Kuala Lumpur Day 2

The cooking class from this trip is through New Malaysian Kitchen. The cooking class took place at a house outside the city center. I was aware of this, but I misread the directions and was waiting at the wrong station. Based on the previous cooking class, I was expecting the pick up location to be near the city center.... I guess this is a new type of class run by an individual rather than by a company. Because of that, I was late by more than one hour but the chef still let me cook all 4 dishes and a drink (when I booked the class, I chose 4 dishes from the list).


The house had a nice size garden and her family grows a variety of herbs.

Welcome amuse bouche. Nicely acidic with rice vinegar. 

Also, she served a tea made with the flower (shown behind the tea) from the garden. The photo doesn't show it unfortunately, but it's a nice blue drink. I've seen purplish drinks but this was really blue and no artificial color added.

Now the cooking class began. The class was very informative. She started to explain Belacan, which is a key ingredient to many of Malaysian foods. Belacan is fermented shrimp. Shrimp paste is used in most southeast Asian countries with different names. But it seems shrimp paste is more popular in Malaysia. Original shrimp paste is quite stinky, so it's fried to reduce the stickiness and increase umami. In addition, the product below is dried - the chef recommended this type because it's easy to use and also keeps for long time. I was planning to buy a few to bring back home but I forgot.... I hope I can find it at the local Asian Market.

The chef gave me options to grind ingredients, either by food processor or mortar & pestle. Of course I asked more more traditional method, which is mortar & pestle although it takes longer. She told me this particular mortar & pestle is made from stone and it's not made anymore.

This is my most favorite dish of the 4, Kerabu Okra. The topping is the ground belacan, chili and other seasonings along with shallot. We made two versions, cooked and uncooked. I thought I would like the cooked version because of the cooked shallots and more cohesive flavors. But surprisingly, I much prefer the uncooked toppings because of the freshness.

Another interesting dish is the dessert, sweet potato and coconut balls. The ball is made with rice flour so that this is gluten free. I don't care if my foods are gluten free or not. But many Asian dishes are naturally gluten free.

Here are the 4 dishes and a drink (Teh Tarik) I made. The other 2 dishes included Chicken Rendang (stewed chicken) and Char Koay Teow (Stir fried noodle). They are both very popular dishes in Malaysia. Beef Rendang is better known but it wasn't on the list, unfortunately. Teh Tarik is a black tea mixed with condensed milk.

The seasoning and flavors are more modest compared to the neighboring countries, such as Thailand, India and Indonesia. Normally the seasoning tend to be heavy in the tropical to sub tropical area because of the heat. I would have liked a bit more kick while I'm in such hot and humid place, though.

I'm flying to Singapore tomorrow. Using the 10 hours of layover, I'm going to join another food tasting tour.

Kuala Lumpur Day 1

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from Malaysia. Unlike the neighboring countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, Malaysian foods are not as distinctive. Malaysian cuisine consists mostly of Malay, Indian and Chinese foods. Malay foods are supposed to be indigenous to Malaysia and Indonesia, but it seems that the Indonesian versions of Malay foods have stronger flavor. Aside from food, much of the tourism in Malaysia depends upon beach resorts, which I am not into. So Malaysia has never been on the top of my list. But I decided to give it a shot because I found a good airfare.

Via Singapore, I arrived at Kuala Lumpur a little bit after noon. It's hot and humid... traveling between the airport and hotel, I'm already soaked in sweat. As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I took a shower and rested a bit. Then, I left the hotel for a street food tasting tour. It's early evening but still very hot...

The tour was just for me. From the meeting point, we headed to the famous street for street foods, called Alor Street. The street was getting packed. First I thought I smelled rotten veggies but I soon realized that's the smell of durian....

This is Malaysian bacon (left) and sheeted meat (right). Sweet and salty but more sweet. 

Fried jackfruit - It's somewhat like fried banana. But this is definitely jackfruit. 

Karipap - Curry Empanada

It looks identical to a South American empanada. The texture of the dough was exactly like an empanada. But the filling is made with curry powder based seasoning. It does taste more Asian.

Nasi Lemak - One of the national dishes in Malaysia

This is the simplest version of Nasi Lemak without any protein. Some of the lemaks come with chicken, dried fish, peanuts, etc. The rice is cooked with coconut milk and the sauce on top of the rice is sambal. I asked for spicy sambal but it wasn't that spicy compared to Thai and Indonesian hot sauces.




Almost every country in Southeast Asia has satay. Malaysian satay seems a little sweeter. The guide advised me that I should eat all the pieces of meat on the skewer in one bite (instead of eating piece by piece)

This is a Malaysian style lemonade. There are two types of lemon in Malaysia, key lime and calamansi. Calamansi is a lot less acidic than key lime and this juice is made with calamansi. I saw calamansi a lot in Vietnam. 

The last stop of the tour is at an Indian open air restaurant. This is roti served with dal and sambal. Most Indians living in Malaysia are Tamil from South India. However, the spice level is not even close to that of South India... The Sambal was more sweet than spicy.

Malaysia consists of different ethnicities, Malay, Indian and Chinese, and different religions, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian. It is amazing that such different people coexist in a country without any major conflicts. The guide told me that Malaysians respect people from different backgrounds and I did see that. People are very kind and polite. The foods represents their melting-pot culture. There's no distinctively unique flavor/style in Malaysian cuisine but a mixed culture created dishes to accommodate all the nations.