EatingAsia

Shameless Self-Promotion

"Caution! Lemang"

Billboard advising that deliciousness lies ahead, coastal highway, Pahang, Malaysia

A couple of months ago KLue, a hip Malaysian "lifestyle" (arts and culture, fashion, food) magazine geared towards the country's young and with-it set (neither of those adjectives describes me, by the way) devoted an issue to the internet. A wee bit of space was devoted to Malaysian food blogs -- two, to be exact.

I took issue. I mean, come on, only two? There are many, many Malaysians (and non-Malaysians living in Malaysia) blogging about food. And I didn't feel the selections were representative of the breadth and depth of amateur food coverage out there (here). And so, I wrote a letter to the editor.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the January issue to find it had been chosen "Letter of the Month" (prize: six free issues). Just one problem -- when KLUE reprinted my letter it dropped entire clauses from the third sentence, rendering it completely senseless. Editing correspondence is expected, but not when it makes the writer look like a complete illiterate. Especially embarassing, when further on in the same letter I tout the "quality writing" of my own blog.

Oh well, no such thing as bad publicity, right? I'm hoping a wider readership might bring forth ever more yummy tips that I can follow up in future "Suggestion Box" posts.

Herewith, my letter -- all of it.

Dear Editor,

Generally a good and quite useful issue, but I was a bit disappointed with your list of Malaysian food blogs: 1) too short -- there are so many of us out here!; and 2) kind of an odd selection -- one high-end dining-oriented blog that, frankly, is of limited use due to the lack of commentary, and one street food-savvy blog with only a small number of back posts (though I am definately looking forward to more from Dr. Yap).

Why not include eatingasia.typepad.com, a food blog by a non-Malaysian who eats like one, with quality writing and oodles of droolworthy Malaysian food porn? With more than three solid months of posts already up, EatingAsia was one of five southeast Asian food blogs featured in a recent article in the Harvard Law School-associated online blogosphere-centric publication Global Voices Online.

And yes, it's written by me.

Meals On Wheels (First in a Series)

Nasi lemak, delivered to your door ... or construction site.

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Would That I Had More Neighbors Like This

For almost five months we've been mourning the closure of a neighborhood bookstore and cafe that served a lip-tinglingly spicy laksa Kedah (the operators also read horoscopes, but that's another story).  As soon as the doors closed for the last time a sign went up in the window, encouraging customers to patronize the restaurant that would take its place in 4 weeks. A month later, no indications of life -- week after week the storefront remained darkened behind papered-over windows. There's great food all over KL, but we missed having deliciousness so close at hand, just down the hill.

Happy New Year to us! Just after 2005 receded from view the little shopfront re-opened as Pinang Masak, a cafe serving food crafted from "traditional kampung recipes". Lacking a Malaysian kampung background - and still with less than six months of KL eating under my belt - I'm not in a position to judge the veracity of that claim. But our first meal at Pinang Masak last weekend was promising enough to assure our return.

PM's owners have got an orange kind of thing going on here - bright orange awning, orange and white sign, sponged orange walls on the inside. Makes me think of a creamsicle. A few tables outside on the fan-cooled porch, and about 8 more inside. For tube addicts there's a flatscreen that's visible from just about any table (indoors or out); luckily the sound is rarely on. For food addicts there's a glass case just inside the door filled with delectable kuih and a nasi (rice) and sides serving station with a fairly extensive selection of dishes opposite to the TV.

On this visit we stuck to one-dish meals: laksa Penang and lontong Singapore. As we sat at our outside table, sipping mango juice (keeping with the orange theme) and peeling our complimentary rambutan (nice touch) an obviously satiated foursome trundled out the door and, after determining that we were not reporters (the tripod, the notebook) but just generic nuts who take pictures of and notes about everything we eat, wished us a good lunch.

Dave's laksa Penang was a joy to behold, and to taste.

All the elements were there: a couple of prawns, lip-puckering gravy (truth to be told I could have gone with a bit more sour), a good hit of chili heat, thick and toothsome fresh rice noodles. Despite the insufficient sourness this version struck a high note, for me, with the abundance of shredded fish floating about the sauce. The dish arrived with every component draped in a sort of fish-thread coat, making for a satisfyingly rich mouth feel.

I'd like to go into more description but this was Dave's dish, and neither of us were much into sharing this time around.

