Food Porn: who wants to know about the sumptous trough I shoved down my neck while on holiday in Malaysia?

[suzywong]

God, it was good.
I am a huge heifer now but I care not

can I please tell you about the divine marriage of blachan and chili?

And for the first time EVER I know see what all the fuss about Chinese Food is. Deep fried crispy skinned pork leg anyone?

I put on half a stone on our 8 day honeymoon in Thailand. God, the food was good. Chilli-marinated, barbecued fish on the beach. Huge, juicy king prawns in fresh coconut & lime. Spicy soups made in front of your eyes. Please - do share!

wots blachan?

it really would be churlish to refuse it all, would it not MrsMattie?

Blachan is a brick like paste of dried tiny shrimp. You slice it and toast it and and it to all sorts of things; sauces rice etc

well, the nasi lemak and satay was super
lots of dim sum with deep fried radish cake and the wonderful and unique to the region sabah veg which is a relative of the fern family and sauted in garlic. And the banana leaf curries and fish head curries and salt and pepper squid and the beef rendang and the pomfret and sweet and sour pork and .... it's all on my thighs, wobbling and undulating and I care not. YUM.

the breakfast buffet at the hotel was lavish to say the least. I would start with the beef rendang and curried fish and pickled cucumber and carrots just for balance.

Hardly any sweet stuff and lots and lots of varied ingredients in each meal; nuts, seeds, all the mineral rich aromatic spices, lean protein like seafood and dense flavourful cuts of meat for long slow stewing in spicy sauces. grains and raw vegetables in the relishes and sambals and of course fresh vegetables and simple tropical fruit to finish. There are hardly any lard-arses in Malaysia, I think it's the scant use of dairy products and the sheer variety of ingredients in any one meal must keep the metabolism running just right.

Mmmmmmmm beef rendang.

am drooling all over my keyboard, stop with yer food porn.

you LOVE it you filthy slag

SW - you're a proper professional foodie aren't you? Do you have any idea how to actually make Malaysian food? You can't just turn us all on then leave us hanging....show us yer recipes

Tell me about the juicy prawns again...

why yes I am and yes I do:
pestle and mortar, not a food processor, that's the top tip I received, and simple simple simple - no fusion and nothing silly - no cappucinos of bacon and egg icecream.

Balance: rice/like a fishy prawn cracker/a rich sauce around a little protien/pickled raw vegetables/nuts and ikan bilis (small deep fried anchovies) for crispness and ... I forget now. am away with fish head curry and kway teo noodles.

Ummmm ... the prawns were divine, I should have sucked the brains out of the head shells but some how decorum ot the better of me. And whole fish cookery is the way to go, there's always and aunty who wants to suck the eyeball.

And pork, nice nice nice pork.

hmmmmmm tell us more. Am starving and feeling too crap to get up and cook. If you tell us about it, it will almost be as if I've had an actual meal

OK but no kissing on the mouth

well one day we had no family engagements (Mr Wong was born in Kota Kinabalu where we were staying and has a huge family there) so we went down to the hotel (5 star, natch) restaurant for the buffet lunch and my WORD, the mutton curry with a thin gingery sauce, the European-esque lamb chops with tomato confit and parmesan which were pretty dam good considering they had been in a chaffing dish for hours, and the whole deep fried sardines and plain rice with olek sambal was equally divine. Lots of rice-flour noodles with dark soy sauce and greens and egg and of course gelatinous cocount pudding with tropical fruits in syrup.

Mmmmmmmm, what a fabulous thing the search for the East Indies was with all it's rich culinary influences and ethnic tolerance and mix and match.

dh loves beef rendang...yum yum...
pudding wise I love eis kakang (sp?)

at the thought of the sardines.....

ice kechang?
OH yes, dh loves that, it has aduki beans in it IIRC, where did you develop your fondness for Malaysian cuisine, MaryAnn?

my cousin was married to a Malaysian man and his sister lived with us for a while and made lots of fab Malaysian food (including the sublime curry puffs)... then dh and I used to go to nice restaurant in Soho (forget it's name, began with an M)...

DH has family in KK (his maternal uncle and his family) and we have been meaning to visit one day. Most visits we just go to KL and sometimes Langkawi or Penang. I think food quality in KL has gone down a bit since I first visited (on our honeymoon 17 years ago). The stall food used to be delicious, but now it's a bit less tasty, possibly because of the availability of battery chickens etc.

I still feel a bit smug at having the foresight to marry a Malaysian though, even if I do find the weather there too hot. Sometimes when I'm there and suffering with the humidity I think I might have been better off marrying an Icelander, but I could never have been as happy eating rotting shark as I am eating rojak or roti canai. Plus dh can (and does) cook a fab Hainanese chicken rice.

Melati ! think it's moved...

Oooooooooooooooooh
what flavour Malaysian, Bran?
You must go to KK, it's super. Only a two hour flight from KL.

We never went to that restaurant, MaryAnn (curses curses, I thought I was hip)

He's Indian Malaysian, but he's very strongly Chinese influenced in his cuisine as his mum always worked long hours (and is a pretty rubbish cook tbh) so he spent a lot of time with their chinese/nonya housekeeper. In our house I do the Indian cooking because one of my uncles was Indian and taught my mum to cook Indian food and she taught me.

There's a great little Malaysian cafe down an alley between Rupert St and Wardour St called C&R. I haven't been in that part of London for a couple of years so I hope it's still there.

Ah it does my Malaysian heart good to see the appreciation out there for the one thing my country is really good at - food! If anyone's looking for Malaysian food in London do try

1. Nyonya (www.nyonya.co.uk/) at Notting Hill
2. C&R is still in that little alley I think but there's also a branch in Bayswater now, on Westbourne Grove
3. Kiasu, also in Bayswater. Won some Time Out award - and I think the food is OK, not great, but it did have the best satay I've eaten in London www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/10943.html
4. Satay House, which is OKlah. www.satay-house.co.uk/

Anyone looking for Malaysian food porn and some pretty good recipes should try this blog:
www.rasamalaysia.com/

Be warned though - the photos make me weep.

Also try Mawar for canteen-style food:
www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/3836.html

y1n - that blog is lurvely....