Unless you’re Indonesian or Malay, you might think only vegans and health nuts eat tempeh. That would be sad. Tempeh is not supposed to be some overpriced block of hippie meat. It’s a traditional and tasty ingredient used in Malay and Indonesian cooking. Tempeh and tofu are both fermented soybean products but they differ in significant ways: Tofu is made from…
Category: Malaysia
Leaving KL
Leaving KL was actually a very difficult process for us. We had settled into routines that made us very comfortable. We had even adapted to the miniscule supply and exhorbitant price of serious beer. We have our lunch hawkers Salwah and En Sham, with whom we became friends after eating at their stall five times…
Cat City, Borneo
The Kuching experience began with one of the most fantastic sunsets I’ve seen in a long time. The town, one of the largest on Borneo at nearly 1 million people, actually feels quite small in the core area. It was not a long walk from our hotel at the edge of downtown to the riverfront…
Langkawi – Dry season, huh?
Apparently, our visit to Langkawi took place in the dry season. The wet season must be one degree of wetness away from Atlantis I guess. Isn’t that always the way with beach vacations? Rain, rain, rain. But let’s back up a minute. I was really out of sorts getting ready for the trip, just not…
FOUSs (not ROUSs): Fruits of Unusual Size
If wild goose chasing were a sporting event, Josh and I could easily be world champions. We chased a lot of geese on Penang island, but luckily the ones we caught laid golden eggs. Penang Days 3 and 4 consisted of a lot of hunting proverbial wild waterfowl. First we seek what we both heard…
Low Expectations Yield High Results
I said I wouldn’t be caught dead there, and it is the most unlikely place we would have ended up watching the opener of the World Cup 2010 but there we were in seats suited for VIP at the Hard Rock Cafe. Some things are simply meant to be. Our first choice of venue, Bayernhaus,…
If MSG doesn’t kill me, it will make me stronger: Penang Day 2
1. We wake up, we get a caffeine injection. At about 11AM we walk about twenty minutes down the road to a nondescript one-way street because we have a solid tip on the town’s best white curry mee: noodles in coconut milk broth with the chili paste served on the side. On the way we…
The Good Thing About Chinese Food is that You’re Hungry Again Two Hours Later: Penang, Day 1
From Penang Ah, Penang. Where wafts of Chinese temple incense mingle with the stench of the nation’s best durians. Penang. Where curry mee comes white and you have to add your own chili paste to make the rich broth turn a sinister red. Penang. Where they throw fruit and squid together in a bowl, drizzle…
Ikan bilis = ikan bliss
Ikan bilis, the magical little dried fishes of my dreams. Ikan bilis is one of the best things about eating in Malaysia. The Malays add ikan bilis to nearly everything here, adding salt, crunch and some fine briney umami to the dish. At lunch on weekdays, the local row of hawker stalls has a buffet,…
Visitor Shows Up to Brewery Wearing Shorts
An opportunity to laugh at the incident at GAB: Things got hairy at the Guinness-Anchor-Berhad (GAB) Brewery near Kuala Lumpur Thursday, when a foreigner named Joshua Oakes showed up for a GAB Brewery tour wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and mandles–men’s sandals. The rest of his group was all wearing appropriate attire. “I don’t know, I…
Josh Oakes Apprehended by Guinness Fashion Police; Free Beer Palliates
The Guinness-Anchor-Berhad (GAB) Brewery is the size of a automobile manufacturing plant, in the suburban styx of Kuala Lumpur. Kennhyn Ang of BeerBeer arranged a brewery tour for the two of us, and about half a dozen others. The BeerBeer crew gave us a ride from the nearest metro stop–which is the eponymous end of…
Lost and Found in KL
I left my camera in a restaurant the other day. Because I like to take photos of good food, I had it out and on the seat next to me. My purse was there also and when we got up to leave, I took my bag assuming the camera was inside. I realized it after…
Love and Barley 