My lontong was a pleasant surprise. I'd been expecting rice rolls something like lemang, with a thick, meaty curry on the side for dipping. What I got was a bowl of very thin and not too coconut-y curry "soup" crowded with stubs of green bean, strands of mee xin bean thread noodles, half a hard-boiled egg, chunks of what might have been jicama, and soybeans three ways (firm tofu, dried and reconstituted tofu, and tempeh). All crowned with shredded coconut dry-fried with palm sugar, dried chilies and, if I'm not mistaken, chopped peanuts.

Intact semi-circles of pressed rice (the lontong) his underneath it all, soaking up the soupy goodness.

A dish notable in several ways. First, I'd never heard of it before. Maybe it's a creation of PM's cook's imagination - lontong Singapore. Maybe a it's a true Singaporean dish. Maybe a reader can enlighten: is lontong often served in this fashion, as the base for a thin curry?

Second, the coconut-palm sugar topping was hot - and thus, quite fragrant - when the bowl arrived at the table. This is a laudable bit of attention to detail, frying the condiment garnish to order rather than scooping it up from a prepared pile at the workstation. Third, the tempeh was not fried, the first time I've ever encountered it so. It may have been blanced before it was added to the curry, but without a crunchy coating its slightly fermented, soy bean-iness came through deliciously.

Finally, it's served with a scrumptious sambal that's fiery, fishy and slightly sweet, smoothed with tomato (roasted, perhaps?) and chunky with strands of onion and nubs of garlic. One taste and the whole saucer found its way to my bowl of curry pronto.

Gluttons that we are, we couldn't pass up the offerings in the kuih case, and so finished the meal with a couple of dadar and a glutinous rice/pandan/coconut cream treat.

The dadar's palm sugar-coconut filling was marvellously moist but the pancake wrappers, while fresh, weren't quite springy (or pocked with air holes) enough for me. I've no complaints about dadar's companion.

Pinang Masak has a fairly extensive menu. Other noodles dishes include mee kari, laksa Johor, and mee rebus. The restaurant whips up fresh roti jala at high tea, as well as offering bubur (sweet rice or grain-based porridge), pulut kuning (yellow rice) with rendang or sambal, and satay. ABC and tapai pulut (fermented glutinous rice - a taste I have yet to acquire but hey, I'm willing to give it another try) are on the dessert menu.

Preparing this morning to write up my PM post, I realized that I couldn't possibly draw judgment on the place having tasted only noodles, lontong, and sweets. So in the interest of science - for you, reader - a few hours ago I picked up a bit of rice and samplings of a couple of dishes, to go. PM's rice, unfortunately (for my tastebuds - fortunately for my waistline) is not lemak (cooked with coconut milk or water) but plain white rice. Stink beans dry-fried with sambal and lots of chewy, salty ikan bilis (dried anchovies) is a winner, as are the savory clams stir-fried with sliced onion, chili, a bit more ikan bilis, and a green vegetable that just might have been what I know from Thailand as garlicky cha-om. Both spicy, but not so much as to leave my tongue burning. And both well satisfying.

So far, so good. Further investigation to follow.

Pinang Masak, Langkat Tunku in the complex apartment near Jalan Duta. Tel. 03-6201-1964. Open 7am-7pm, closed Sundays and public holidays.

What (My) Dreams Are Made Of

For an Asian food market fanatic like myself, Kota Baru's Central Market is indeed the stuff of dreams. Outdoors, stall after stall manned by shouting vendors proffering gorgeous fruits; inside, row after row dedicated to nothing but prepared kuih (sweets) and savory snacks in one section and, in another, mound upon mound of vegetables both familiar and mysterious. All buttressed by an admirably chaotic seafood section marked by a nose-wrinkling stench and a floor slippery with scales and guts; an upstairs dry goods section stocked with a mind-boggling array of packaged goods, from sweetly addictive orbs of puffed rice grains bound together with dark palm sugar to ingredients for just about any Malay, Chinese, or Indian dish one might be craving; and an extensive food court where Kelantanese specialties can be ordered to carry out or enjoyably eaten in.

To top it off, much of the market's colorful action takes place on the floor of a hexagonal, perspex-roofed atrium (below), allowing voyeurs (and photographers) willing to climb a few stairs to the second and third floors a bird's-eye view of the comings, goings, and tradings.

