Froggylicious
Alright. Let's talk about the frog and the stingray I ate last week in Malaysia. I've been too busy with work, so this update is a bit late I know..
Anyway. Got my eyes on a skewer-stand in KL, bukit bintang area. They had big-ass frogs and stingrays and of course I was interested. You pretty much pick whatever skewered you feel like and they grill/deep fry them for you.
I ate frog twice in Malaysia, and I have to say that the meat doesn't really taste.... Anything. It's just texture. It's a little bit gummy-ish, and maybe not the star in Malay cuisine really. It was fun to try though!
The stingray was actually very nice. I had it first grilled, then slightly deep fried. Imagine a big fish, for example swordfish... That's the texture. Not flakey and white like most fishes, but you could feel that it was a sea creature. If they cut it like any other fish you could easily put it in a bouillabaisse. The skin and bones was a little bit of a hassle, but I could eat this again for sure (later had a stingray ginger-stir fry, gorgeous).
Also had a little quail. Not bad, but chicken is way better
Midnight snack
Sorry for being low on updates again guys. Just came to my final destination and started doing 12 shifts straight away. Still in the process of learning, but my gut feeling isn't too happy for some reason. We'll see how it turns out.
Monday's off though, so hopefully I'll come up with something tomorrow!
Real food abroad
There's lots of good foods to eat here in KL. You have a wonderful mix between Malay, Chinese, Indian, and all sorts of street food (most of them deep fried). I usually try to stick with the local food whenever I travel to a country, but since it's so mixed here.. I love the Indian and Chinese as much as I like the Malay food. It's still authentic thanks to the closeness and race mix. 'Western Chinese food' is for example not anywhere close to the real stuff. Usually brown, very sweet and sticky-saucy. And that's what people grow up to believe is 'real Chinese food'. Of course there are similar dishes maybe, but this is just something else than the many many many dishes of a huge country.
Ehrm. Too much China. My point is that even if I eat Indian and Chinese here in KL, it's still kind of the real deal. The fact that I'm residing in Chinatown helps a lot. Today we'll visit the town's 'little India' and sample foods to eat with our hands. Just need to hunt down a good, spicy hellbroth laksa first to sweat the demons inside out. Did I mention my habit of always eating spicy noodle soups for breakfast?
Malay curry and pork belly (both soy-stewed and deep fried)
Saturday night market
Stumbled into a very long evening market last night. Wonderfully crowded with people and aromas from the different street food stalls. I managed to sample a lot of things I hadn't tried yet (as the cow' lung and liver... Tough shit). Can't really remember everything, but here's some pictures;
Started the day with a spicy laksa (noodles in a rich curry broth, topped with clams, deep fried tofu and chicken). It's nice to sweat the demons out.
Shared lunch with a new friend, consisting of takoyaki, curry puff pastry, nasi lemak, mee rebus noodle soup and nasi goreng. A nice mix between Singaporean and Malay foods (well, takoyaki is japanese but whatever).
Started the day with a spicy laksa (noodles in a rich curry broth, topped with clams, deep fried tofu and chicken). It's nice to sweat the demons out.
Shared lunch with a new friend, consisting of takoyaki, curry puff pastry, nasi lemak, mee rebus noodle soup and nasi goreng. A nice mix between Singaporean and Malay foods (well, takoyaki is japanese but whatever).
Biggest pans ever filled with delicious fried noodles!!!!!! Just €1,3 for a nice portion. Heaven
Weird ice cream cone and deep fried prawns on a skewer. They seem to love their deep fried foods over here (one thing I've also noticed is that Malay women seem to have a quite average body type, not really as small and petite as for example Japanese people). Nothing wrong with that!
Arriba arriba!
Went to try out Mañana, a Mexican restaurant at white beach in Boracay. Maybe I had high expectations after reading good things about it online, but I was kind of disappointed. It was tasty, but most things was in need of a real dab of salt. Other than that, it was alright. Decorations was creative, but the sides (beans, corn, rice etc) was mini-sized. Well, main courses was pretty big so it makes sense I guess.
I had vegetarian enchiladas, the others chimichangas, burritos and enchiladas. Also a pizza baked on a piece of tortilla. All washed down with huge mango margheritas and banana shakes!
Also found myself a new sarong. The old one is starting to get ripped me overall over-used. Will use it as long as I can though, mixing it up with the new, blue one :)
Bulalo
Read about Smoke risto's award-winning Bulalo soup while researching about filipino cuisine, so there I went to try it out.
It came piping hot, so I removed the meat and cabbage and put it nicely over the rice. Also got a bit of chili oil on the side which I obviously dumped right down in the soup.
I also got a little friend laying under the table, probably smelling the glorious
For you who doesn't know, bulalo is a beef shank soup with the broth made from boiling the meat on the bones. Usually contains chinese cabbage aswell if I understood it right.
So I went to this very small local restaurant located on the outskirts of the tourist bubble. Ordered one with rice on the side;
It came piping hot, so I removed the meat and cabbage and put it nicely over the rice. Also got a bit of chili oil on the side which I obviously dumped right down in the soup.
Ate the meat and other beautiful beef tissue while the soup took its time to cool down. Tried to spoon up some soup in between each bite to fuse the different elements together. Jelly-like beef tissue/fat, soft, ultra slow cooked beef so tender you're ready to die. Broth just as salty as it should be, and also the extra sting of the chili oil. Oh my god... Extremely divine.
At the later part of the meal when the temperatures went to a good level, I just put everything on the plate and dumped it into the soup bowl (correction; what was left). All the flavors and textures came together to be ridiculously good.
I also got a little friend laying under the table, probably smelling the glorious
aroma better than I do. At that moment, there was nowhere I'd rather be.
