On a previous visit to Malaysia in 2008 I asked a local blogger (boo_licious of masak-masak – I can highly recommend her site) for some restaurant suggestions for a celebratory family meal, and one place that came up was Precious Old China in the Central Market.
We went there and had a very enjoyable time, so much so that we returned there on our recent trip just to have a drink.
In all conversations about what we should eat when in Malaysia, the top of our must-haves list was roti canai (pronounced “rote-ee chan-i”).
I touched on this delectable bread a while ago in a post on the rotee stalls that lurk seductively around Thailand’s streets. Roti canai can be found on similar stalls, but is exceedingly common in the many Indian restaurants that inhabit the Malaysian food scene.
H spent some of his formative years in Malaysia, and fondly remembers breakfast roti with fish curry as a Sunday treat. Served with a frothy mug of teh tarik (tea sweetened with condensed milk and poured at a distance from cup to cup to aerate it), he reckons it is one of the finest ways to start the day.
On our first night in Kuala Lumpur, by the time we had escaped the airport and reached our hotel it was heading towards 9pm. A bit frazzled (we didn’t fly into the airport we thought we would, couldn’t track down the right bus and suspect we were misled over the taxi), we couldn’t be bothered to head off across town on a food odyssey so popped into the Zam Zam Restaurant (135 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) next door to have a little something.
We quickly spied that they served murtabak, which is a fried flat bread cooked around a filling. Having scanned the choices available I opted for a small beef murtabak and H decided to have the same but with chicken.
When it became known we were planning to visit New Zealand, various friends and acquaintances told us “it’s like England, 30 years ago”.
Images of space hoppers, Ford Cortinas, Ringo crisps and rotary-dial telephones coursed through my brain, so I was more than a little disappointed to find out it was entirely untrue. In fact the only sign to support this claim we saw in our entire trip was a young man sporting a mullet/rat-tail combination hairstyle.
Actually everyone was also extremely nice and friendly, and while I don’t want to do my countrymen down, it did add a certain old-fashioned charm to shopping or asking for assistance.
H and I eventually decided it was more like a parallel universe version of the UK. We drove on the same side of the road, the Queen featured on money, there were green fields dotted with sheep and cows, Victorian architecture here and there, excellent cheese, erratic weather…you get the idea.
However so many things were also different. The large clapboard bungalows, the rainforest, mountains and kiss-me-quick-free coastline, the emptiness, the risk of earthquakes, the love of participating in sport, and a plethora of Cadbury products which I had never seen before.
Continue reading New Zealand Food Exploration: Parallel Universe Chocolate Review
To follow on from my South Island recommendations, now it’s the turn of the North Island.
As with the other post, I have not created a map as the places are so spread out it would be a real fiddle to use. Plus I’m lazy…
Continue reading New Zealand Food Exploration: North Island Recommendations