Fooood

Malaysia has been wonderful. And it's not because of the cities, which are nice, but nothing to write home about; nor is it because of the scenery, although it is pretty. It's because of the food. Malaysia is extremely multi-cultural, with Chinese, Indian, Thai, and Indonesian immigrants all calling it home. This has resulted in some of the best food we've had this entire trip, if not EVER! What?! No, it's true!

It has been one exquisite meal after another. In Melaka, we had mouth-watering Malaysian laksa soup that just blew us away. Then Penang brought us beautiful, complex Indian curries and the absolute best chicken biryani of our lives. Who knew that chicken is best with mint and yogurt? THE FUCKING INDIANS, that's who. It's like the Indians have decided, "You know what? We're just going to take everything delicious, and cook that. And we're going to NOT cook anything that's NOT delicious. Fuck yeah, this is going to be awesome." And they were right, it IS awesome! I have so much respect for Indian food.

This is the Indian restaurant that BLEW OUR MINDS:



I love the culture surrounding the food even more than I love the food. (The word 'food' is starting to look a bit funny. Foood.) In one restaurant you will commonly see Indians eating with their hands, Chinese people with chopsticks, Thais using a fork and a spoon (using the fork to nudge the food onto the spoon, which then goes in your mouth), and the lowly tourists eating with their forks. And because everyone eats in their own way, the atmosphere is very laid back and entirely unpretentious. No one cares if your face or hands get dirty; no one cares which utensil you use. Just eat however you're comfortable eating, no self-consciousness necessary.

I have found this incredibly liberating. Normally, trying new foods while traveling is fun, but a bit nerve-wracking. You're never quite sure what to do. "Am I supposed to be using my fork or my hands?" or "Is that a soup or a finger bowl?" Add to that my seemingly unstoppable ability to spill food all over myself at nearly every meal, and eating inevitably becomes a bit embarrassing. But here, it's all good. Just enjoy the delicious food, that's the important part.

One night in Kuala Lumpur we decided to go to a "steak stall," a tiny little hawker stall rumored to have amazing steak. We found it under a highway, in the middle of a parking lot, surrounded by plastic tables and chairs. I was dubious at first - how can anyone make good steak in a STEAK STALL? But then it turned out to be the best steak since Argentina, and I realized you don't need to have a fancy restaurant to have good steak. I love this lack of pretense - I'd much rather sit at a plastic table than have some stuffy waiter draping a napkin over my lap.

Steak stall:



Yes, we take pictures of our food. What of it?



Over time, we've gotten better and better at picking restaurants here. The secret is to go to the small, dingy hole-in-the-wall places that are teeming with locals. If the kitchen is just a counter in the middle of the restaurant with a little old lady furiously flinging food around, you've hit the jackpot! At first we were intimidated, because these kinds of places normally don't have menus, and often the protocol is unclear. But we got braver as we went along, and now we realize that the rule of thumb is, the less you can figure out what's going on, the more delicious (and cheap) the food will be.

Little old lady furiously flinging food:



In this vein, yesterday we walked into a restaurant and ordered their one dish, "lorbak," not really knowing what it was. They brought us a plate of various meats with chili sauce. We recognized pork and calamari, but the rest were a mystery. As we chowed down, half of me was thinking, "I hope we're not eating pig brains right now!" but the other half was screaming "WHO CARES? It's delicious!" And that, I think, it the essence of eating in Malaysia.

And tomorrow we'll be in Thailand! Yay!

Here are some more photos of Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang.