THE NOBLE PRIZE
Its history as a trading crossroads makes Malaysia an exciting food destination, with a sizzling blend of the familiar and the exotic, says Nina Caplan
ON a steamy, sunny morning at Kuala Lumpur’s Imbi Market, an Anglo-Australian and a Francophile Canadian took the advice of two Chinese-Malay strangers and tried kari mee, a dish of soupy noodles.
This impromptu multicultural exchange, with lunch, was very Malaysian. The Strait of Malacca has been a trading highway for more than 1 000 years, with incoming merchants and labourers depositing ingredients and recipes that have made Malaysia a puzzling, yet tasty, blend of familiarity and difference. Take kari mee (delicious, incidentally): Indians don’t put soup on their noodles and the Chinese aren’t known for flavouring theirs with kari or, as we call it, curry.
Malaysian cuisine is relatively little known. Perhaps it’s simply too diverse. We may have become self-conscious about reducing a continent’s gastronomic traditions to, say, tandoori chicken and balti, but that doesn’t mean we welcome the strain of understanding influences that range from Thailand to the Netherlands to a multitude of regional Chinese traditions. Then there are the specialised flavours of the Peranakans, descendants of Chinese immigrants who cultivated a culture that includes nyonya, a form of cooking so timeconsuming that it was until recently — and despite its deliciousness — dying out.
We had conceived our trip as a threecourse meal, with Penang the starter and Malacca the main course.
Kuala Lumpur would be the dessert.
Penang isn’t big — fortunately, because we kept getting distracted by food so delicious and cheap that stretchiness of waistband rather than wallet was the only stricture.
After a quick stop for char koay teow — flat noodles fried with prawns, sausage and duck egg — we sat down at Kabee Café’s outdoor tables. These offered some respite for those likely to wince at the café’s neonbright interior, although with the fierce chillies in the squid-pocked tomyam soup, we were wincing anyway. Walking home past a night market, we soothed our taste buds with sea snails flavoured with curry leaves, accompanied by chilled beer. One of Malaysia’s charms is that alcohol doesn’t bother the teetotallers: little bars adjoin shops selling coverings for observant Muslim heads. The main concession to Islam is that Chinese food here contains far less pork than you might expect.
The next day, we rounded Penang’s northeast point, stopping at the wonderful fruit stall on Ah Quee Street before entering the cool confines of the Eastern & Oriental Hotel. This colonial bastion has repurposed street food for palace-dwellers. Premium mutton was gently curried; succulent satay had nothing in common with those desperate little sticks you see in Britain. It’s not hard for fish-head curry to taste better than it sounds, but this rich seafood stew was wonderful.
Malaysia’s great luck is its fruitfulness. Markets overflow with fuchsia dragon fruit and vermilion chillies, and possibilities for pescatarians are astonishing.