Pan

Have a look on my report on No. 1 Chinese.

Hmm...I seem to remember that for Malays, too much heaty food during pregnancy is a problem because it's considered to promote bleeding, though in general, a balance between heaty and cooling foods is desirable. Might be the reverse for Chinese. Or I might just have a false memory. I'll try to remember to ask my mother what the village midwife in Terengganu told her.

You're joking about the alcohol percentage, right? And I think a lot of people have at least some vague idea of what pH is, from their chemistry classes in high school. Whether they understand the effect of a relatively high or low pH on wine, or what "high" and "low" consist of in that context, is another question. What is the usual range of wine pHs?

The most powerful impression I get is from the beginning of the review: I don't think I'm in a rush to go for the first time. If they have that attitude, fuck 'em.

Bill, did you like your meals overall? Did you find the place a good value? Would you want to go back?

I vote for this thread as weirdest eGullet thread ever!

Ditto. Have a good trip and may the airport buildings hold up perfectly for you!

Joanne, thanks for posting the train food logs; they were interesting. Where did you get all that food, though? Was there a dining car somewhere (I don't remember any on the trains I took), or did you just buy those things from vendors while stopped at stations or something?

As a consumer of pastries, I enjoy the fresh mint or fresh fruit that is used as a garnish, if it's of high quality. How to keep it? That's your problem, not mine. (Yeah, I know that was mean. But seriously, I won't miss the mint if the pastry is delicious. )

My father told me that when he was a child living in Crown Heights, one block would be Jewish, the next Irish and Italian, the next Jewish, etc. But that's a little before your time! (We're talking 1930s and early 40s.)

It's looking more definite that I'll be in China in August. How's the domestic safety record of China Airlines lately? By the way, should we take some long flights, do you recommend we get food to bring on board, or do they serve decent food?

Not too much heaty food for a pregnant lady?

It's Ellen Schrecker's recipe from Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, just with chicken instead of pork.

My mother doesn't eat pork and used to make good mapo tofu with ground chicken. Now, my father makes it.

The versions of Mapo Tofu I know don't have basil in them, but I don't think of Mapo Tofu as a particularly Malaysian dish.

Jason, I think the Chili Chicken may be Hainanese Chicken Rice. Is the chili sauce separate, or does it come with chili sauce already on the chicken?

Kew, you may not believe this, but I don't know much about how to actually cook Malaysian food myself! I know a lot of what I know about how it's cooked because as a child, I watched our landlady and next-door neighbor pound out the rempah and so forth. I was very observant and always asked lots of questions. And TP, remember that kids attain fluency in a foreign language much more readily than adults. But I did spend almost a month in Malaysia last July-August and regained a lot of my fluency from 26 years previous. I was fluent at a standard-6 level, so I never was really up to reading complex newspaper articles and such, but my spoken, um, Bahasa Terengganu, was excellent. What I could do, perhaps, is someday, if I really want to be ambitious, I could look over a good nasi ulam recipe and try to comtemplate what odds and ends I could get in a farmers' market around here that might work with it. But I've hardly cooked for years! What I think we really need is someone who's knowledgeable about both Malaysian ulam plants and the stronger-tasting of the vegetables available in farmers' markets in the U.S. (or, for that matter, some other country).

I'm glad you posted that followup, Sam. Thanks.

Brad, you're a bad influence. See?

You could always make your own panch phoran by combining the appropriate five spices according to a formula in a cookbook (or one probably mentioned somewhere back in this thread). Amchoor is a very useful souring agent, especially when you don't want to increase the liquidity by adding something like lemon juice. I see that carom seeds are ajwain, which is one of my favorite Indian spices but indeed not one of the most common. White poppy seeds are delicious by also a kind of "special effect," when compared to staples like cumin, coriander, etc. I see poha is "Flaked, Beaten rice" (see http://www.bawarchi.com/glossary.html). I'm not familiar with it. I like asafoetida, but I guess it could be called an acquired taste, and not everyone likes it. Do you have anardana (dried pomegranate seeds)? That's another wonderful "special effect" "spice."

