Tom Pepinsky

Category: Food and Drink

  • Munching Through KL

    (Many readers may not realize that this blog started off nearly 10 years ago as basically a travel and food blog for two twenty-somethings spending a year in Southeast Asia. This post is written in that earlier mode.)

    I haven’t been back to Kuala Lumpur in awhile. It’s changed since I’ve been here: more traffic, more new construction, and a new urban vibe. I went to my first Malaysian “third-wave coffee” shop, which is a new trend in KL. My guess is that we’re seeing a new transformation in Malaysia’s middle class, one that might prove just as important as the first conspicuous transformation of the late 1980s/early 1990s. I know that this is a rather banal statement for longtime Malaysia watchers, but it’s good to see it first hand.

    But enough about that. I really came here to eat, and that’s what I’ve done. I had 16 hours from arrival in downtown KL to departure for the airport. Here’s what I did.

    Stop 1 (Friday, 5 PM): Bangsar

    Sri Nirwana Maju is the first place JM and I ever had banana leaf rice. It’s also one of my favorites.

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    Inside, uniformed waiters walking around with pulses, pickles, and lots of good things.
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    A classic banana leaf plate, with iced lemon tea on the side.
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    Stop 2: (Friday, 7:30 PM): Jalan Alor

    I believe that this is the first place that JM and I ever went out to eat in KL. It’s in the Bukit Bintang neighborhood, which was always touristy but which strikes me as noticeably more so than it did when we first came here.
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    My friends and I tried “W.A.W,” which comes recommended by many.
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    Normally, JM and I liked to get the whole grilled fish plus lemon chicken. My friends had other ideas, and they were excellent choices.
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    In the back, fried kangkong with garlic and grilled stingray. In the front, Marmite Frogs Legs. Yes, you read that right—colonialism for the win!—and they were delicious.

    Stop 3 (Saturday, 7 AM): Mesjid Jamek

    A morning bite: karipap from a hawker, enjoyed at sunrise looking over Mesjid Jamek.
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    Stop 4 (Saturday, 7:45 AM): Pasar Sentral

    KL’s Central Market is closed this early in the morning, but there is a nice mamak restaurant located nearby that feeds a lot of the people setting up to open the market later.
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    They do a pretty good roti canai. It’s chewier than I prefer, without the crispness that sets the best roti canai apart.
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    But the curries and teh tarik were outstanding.

    Stop 5 (Saturday, 8:30 AM): Jalan Petaling

    The last stop before heading back to catch my train is Jalan Petaling, which has a couple of nice Chinese hawker places nearby.
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    After all of that food, even a small plate of pork cheong fun was almost too much. Almost.
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  • Tiong Bahru Market

    (Many readers may not realize that this blog started off nearly 10 years ago as basically a travel and food blog for two twenty-somethings spending a year in Southeast Asia. This post is written in that earlier mode.)

    Tiong Bahru is one of Singapore’s older neighborhoods. It’s also right in the middle of the gentrification process, which means something rather more extreme than it does in the US: highrise luxury apartments towering over more modest HDB housing. For the time being, though, Tiong Bahru retains its old-style character, and nothing captures it better than Tiong Bahru Market (which is, ironically, not that old).

    This past Tuesday was a public holiday (Vesak Day), so I met an old college friend and her family at the Tiong Bahru Market for brunch. This is what many in Singapore call a “hawker center,” a centralized food court where small food vendors can sell inexpensive food under safe, regulated conditions (in true Singapore fashion).
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    It also has a nice regular market downstairs.
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    The produce looked particularly enticing, and had me wondering if I could find a proper kitchen to try things out before I left.
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    I’m a sucker for duck, so I found a semi-crowded vendor and got a big order of duck noodles.
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    Combined with good company and a pleasant almost-three-year-old who insisted on using chopsticks, it made for a great Vesak Day morning.
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    What you see in this picture are my duck noodles, an oyster omelet, an order of “carrot cake” (which has no carrots and is not a cake—it’s eggs with glutinous rice), and an order of tau fu fa.