Saya Suka Pedas Lagi!

It's been a while since I mentioned food. Rather unusual I know - it must be the heat. Malaysian food is rather tasty. The thing we first discovered was Nasi Lemak. This was first tested out in Langkawi and came wrapped in a parcel of newspaper. It consisted of a mound of coconut rice, with dollop of spicy chicken curry sat on top. We went on to discover the baby octopus, beef and prawn versions. Very tasty and kept you going all day. Going with the theme of portable foodstuff, we experimented with ominous morsels wrapped in banana leaves. Ranging from the barely edible to the downright unrecongizable, we soon learnt to give these a wide birth.

Nasi Lemak in other quarters involes a complicated mix of flavours and accompaniments. To compliment the chicken/rice combo, you typically get a kind of spicy jam ("spicy jam? The dirty..."), a boiled egg and a pile of little dried fish (ikan bilis). Nice all in all but a bit too heavy on the dead poisson flavour for me. I quite like saying it though "Ikan bilis!"

There is the usual array of Chinese and Indian eateries - mostly very lovely with a cracking array of seafood. One recent meal of note was a dish of soft-shell crabs in a tempura batter. Served whole (shell and all) we ate it with a soy/chilli/garlic dip. You then did a pick-and-mix of the veggies you wanted - very tasty. We were so impressed that we went back for seconds, except this time it all went wrong. I wasnt really sure what happened, but second time round, the crabs came rolled in a kind of Alpen mixture. Very weird and very wrong.

Talking of Ruby Murray, the best Indians we've found are the "banana leaf restaurants." You actually get a massive banana leaf instead of a plate and they just come round with all manner of pots and ladle it out. Mostly you eat with your fingers in these establishments - tricky first itme round. So tasty this eating-from-a-leaf lark, we have consumed our own body weight in dahl, chicken tikka and jalfrezi more than once. It's sad, but we still order the same as we would of a Friday night down Kemp Spice.

A bit of satay always goes down well and when this comes with nasi goreng (fried rice), a fried egg, a chicken wing and a few prawn crackers, you're onto a winner. However, trying not to look scared in the Filipino market, we bought a bit of satay which I think was made from chicken knuckles (it was ever so crunchy). We then went onto have a very good dinner of unidentifiable BBQ fish, prawns and squid. Non too keen on the squid, Andy put me right off by pointing out I was about to eat the "beak." Accompanied by salad, rice and green mango and lots of fresh chilli it was a great bargain at about 3 quid. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it seems they also threw in faw days worth of diarrhoea at no extra cost! Very good for a hangover or if you're really Hank Marvin, is a massive bowl of Laksa. Each region has it's own variation but it's basically a spicy coconut-based soup with noodles, beansprouts, slices of "fishcake" (weirdest fishcake I ever had - sort of squeeky) and a sprinkling of egg (of course), chicken and prawn and there you have it - three days worth of calories in one meal.

We may have mentioned it already, but Roti Canai is a favourite Malaysian breakfast. A very healthy (fried) unleavened bread with a tasty curry dip gets you fired up for the day ahead. Murtabak is a variation on this and involves a sort of meat-filled pancake with a curry dip.

Next up, puddings...What can I say? I'm not sure how they came up with it, but wandering around on a hot sticky day, you're bound to come across people enjoying ice cream sandwiches. Importantly, these are not the wafer-enveloped delights reminiscent of childhood of Sundays round your Nanna's. Neiewwww!!!! Ingeniously, someone has taken the sandwich element a step too literally. Your Malaysia (and Singaporean, for that matter) is actually a couple of slices of Mothers Pride wrapped around a lump of ice cream. To make matters worse, they dye the bread. I think it comes in pink and green...

The next weirdest pudding is a corker. O.K. you get a load of crushed ice in a bowl. You then add the best part of evaporated milk. You then add a generous helping of condensed milk and a few squirts of monkey blood (not they real item). Not to bad so far? Sorry, did I miss out the bit where the crushed ice is placed on a pile of kidney beans, sweetcorn, macaroni and cubes of jelly? I can hear you all rumaging around in your lofts for long-abandoned Mr. Frosty to try and replicate this one. I haven't tried this concoction which appears to be christened ABC, I already know it will taste crap and stupid. Nice lady ladling it out though.

Many places (Halal) don't serve booze. We obviously expected this, but I tell you, it's still a shock to the system. There is also a habit of replacing pork-products with beef. Beef bacon is a bit funny, as are chicken sausages, but when in Rome!! The porcine market is rather underground and you have to head to Chinese quarters for such "special meat" delicacies. In fact, China Town is also the place to seek out booze.

To end on a positive note, they enjoy a bit of spice and Malaysian curries are good - especially a rendang. To keep you on your toes, the word for chilli is phrik, but rather than ask for this directly, it's probably more ladylike to exclaim "Saya suka pedas lagi!" (I like it hot and spicy). Obviously there are the ubiquitous noodle affairs and rice a plenty. Sometimes these are garnished with flower petals and I'm not casting nasturtians here. The beer is Tiger (of course) and this almost excuses the fact that it is thought to be a good idea to drink cold soya bean milk in a can.