I think it would be possible to do a version of nasi ulam in the U.S., but you'd have to use American leaves, and it would suck not to have cashew leaves and such-like. Still, I suppose you could use some particularly interesting-tasting combination of leaves and perhaps edible flowers. And while we don't have pucuk paku, we have other edible ferns. It would take experimentation for sure, though, and certainly wouldn't taste the same. The ulam I used to eat most often in the 1970s was a bunch of wild leaves I or/and my friends picked with or without some cultivated leaves, and we often had them with sambal belacan and without rice. (The rice would accompany gulai or something else, and sometimes the ulam would just be a snack.) I don't recall Telur Pindang. That's eggs cooked how?

I was almost a "white Malaysian" for two years. One time, some rude white tourists even stopped their car and took a photo of me dressed in Malay clothes without asking, and drove off with me yelling after them in English ("Hey! What's the big idea!"). Undoubtedly, they didn't hear me with their windows closed. Asam gelugor was always or almost always used fresh on the East Coast in the 70s. I don't know if that's changed today, but I'm sure they still grow asam gelugor plants. We had one outside our dapur (stove area/kitchen) in our kampung house. Fresh asam gelugor is really best! I wouldn't call limau nipis simply "lime." Such a lime cannot be found in the U.S., as far as I know. Our limes are way inferior to all varieties of Malaysian limes, though they're still good and have some of the sweetness and fragrance that differentiates them from ordinary lemons. Limau nipis was the most common lime in at least my area of Terengganu in the 70s, with the other two varieties you mention also common. Herbs? Sure! Everyone should go to Kota Bharu and have some Ayam Percik! (chicken made with all manner of delicious spices and herbs in a peanut-based sauce)

I'll add a few remarks: Other than coconut milk, there are some other important ingredients for a lot of Malaysian food: (1) A good rempah (mixture of spices and other savory things). Rempahs come in many varieties, but arguably the essentials are shallots, (fresh) ginger, (fresh) turmeric, garlic, and hot pepper (which can be either dried or fresh, unlike all the other ingredients). All of these are traditionally pounded together with mortar and pestle and then fried (formerly in coconut oil, but now other oils are often used). (2) Asam gelugor (a variety of tamarind), which is also used fresh and is a staple of asam dishes (which are perhaps about as common as gulai, i.e. Malaysian curries). Assam means "sour," but like most other Malaysian dishes, also with plenty of hot pepper. (3) Lime juice, which adds acidity like tamarind juice but also adds a lovely, fragrant sweetness. Malaysian limes are usually of more fragrant varieties than commonly found in the U.S. (or most of it, anyway). My favorites are limau nipis and limau purut. (4) Belacan, which is shrimp paste. All sorts of foods are commonly cooked with belacan and hot pepper. Belacan can also be part of a rempah. (5) Manisan aka Gula Melaka (palm sugar). This is used most often for desserts and bubur, a traditional breakfast food of beans or/and starchy root vegetables boiled in coconut milk and manisan, which is now often also eaten as a dessert. Nowadays, Malaysian food has been considerably influenced by Thai food, with Tom Yam soup and Pad Prik available in Malaysian restaurants all over the place. In a way, they're returning the favor, as Thai "Masaman" curry is really Muslim curry from the former Malay states of southern Thailand, and if I'm not way off the wall, I think that Panang curry may have come from Penang, Malaysia. Another dish that's made by all ethnicities for all ethnicities in Malaysia is Hainan Chicken Rice. And of course, there's Roti Canai/Chapatti from the Indian community and Satay (which is perhaps from Indonesia originally?). Malaysia has also received culinary contributions from the Minangkabau with open arms, e.g. Nasi Padang, though it strikes me I didn't have any on my last trip to Malaysia. The Minangkabau's homeland is on the west coast and hills of central Sumatra, Indonesia, but lots of Minangkabau settled in the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan starting in the early 19th century, if I remember correctly. There are some uniquely East Coast dishes such as Nasi Ulam, a salad of raw and sometimes cooked cultivated or/and wild leaves eaten with rice and pungent dipping sauces.

They do deliver, and I had a delivery dinner from them tonight: 403. Tangerine Beef $11.95 v801. Pea Shoots with Garlic $5.95 The Tangerine Beef was pretty good - not breaded, not terribly fatty, tasty little gratings of tangerine peel, and they added extra hot peppers because I asked for "extra spicy and tasty." However, the pea shoot dish had sand in it. Especially considering the c. $20 (incl. tax) + tip cost, I think it's kind of unlikely I'll be ordering in from them again very soon.

Thanks for the reply, and it's good to hear that you got a friendly reception.