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The Malaysian Fascination: Food
 What do you do when you visit Malaysia? Sure, there
are the usual things to see and do – the Petronas Twin Towers beckon
from the Kuala Lumpur skyline, Penang’s got plenty of exotic looking
temples to explore and Malacca is a haven for history buffs. You can
lounge at the beach, prowl in the nightclubs and shop until your credit
card melts. Talk to any local however and you’ll quickly come up against
one of the most unusual and quirkily charming facets of Malaysian
culture: when it comes to getting a visitor’s impressions of the
country, no one really cares where you went – they’re more interested in
what you’re eating. The universal question to the tourist in Malaysia is
not, “What are you doing?” or “Where are you going?” but “What have you
eaten?”
A cultural obsession
The national fixation on filling the stomach also has a lot to do with
culture. Every culture in Malaysia – and there are a lot of cultures
forming the complex mosaic known as ‘Malaysian culture’ – puts a great
emphasis on food. A meal in Malaysia is not just a chance to fuel up the
body: it is a social event, a show of love and caring, a chance to bond
with newcomers and old friends, a way of showing comradeship between
even the most disparate of persons. Any meal taken alone is a tragedy.
Every festival or special occasion calls for a feast, which many
families will willingly go into debt to finance.
Saying that the Malaysian lifestyle revolves around food is only a
slight exaggeration. The average day is marked by the progression of
meals: breakfast at home, a tea break at about 10 in the morning, lunch
at about 12, a tea break about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, home for dinner
in the evening, a trip late at night to the coffee shops to share a
quick bite and a cup of tea with friends and all the snacks in between.
In every government office and even most private companies, a ‘tea
break’ is a perfectly acceptable reason for employees to disappear to
the nearest coffee shop. At any time of the day or night, in every city
or town, there will always, always, be someplace serving food. Drive
around any part of Kuala Lumpur at any hour and you’ll see crowds of
Malaysian sitting around the ubiquitous coffee shops and hawker stalls,
chatting away.
Given the importance of food, it’s hardly surprising that Malaysia has a
huge variety of food available. Malaysian cuisine is as kaleidoscopic as
the populace itself, with the main cuisines being Malay, Chinese and
Indian. There are, however, countless dishes borrowed from other
cuisines, as well as an exhaustive selection of international cuisines.
Caution! Good
food ahead
The Malaysian love of eating has a number of consequences on the foreign
visitor. For one thing, most visitors have a little trouble adjusting to
Asian concepts of dietary acceptability. In Malaysia, the food offerings
range from pig’s trotters to jungle herbs and raw shellfish; many of
which turn a guest’s stomach. For many visitors, a meal in Malaysia is
an adventure all in itself. It might be of some comfort to visitors to
know that even Malaysians sometimes refuse the more exotic dishes; but
even such finicky eaters have a certain disdain towards a foreigner’s
queasiness over some of the bizarre dishes set before them.
Also, most visitors who have Malaysian friends are easy prey. Most
Malaysians love to share their own favourite dishes with their guests.
Unfortunately, for those unused to the heavily spiced and well-oil
foods, this can lead to a prolonged acquaintance with the nearest
bathroom. In fact, most young Malaysians cheerfully admit to making a
game out of testing their visitor’s tolerance. Quite often though,
their guests are willing participants. If the visitor actually likes the
dishes he eats, he may even be hailed as a Malaysian at heart and
adopted as a long-lost relative.
If you’re interested in sampling Malaysian cuisine but are worried about
a delicate stomach, you might try the numerous hotel restaurants. As
expected, many of the local dishes offered in these establishments have
been adjusted to accommodate the guest’s sensitivities.
Where to go
for some good Malaysian food
 If you feel more adventurous, you might try exploring the food shops and
hawker stalls on your own. To get to the really good stuff however, the
best bet is to ask a local. If you haven’t got a local friend, then ask
the staff of the hotel you’re staying in. You can even ask a random
passer-by, and if he’s a local, he’ll probably set you on the way to
something good.
Of course, if you want REALLY good, cheap food, your best bet is to
get
out of Kuala Lumpur. In Malaysia, it is held to be self-evident that
food outside the capital city is fresher, cheaper and a hundred times
better. Once outside however, the destination depends on what you feel
like eating. If it’s chicken rice, then most people head for Ipoh, where
the chicken rice is said to be particularly good because of the calcium
in the water from the surrounding limestone hills. Though not
scientifically proven, no one really cares as long as they can eat. For
a slightly different chicken rice style, you can go to Malacca, which
offers chicken rice balls, in which rice is served in a sticky
ball.
Then there’s Penang. This little island has a reputation among
Malaysians as being a food haven and it would be a tragedy for visitors
to come without trying to food. In Penang, the really good food is sold
at the hawker stalls. Here, it would be somewhat pointless to ask locals
for their opinion on what the best food is: almost everyone has their
own favourites and you’d never be able to try everything anyway. There
are however a few ‘must-try’s. One of the most quintessentially Penang
dishes is nasi kandar, an Indian rice dish eaten with a variety of meats
and vegetables. Unfortunately, the description does absolutely no
justice to the dish. There are a handful of shops selling really good
nasi kandar, but one of the really popular places for it is in a little
alley lost in the warrens of Penang streets, commonly known as Line
Clear. Another really lovely dish is char kway teow or fried noodles.
One of the most popular stalls belongs to a grumpy old lady (ask a local, they'll all know her). If you manage to make it off
Penang, then try and stop off at Seberang Prai, the shoreline just
opposite the island. A little judicious poking around should turn up
some of the freshest, tastiest seafood in the entire country, cooked in
a wide variety of styles and cheap enough to justify a gluttonous feast.
In the more rural areas of the country, the majority of the cuisine is
Malay and one of the most popular Malay dishes is laksa. This fish based
soup dish comes in a variety of styles depending on the state – up north
in Kedah, the soup is served with thick white noodles, in Penang it
comes in a tangy, slightly sweetish asam style with flat rice noodles
and down south in Johor, the soup much richer and is served with
spaghetti noodles. In fact, many dishes are prepared differently depending on which part of the country you're in, but that just makes the eating out experience all the more interesting.
There’s almost no end to the dishes available, especially for
particularly brave souls. Newcomers to Malaysia may be bewildered at the
huge variety available, but really – the best way to see Malaysia is to
ask a local where to eat. You’ll get a good meal, experience some local
colour and if you’re especially brave, may even become an honorary
Malaysian along the way.
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