did however buy a few (12 actually but they're just little ayam kampung) yim guk gai (Salt baked chicken) to take home with us - but we got kind of hungry on the drive back and so we dug into one at a highway stop on the way home .

Hi TP Oh yum! Please do continue clicking away. Just tell your husband that they're for your greedy online friends. I also have the same complaints from whoever I'm eating with ... they're usually waiting anxiously to dig in while I'm trying to take pics of the food. The PJ branch of Yut Kee is in PJ New Town, have seen it but haven't tried it yet. Did you manage to get any nasi dagang while in KT?

Ok - finally managed to take some pictures of mangosteens. Here they are:

Thanks for the pointers - now remember it. Kandos is (but you hardly see it around anymore) manufactured in Malaysia by a company that was previously called Upali (guess it has since changed its name) and it was started by a Sri Lankan.