Women rule the market roost at the KB Central Market, making up the majority of inside vendors. In the atrium, these ladies sell from the center of low-to-the-ground wooden platforms, their goods arranged around them on all sides. This vendor - mother of five, as she proudly informed us - called Dave over to take her photograph and, after unsmilingly staring down the lens for a minute or two, allowed her good humor to get the better of her.

Though the usual vegetal suspects (cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, ginger and garlic and cilantro and mint and such) - are in evidence, there's much on display here to pique the cook's (or eater's) curiosity.

Turtle eggs are a local delicacy. Those of the leatherback turle are officially off-limits (it's possible to view the protected species laying their eggs nocturnally on Terengganu and Kelantan beaches at certain times of the year) but those of other species are legally collected and sold. I'm not of the if-it's-there-eat-it persuasion, but they yolks are said to remain liquid long after the whites have cooked through.

Wild mushrooms supplement the abundant, snow-white oyster variety. They're virtually a staple at  primarily Malay-food markets like Temerloh town's Pekan Sehari.

I'm hoping a knowledgeable reader can identify these two vegetables: a long, firm, thick-skinned olive green "leaf" (under okra bundles) which was referred to by its vendor as, I think, peko,

and a green stem adorned by both leaves and whispy fronds.

In Kelantan it's rice rather than noodles that rule, and the Central Market's food hall is an ideal place to track down a couple of Kelantanese rice specialties: nasi kerabu and nasi dagang.

The former dish is based on rice tinted blue - traditionally, from petals of bunga telaga (pea flower, clitoria) but now often from dye - and the latter on nutty, reddish unevenly milled rice cooked in coconut milk or water. Stalls serving these specialties offer a variety of prepared dishes, from huge tiger prawns cooked in chili sauce to hard-boiled eggs and simple stir-fries of mixed vegetables, to go with the rice.

Front and center above is the well-known Kelantanese dish of small squid stuffed with glutinous rice and braised in a sweet sauce.

Nasi kerab is served garnished with ulam (fresh vegetables and herbs like bean sprouts, shredded cabbage, and peppery daun kesom leaves) and grated coconut that has been fried with chilies and palm sugar; a generous dab of sambal and a few kerepok (crispy fish crackers) complete the picture.

This vendor's nasi dagang was perfectly delicious; note how the individual rice grains remain distinct (rather than clumping together in a heavy, oily mass), indicating that the rice has been steamed instead of boiled. Chicken stewed in spicy coconut gravy until it's nearly falling off the bone and fresh, briney clams stir-fried with onions, green beans, and chilies are the perfect complement.

Though rice is Kelantan's favorite starch, noodles can be had as well, in the form of laksam. These thick, sticky noodle rolls are doused in a sweet fish and coconut gravy and garnished much as nasi kerabu is, with a tangle of fresh herbs and vegetables and a decent dose of fishy and spicy sambal.

In three visits to KB's Central Market we barely scratched the surface of the prepared edible offerings available in the magnificent food hall. But we managed to make a decent dent - I'm still working off the kilos gained in those four days - and gained exposure to enough wonderful treats to convince me that a return trip is most definately in order.

Kota Baru Central Market. Things get going around 8am; it's open till about 4p or so, though the food hall starts to peter out around 2p.

Banana Leaf Fish Fry

We have no quarrel with competitors who charge less. After all, they know what their food is worth.

So declares a sign posted by the cash register at PJ (Petaling Jaya) Indian banana leaf hotspot Raju. Dave and I ended up here on the recommendation of - once again - this KL food blogger. Though we planned to eat large (as usual), we came to sample ikan bulus, a small fish rumored to go so crispy in the deep-fryer that it can be eaten bones and all.

On this day the display case fronting Raju's indoor seating area, and flanked on one side by an outdoor cooker topped by 3 blackened pots of bubbling oil, offered - in addition to ikan bulus (middle row, furthest left) - pomfret, mackerel, red mullet, thick slabs of something resembling sea bass, fish maw, crab, squid ... and chicken. All had been wallowing for a period in a thick, orange-red paste (in the white tub) of chili, turmeric, tamarind, and other unknown ingredients. Ordering the ikan bulus was a given; squid was an add-on.

Large squares of banana leaf materialized in front of us almost almost immediately after we sat ourselves at one of the Raju's communal outdoor tables, and were soon covered with a heap of vittles, starting with steamed white rice. A choice of fragrant gravies (fish, chicken, or dhal),

a mound of silky sauteed spinach,

a spoonful of cooling cucumber and pineapple salad, a dab of tender turmeric-spiced gourd, and a couple of pappadum followed in quick succession. When our fish arrived a couple of moments later, it seemed only fitting that it be given pride of place atop each of our bounteous banana leaf feasts.

