Reminiscence of Malaysian street food [2]

A great attraction of the Malaysian food scene is the Hawker center. A place where hawkers are garthered on a small perimeter, some having exercised their skills for years, or for generations, competing for reputation. Gurnley Drive in Georgetown on Pulau Penang is one of these places, and has acquired quite a notoriety. Some Islanders will tell you that it has become more touristy in the last years, but obviously I could not vouch for that, and I decided to see for myself anyway.
Gurnley drive is a long corridor with tables in the middle and hawkers on its sides. I did find that there was a repetition of dishes, and not knowing the reputation of each hawker, I had to try what took my fancy. But before eating I had a walk around, which did not prove to make my decision easier.

I took a few pictures of some interesting stalls, like what I would call the food on stick stall, with fishballs, sausages,seafood (shrimps, baby squids)...:

The Popiah stall, another very famous Malaysian specialty, a cold illed pancake:

The soup stall, which possibly of chinese origin, a huge choice of ingedients from which you choode what will make up your soup: noodles, seafood, tofus, leafy greens, fish ball, fish paste filled vegetables, offals... name it, it's there!

Soup which is prepared for you to take to one of the central tables.

By the way, on some stalls, you seat at the table, and somebody takes your order, and you get to pay at the end of the meal. On most hawker centers, you choose a table, then go and order your food and drinks and pay for it at the different hawkers, then the dishes are brought to you.

I loved one of the sweet stalls, the apom stall, where little banna pancakes (the poms) were baked and folded in two.

At the same stall were also made very thin pancakes that were rolled whilst still hot

No need to say, impossible to starve out there!
In the midst of our meal, came an unexpected downpour of rain, and most people left, although a few stayed under the umbrellas, undisturbed, including us...

I hope you enjoyed this little visit, I have not quite finished my series of posts on Malaysian foods, so keep your eyes peeled...

Reminiscence of Malaysian street food [1]

NASI LEMAK

I travelled to Malaysia last year, where I had a great food experience. I was looking at the photos I took then, and thought I should share some of the food I had over there. Here's a snipet of some of the food I had in Georgetown in Penang.

I will start with with Nasi Lemak, the national dish of Malaysia. As we were walking to town from our Hotel to town, we had the incredible luck to pass a (weekly!) craft market where one stall was local women had made food to sell for charity. So we were very glad to be served home made Nasi Lemak! the tasty cold dish was excellent and so fresh!

For the whole holiday, I had been looking for any opportunity to find some roti canai, an ossession of mine, since I have heard that it is the same bread used in Thailand to make the banana pancake (see previous blog post).
The dish is a roti bread served hot with curries for breakfast and originates from India and can be found everywhere in Malaysia. We ate the best one at a little cafe in the Little India quarter.

The Roti Canai was perfect (sorry, I started eating it before I took the photo, I could not resist...):

And it was served with a selection of six beautiful curries!
I also took the photos of the'making of' since making the Roti itself is an magic art and requireexperience and skills:

I could not resist and ordered other breads, like roti tissue (ahem, this one got eaten before it could be photographed but you can see what it looks like here), Dhosa:

And all the breads were the best I've had during the whole trip. Unforunately, I was too full to be able to taste one of the puri bread from the mountain that had just been produced:

That day, when I found that little Indian cafe the breads were so good, that I almost fainted, like the Imam!
To be followed...

Summer tortilla wraps

Sometimes, and especially in summer - and i know some of you still have a gorgeous weather - , I fancy something fresh and easy and sloppy. the wraps provide me with the best answer for that.
They are great for using up what's in your fridge as well. They are also very healty.

I always have greek yoghurt,greens, tomatoes and herbs, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and eggs or ham as far as proteins are concerned, so I can always manage something. They are different everytime of course

The wrap illustrated contained:
- 1 wrap
- Greek yogurt,
- 1 hard boiled egg,
- balsamic vinegar,
- tomatoes,
- gem lettuce,
- fresh chive,
- guacamole
- sliced mushroom

Source: my own imagination

Streetfood: voted best.....

,...by me

The banana pancake, a must of thai street food! The best pancakes we found (come on, of course we tried a few!!!) were made by Indian and Bangladeshi people in the street (always with mobile kitchens of course..). The pancake originates from India but spread all over Asia under different disguise. I found it in malaysia as Roti Canai, served for breakfast and with curries, but no banana in sight. It's amazing to see how different Thai and Malay foods are considering they are neighbours...

Some observations: no banana tastes or behaves like these in Europe, there is quite a lot of fats used to make them (I absolutely can't care they are too superlicious), and they are soft and crunchy at the same time owwww!. Ah, and I miss street food so much.

All is left to me in Europe is to look at this video I made when I was in Chiang Mai over, and over, and over again....

So watch out, I might try to cook it sometimes..