Eating My Way through Malaysia – So many tastes!

Posted by Super Kawaii Mama in Asia love, Food & Drinks, Travel | 12 comments

I won’t embarrass myself by telling you how much weight I’ve gained on my last few trips, but it was worth every bite. Sometimes you have to break all the rules and just say yes! My time in Kuala Lumpur and Malacca was one of those times for sure. As a fashion and style blogger travelling with food bloggers, it’s really interesting to watch what we all take note of and how we experience our adventure.

Two of my travelling companions, Bec of Inside Cuisine and Thang Ngo from Noodlies, are expert food writers and amazing chefs themselves. I highly recommend reading their blogs to see more taste adventures in Malaysia. Just listening to them talk about dishes they’ve experienced around the world is something else. They have the vocabulary and knowledge to take a humble dish and elevate its description into art. I on the other hand, had a very different way of looking at food this trip. I love to eat, I’m willing to try anything, but most interestingly to me is the coincidental way that everything I ate matched what I wore!!

Seriously, it became a bit of a running joke to look at each dish and see how the colours and textures worked with that days outfit. I have no idea if I subconsciously chose my meals on this basis, or if there is such a vibrancy in my outfits that they can’t help but match some how. Either way, it made for a new dimension in my dining experiences.

You all had some fantastic recommendations of local dishes and delicacies I should try and I endeavoured to eat them all – sorry waist line.

In historic Malacca, my wonderful guide from Tourism Malaysia showed me a simple Chendol stand where I could try this highly recommended ‘drink’. Chendol is basically a coconut milk drink that also has shaved ice, red beans and a green worm-like glutinous jelly added to it. The texture is vaguely gritty from the red bean and a bit slippery from the jelly; but it is a really elegant flavour. Note how even the bowl and spoon matched my outfit here!

There were other refreshments on offer at the same stand, but I didn’t quite feel the need to “Kick-a-poo” at the time…. and in fact I’m not entirely sure what “joy juice” it contained?? Luckily, there were less obtuse options that also spoke my name fluently. These are called, Desert Bar.

The Desert Bar at the Traders Hotel is FAMOUS. It would be cruel of me to show the entire selection on offer here, especially since this is a buffet! Yes, that’s right; book in and go crazy! The selection of delicate and tempting morsels on offer is unsurpassed by any other desert bar I’ve seen; possibly only rivalled by the offerings at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The chocolate fountain comes with a myriad of treats on sticks that you can make even better by drowning them in rivers of melted chocolate.  The little cakes and tarts are so beautifully constructed that, like these little blackberries, they went so far as to sprinkle the berries with flecks of edible gold dust. Feeling indulged yet?

If sweet tooth is not your thing (I have an everything tooth), the array of seafood temptations will bring a tear of joy to your eyes.

Served with cocktails in the Skybar, these are but a mere sample of the tapas we gushed over. Perfect scallops on nori and in those little glass jars; diced smoked salmon, onion, dill, caviar, tomatoes and (I’m sure) a much fancier name than that!

And if all that wasn’t enough let’s just bump it up a notch and add ‘The Tower of Crustacia’. OMG… I die…

In other dining adventures we found the solution for those not a fan of plain old white rice. Try this on for size. The most heavenly rice I have ever tasted and it’s blue. I’m told it is made with morning glory and has a delicate, sweet floral taste.

Fried, silken tofu that melts in the mouth.

And I finally tried Okra, not slimy at all but instead delicious and crunchy; so good it has made it onto the list of things I’m now attempting to cook.

The theme of food seeming to know I was coming continued…

They even have my ideal refreshments here in Malaysia; a Bubble Tea shop called Cool Blog! Yes I drank loads of this and had quite a laugh with the staff too.

Another Malaysian specialty that I was told not to come home without eating, is chicken rice. I’ve had Chicken Rice in Singapore before, and it is incredibly simple, but amazingly delicious. Imagine all the good things about chicken broth and the warm grainy flavour of a rice porridge all mixed together then you get half way close to the melting flavour of chicken rice. So, reader Des Lucas, at your urging, I went to find the famous chicken Rice Ball.

The chicken rice ball is indeed so famous that the line cues up into the street at all hours of the day. Where the balls used to be made by hand, they are now made by a custom built machine in house to keep up with the overwhelming demand. After trying these for myself, I expected a lot given the hype. My personal verdict though, is I much prefer the good old regular chicken rice as these just didn’t have the intensity of flavour I was expecting. The beer however, was top notch!

And what was that stuff I was eating in the first picture of this post?

Would you believe our group came across a sweet store in Little Indian, KL, that had an array of unknown delights; this one in hot pink! Made from what seemed to be highly compressed coconut, rose syrup and a dose of food colour that couldn’t possibly be good for you; this treat once again made the perfect compliment to my Lush Cherry cardigan ensemble! The hilarious thing is that while we all walked around enjoying these, the girls forgot that what colours food like this will also colour teeth! Gimme a kiss shweetheart.

So it seems that one needn’t be a food blogger to really enjoy all the flavours, colours, and fun that eating in  Malaysia brings. In fact there was one last food moment in Malacca that really summed me up.

Malaysia, you’ve got my number!