Our ikan bulus turned out to be too large to down bones and all - but that's a commentary on the size of these particular specimens rather than on Raju's fry job, which was exemplary. Many of the smaller bones, shattering at the nudge of a fork, were indeed edible, and the skin was deliciously spicy with a hint of sour and, notably, grease-free. Ikan bulus itself has exceptionally tasty and sweet snowy-white flesh; we both finished our portions wishing for more.

Notable also are Raju's fish gravy (pungently piscene with a nice curry edge),

dhal (packed with black mustard seeds, cumin-y, mild, and comforting), and a lip-searing sour and bitter mango pickle that must be hunted down because it isn't automatically offered with other banana leaf toppers.

Haven't had enough heat? Don't forget these beauties that turn up (if you ask for them) at just about every Indian food house in town:

Dried red chilies with a massive dose of fire power, deep fried and heavily salted. A little pressure with the convex side of a spoon reduces them to an almost powdery mass, perfect for sprinkling on bland rice and perking up neutral vegetables; their extreme salinity is oddly addictive.

I couldn't close without praising the squid which, though not quite as expertly fried as that at Muhibbah (a bit of grease clung to these pieces) - and that may be a function of the marinade, which could be an oil-absorber - nonetheless begged to be eaten, one piece right after another.

Raju Restaurant, Jalan Chantek 5/13 (off Jalan Gasing), Petaling Jaya.

When Simple is Scrumptious

Woo Lan is a Brickfields institution. On previous (and, unfortunately, camera-less) visits to this 40-plus-year-old Chinese-Malaysian eatery we've devoured carp head-and-shoulders smothered in a delightfully hot and pungent ginger sauce, sweet-sticky pork ribs slow-stewed in Guiness, and ultra-fresh prawns cooked to perfection in a clay pot.

On a recent overcast Sunday we stopped in for a simple lunch of Woo Lan's specialty noodle dish, mee sua, and a plate of greens. At the tail-end of the afternoon service the place was nearly empty and we were greeted with little more than a grunt from the proprietress (who, understandably, was probably more interested in sitting down to her own lunch than in serving ours).

Greens arrived first - kangkong (aka morning glory and water spinach) lightly stir-fried with thick slices of garlic. Leaves tender, stems still a bit crispy, well-seasoned, and oily but not too oily. Good greens.

And then the mee sua, a study in simplicity. Thin rice noodles tossed in oil (or, in light of the flavorous punch this dish packed, was it lard? I suspect so.) and heaped on a platter, topped with crunchy stir-fried napa cabbage, slices of chewy deep-fried gluten, tender pork shreds, a couple of eggs sunny-side down (yolks broken), and extra-crispy pieces of deep-fried seaweed. No sauce, no gravy, nothing but oil-or-lard to bind the ingredients into a delectable whole.

Noodles. Egg. Pig. Gluten. Cabbage. Seaweed. Animal fat. Mix on the plate or in your mouth.

Glorious.

Woo Lan Restaurant. 19 Jalan Scott, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. Noon-3pm and 6-10pm. Tel. 03-2274-8368.

Marvelous Mee in Kuala Terengganu

Kuala Terengganu doesn't get much travel press. This town in Terengganu state on Malaysia's east coast is better known as a way station en route to the paradisical Perhentian Islands than as a destination in and of itself.

Which is a shame, because while it's true that the town isn't particularly large and may not have much to offer in the way of nightlife, it does have a few attractions that make it worth at least an overnight pit stop. An ideal morning jaunt is to KT's sprawling central market housed in a pleasing old building; see it now, before it's moved to a spanking-new, characterless mall that will be the curse of the town's riverfront in about a year or so. The town's wonderful state museum, with its impressive collection of traditional Terengganu art and handicrafts (too bad the majority of the display labels are in bahasa Malaysia only) with a few lovely old, reconstructed traditional Malay wooden houses dotted around its peaceful, park-like grounds, can easily occupy an afternoon.

And then there's KT's tiny Chinatown. Occupying just three or four continuous blocks of riverfront real estate, the area is a treasure trove of vintage wooden shophouses

and picturesquely moldering cement buildings with ornate facades.

