The first time i went to KL back in 2009 i found this amazing place for wantan noodles. Unfortunately i found it on the last morning before I was heading back to Australia. I remember thinking to myself if I ever was to go to KL again that i would go back to the same wantan mee place. My recent trip has provided me with the ability to fulfill this thought. I remembered the exact location of the particular restaurant so I set out at about 8am in search of the restaurant and it’s still there! Read more →
In tourist driven jonker street on weeknights there aren’t a huge amount of options for dinner available. I suppose that most malaysian people have dinner in central melaka and it’s just the tourists that stick to jonker street. So after dinner last night I was going for an evening stroll around and I walked past a nondescript little shack that had a little sign proclaiming that they have amazing laksa and i made a mental note to return the next night for dinner. Read more →
When I was planning my most recent trip to Malaysia I knew that I wanted to do one thing and that was to go to one of the traditional wet markets of Malaysia. These wet markets are a fantastic insight into how a lot of people live their day to day lives in Malaysia, interestingly the term ‘wet market’ comes from the fact that they use water to wash the floors and keep all the meat and fish fresh. The closest wet markets to my hotel in Kuala Lumpur were at Chow Kit which was only 3 stops away on the efficient monorail. I headed out their early one morning in anticipation. Read more →
When i was planning my most recent trip to Malaysia there was one place that A mentioned that i have to go to. This place was ‘California Pizza Kitchen’, when she had been on a holiday to south east asia a few years ago she went to this particular chain of restaurants 3 times in 2 weeks. A was raving about how great their chicken salad was. After I received this glowing recommendation I went onto the California Pizza Kitchen website to see a little bit about their history. It turns out that the first location opened in California (unsurprisingly) in 1985 and since then has expanded to over 250 locations around the world. Read more →
I was looking for somewhere to go for dinner near where i was staying in Melaka, to be honest as much as i was looking for somewhere to go for dinner I was also enjoying walking around the streets of Melaka and taking photos in the beautiful afternoon light like the one above. I remember the thought of “I can’t believe i am in Malaysia” kept running through my head as i walked around. Read more →
Even before i had bought my hotel tickets to melaka i investigated what foods are famous from there. One of the most famous choices are chicken rice balls, I wasn’t sure what these were so i did a little bit of research on what chicken rice balls exactly are. Well it turns out that the only difference between standard malaysian/singaporean chicken rice and melaka chicken rice balls is that the balls are formed into the shape of balls rather than being a normal plate of rice. Read more →
On my holiday i had just spent the last few days in melaka and now I am in Johor Bahru. Johor Bahru is situated about a 45 minute drive from singapore and comparing it to melaka you can definitely get an idea that it’s close to singapore. You can tell from little things like the cars getting around with singapore number plates, durian sellers and signs in shops that entice singaporeans into their stores. One thing that i noticed was in johor bahru there were a lot of non-halal restaurants. It seems that the singaporean population must head to johor bahru to get their pork fix and it shows in the dining options available. Read more →
Researching places to eat before you go on a trip can be a bit of a hit or miss affair. From doing research i knew that one of the things that I would have to have on my holiday is a traditional nyonya meal and a place that seems to have good reviews online is a place called cottage spices restaurant. I looked up where it was on google maps in relation to my hotel and it was about a 20 minute walk. I decided to go and try it for lunch on a Tuesday so i set off on foot in the dense southeast Asian heat.
After the 20 minute walk I find the restaurant and it’s closed.
I pondered what my next move should be and I decided to just go for a walk and see if i could find a place to go for lunch. From walking around i found a place serving ‘bak kut teh’ and as i was about to walk into that particular restaurant i spotted something in the corner of my eye. What i spotted was a group of 4 Malay people on scooters that were clearly on their lunch break walking into a nondescript corner stall. I have a theory that if you want to try the true food culture of a place you have to go where the workers go so i decided to cross the street and see what this place was like.
What i noticed when i crossed the street was a restaurant called restoran madinah where absolutely zero tourists were eating and 90% of people eating were wearing uniforms of some description. As soon as i noticed this i knew that i was going to eat well, I was whisked over to the counter by the very friendly staff member as he mentioned that this place specialised in ‘Nasi campur’. Nasi campur roughly translates to ‘mixed rice’ where there is a beau marie filled with delicious dishes and then you have a plate to steamed rice to load up with any number of dishes (a little bit like the self service counters at chinese places in food halls in perth but with stuff that looks a lot tastier).
There were a few different things that i wanted to try from the smorgasbord of different flavours so i picked whatever looked the tastiest and sat down with my plate of deliciousness as the aforementioned friendly waitperson dropped a teh tarik off at my table. The teh tarik was a very refreshing respite from the heat. 8/10
I think i will break down each individual thing that i have tried from here as they all had their own individual flavours, the first thing i tried was the little mixture of red onion, birds eye chillies and fermented shrimp paste. There was also something else, I am not sure what it was but it gave the mix a slightly floral taste. I didn’t like this at all (you can’t see this in the picture but it was kind of behind the chicken).
While i didn’t like the first thing i thought “i might like the second thing” and i did, oh yes i did. The second thing i tried was the beef rendang and it was amazing, this one little cube of beef was the best curry (if you can call it that) that i have ever had in my life. What I didn’t realise from having western beef rendang dishes is that there shouldn’t be any sauce at all and the beef should be tender and packed such intense flavour that you shouldn’t need any sauce. Seriously. Amazing.
The next thing that i tried is the long beans stir fried with eggs. This was something that was simple and very tasty, while eating it i thought to myself that i could probably make this. So when i get home i am going to try making this.
The final thing i had was the ayam goreng or fried chicken, each culture seems to do their fried chicken slightly differently. In the case of malaysian people it is rubbed with a rich tomato and chilli paste before being deep fried without any batter on it. The flavours of this chicken were also really pronounced and while the chicken wasn’t completely juicy the flavours more than overcame this and yet again it was amazing.
In terms of how i should rate this, I think that it easily gets a 10 due to the amazing beef rendang. 10/10
The universe works in strange ways sometimes, If that nyonya place was open i wouldn’t have had a chance to experience this extremely authentic and delicious meal in fantastic company.
I had one last day left in Johor Bahru before i leave for Singapore, upon contemplation I have decided that Johor Bahru is a pretty nice little town. There are definite differences between here and other cities in Malaysia, you can see the influence of Singapore more here than other cities. Read more →
I was only in KL for one night so i had to get all of my shopping out of the way in the most efficient way possible, to get this done i decided to go to pavilion in bukit bintang to do my shopping, pavilion is a hugely impressive shopping center with 6 floors and over (check) stores. Read more →