Ariel had a friend down from Hong Kong and it’s her 1st visit. So, naturally as Malaysians, we’d show our friends from out of town our number 1 attraction – food. Here starts our journey of eating like a Malaysian.
The 6 meal path
It was said that we Malaysians eat a lot. Instead of 4 meals a day, we can eat up to 6 meals a day. This includes:
- Breakfast
- Morning tea
- Lunch
- Afternoon tea
- Dinner
- Support (better known as mamak)
Starting with the morning, we went for our national dish; nasi lemak (fat rice – litteral translation), at Village Park in Damansara Uptown. It was my 1st visit to this place too and after eating my first spoon of rice, I understood right away the attraction. The rice was very fragrant and the sambal (pronounced sum-bal) was just nice.
Unfortunately, I had to avoid the fried chicken because my sore throat wasn’t giving up on me. Damn you! 🙁
Morning tea – I think
After we took some time to kill and digest, we went off to SS15, Subang Jaya. I’m not a die-hard food hunter, however Hawk brought us to another food gem I never knew about, though Ariel did. We took our friend to have some rojak (mixed fruit) and cendol (traditional dessert).
Once again, I had to avoid the rojak because I was concerned the sauce would irritate my throat too much. And why do I care so much for my throat? Well, I’ve still meetings to attend the coming week and I don’t want to mime my clients later.
I did have some coconut next door and it was really refreshing. Plus, there was a lot of the coconut meat to eat. By the end of that, I was already full to the brim and I knew this was enough for lunch.
No room for lunch
Our earlier meals were still lingering in our stomachs. So we decided to take our time in Aquaria. And this was my 1st time, watching the feeding session at the main hall. However, me and Ariel with our backs to the wall could only catch glimpses of the fishes. Or, the much larger ones like the stingray, sea turtle and sand tiger shark. The shark was as big as the diver?!
Skipping lunch, we chilled at the food court and took in some ais kacang aka ABC (air batu campur), otherwise known; mixed ice shaving. This was another meal I evaded because of the sugar content found in this dessert.
The rest considered dropping into Pavillion or Sungei Wang, just to show our friend what those places were like, but I had to suggest for us to go back. It wasn’t so much of my throat but my body was feeling aches and I felt like I had chills once in awhile.
Preparing for dinner
After resting up, we headed over to Bangsar for some banana leaf rice. We found a great parking right in front of the Nirvana restaurant – wooohooo! It was already quite busy but we got seats in less than 10 minutes.
The mutton curry here is spicier than the one I frequent at Jalan 222. But I’ve to admit the deep fried bitter gourd here is tastier. So I pretty much killed my throat in the night.
Ending the night with mamak
Once we were done checking out both Bangsar Village centres, we headed on over to William’s for supper. The #1 dish we’ve introduced to most of our overseas friends here is the cheese naan. And we always tell them it was a must to eat it after dipping into the condensed milk. No questions asked – no matter how disgusting your friends may think it is. Because you’ll see their face light up and admit how good it is later. 😀
So that’s 5 out of 6 meals, as we tried our best to eat the Malaysian way. If we maybe had less rojak and cendol, our bloated stomachs would’ve some room for fried koay teow. Or, maybe we went wrong somewhere else? Hmm…