Around 8 o'clock on a Tuesday morning last month, a couple hours before the central market up the street would kick into full gear, the area's quiet was broken by just a couple of cars and motorbikes, but more than a few bicycles and pedicabs.

And the din emitting from the front of this long and narrow Chinese kopitiam (coffee shop) near the Chinatown bridge, stuffed to the rafters and doing a ferocious business.

The specialties here? Coffee, toast and kaya (more on that delectable Malaysian combo later), and noodles. With just one cook, two woks, and a roomful of mouths to feed, food prep up front happens at warp speed.

At this point it's worth asking: at the pace she moves, over two constantly smoking woks, how is it that this chef-ess manages not only to avoid breaking a sweat, but to keep her make-up flawless as well?

Coffee and toast kept the hungries at bay while we waited the twenty minutes or so that it took our hokkien mee to be plated.

Thick, squared-off yellow noodles, egg, pork slices, and pieces of round cabbage generously sauced in dark soy -- tasty enough.

But, as nearly any Malaysian will tell you, the defining feature of a stellar hokkien mee is lard. That's right, artery-clogging, pudge-producing animal fat. Hokkien mee fried in lard, possessing an undefinable extra dimension of piggy smokiness, is sublime in a way that even the best hokkien mee fried in plain oil never can be.

And this dish of noodles? Plenty lard-ful. 'Nuff said.

Followed up by a superb dish that our elfin waitress (curiously enough, the same woman who had waited on us the night before at Straits Restoran; apparently the Chinese community in KT is not large) dubbed simply "Cantonese noodles". For this treat pork shreds, egg, and Chinese broccoli leaves, suspended in a superbly comforting meat broth-based gravy,

are ladelled atop a handful of  mee xin (dried skinny rice noodles) that have been deep-fried into a crispy, golden nest.

The gravy itself is mouth-wateringly mellow: smooth, eggy, and richly meaty. Expertly crisped mee  somehow absorbs the gravy in some spots while repelling it in others, creating a combination of soft noodles, still-crisp noodles, and noodles somewhere in between, moistly chewy with a pleasant "stickiness". I do love my lard but if push were to come to shove I'd have to rate this primo plateful a notch or two above the hokkien mee. [And if any KL readers know where to get a first-class version of this dish in the area, please do advise!]

This little coffeeshop (locals call it Ah Hung, though I couldn't spot a sign on the building) is a gem in Kuala Terengganu's Chinatown, meriting a stop before catching a boat to the islands. The problem as I see it is (especially since food on the islands is rumored to be quite sub-par), as long as Ah Hung is in business, I might never make it to the dock.

Ah Hung Kopitiam, 136 Jalan Bandar (near the bridge), Kuala Terengganu.

Daytrippin': Temerloh's Pekan Sehari

It may be sprawling, its streets may at times be beset by far too many automobiles, it may have more malls per capita than any other Asian city (I don't know this to be true, but it seems like it should be), but Kuala Lumpur isn't exactly a throbbing metropolis. In fact there are times when this city - especially in comparison with Saigon, where the steady thrum of tens of thousands of motorbikes can literally shake your house during rush hours - seems almost laid back.

Still, sometimes a brief escape from the urban landscape appeals. Just one hour and forty-five minutes from KL lies Temerloh, in Malaysia's state of Pahang. This generally sleepy town springs to life on Sunday mornings, when it hosts the "Pekan Sehari", or "one-day market".

Winding for about a mile and a half along one bank of the Pahang River (Malaysia's longest), the Pekan Sehari has a decidedly "Sunday" feel about it. It seems there's nothing that can't be purchased here. In search of motorized toys for the kiddies? Batik sarongs in riotous colors? Dates from Iran, golden raisins from Xinjiang, dried figs from Turkey? A hand-hewn wooden oar, perhaps? Or how about herbal potions for whatever ails you, peddled by a microphone-toting gent with an energy level that belies his going-on-80 years?

As evidenced by the overloaded shopping baskets carried by most visitors, there's no shortage of business being done at this market. But there' also plenty of shuffling and strolling, "window" shopping, and gossiping going on, interspersed with respects payed to town elders, and the showing off of grandkids dressed with care. There's also lots of - this is Malaysia, remember - eating.

Dave and I knew to be on the lookout at the Pekan Sehari for the Pahang delicacy called satar, a paste of fish, coconut, lemongrass, and chilies, wrapped in triangular banana leaf packets, skewered three to a stick, and grilled. We didn't have the heart to tell this vendor that his sales pitch (medical researchers in India have determined that banana leaf fumes and essence promote fitness and health) were wasted on us.

But is it yummy??!! That's all we cared about. That's all we ever care about.

No disappointment here. The female half of this vending duo told us that she has been peddling these beauties at the Pekar Sehari ever since taking voluntary early retirement from HSBC twelve years ago. Between Sundays, when she rises at 5am to pound together ingredients for both the satar and the moist, fishy curry puffs she sells alongside them, the Johor native hikes Taman Negari's jungle trails and pops down to Singapore for the occasional spot of shopping.

Her satar are wonderful - on the spicy side, sweetness balanced by lots of lemongrass, a paste not pounded to mush but studded with discernable shreds of fresh fish. Her husband's skills at the grill are not to be sniffed at either; note the bits of char on the satar, which bestow not only a pleasant smokiness but a nice bit of chew as well.

Most of the market's vendors and customers are Malay, and the majority of vendors selling ingredients are women. We purchased a bottle of fragrant, flowery honey from this friendly woman for less than 3 US dollars; had we been in search of honeycomb, we need have looked no further than a stall away.

In the early nineties Temerloh was promoted by Malaysia's Tourism ministry as "Bandar Ikan Patin" (Town of Patin Fish), after a variety of catfish that is said to derive its especially sweet flavor from the shellfish and aquatic plants particular to the town's stretch of the Pahang River. But now, according to an article earlier this year in Malaysia's New Straits Times, increasing pollution in the river means that the majority of patin sold at the Pekan Sehari and beyond is farmed. In fact, these days patin fish is less in evidence at the market than dried fish, sold whole or, if the fish is especially large, filleted.

Malaysian coffee is not well-known outside of the country; most beans grown here are consumed locally. That's a shame, because in Pahang especially you'll find some exceptionally fine joe. At the Pekan Sehari's halfway point, an elderly gentleman uses a gas-powered grinder to turn Pahang beans into fine powder. The coffee sells for 2 ringgit per 100 grams.

Perched on a low stool next to the coffee vendor is a man selling hard discs of palm sugar with a wondefully rich and complex flavor.

A good portion of the produce sold at the Pekan Sehari is foraged by villagers. Fleshy mushrooms, feathery fungus light as sawdust, long red-leafed fern stems, and bamboo shredded and displayed on banana leaves are just a few of the "wild" items on offer. Buah kuran (known in Brazil as acai and touted for its amazingly high level of anti-oxidents) is a purplish-black fruit with a thin, brittle shell-like rind and a curiously fuzzy, tart interior. Frankly I couldn't quite grasp the attraction of this fruit, which is eaten "shell" and all.

Temerloh's pastel blue and pink mosque marks the market's end, at which point it's time to head back into the fray and get serious about sampling the delectables on offer.

Sweet tooths will leave the Pekan Sehari more than satisfied. Just about every fifth vendor offers dodol, a caramel-like coconcoction of coconut milk and palm sugar that, according to one purveyor, is stirred for a full five hours before being formed into thick pancakes. They'll keep for up to a week at room temperature.

I discovered this luscious treat on our second visit to the market. Dangai consist of two thick, chewy coconut and rice flour cakes sandwiching a sprinkle of coarse-grain white sugar. Lightly grilled on both sides, it tastes a bit like a coconut macaroon that's been kissed by a BBQ.

String hoppers - thin, almost fluffly noodles that are the result when rice flour batter is extruded through a sieve onto a hot convex griddle - are a treat when eaten warm with a sprinkle of brown sugar and grated coconut. These were purchased near to the market's start.

Appam - fluffy "pancakes" that show up in various forms (made from fermented rice flour or not, filled and folded in half or unfilled and sold in the round, crisp-crusted or soft and fluffy throughout) all over Malaysia - can be had "regular" or "special" (filled with chocolate sprinkles, coconut, white sugar, and, yes, canned creamed corn) at a stall near the bus station.

I'm embarassed to admit that the creamed corn-chocolate combo put me off of trying this taste sensation. I'll try to gird my tastebuds and attempt a bite or two next trip to the market.

Aching feet can be rested at any one of several sit-down snack spots. Near the market's end sits a coffee shop advertising noodles and beverages and offering, from it's outdoor tables, a bird's-eye view of market comings and goings against the backdrop of the muddy, slow-moving Pahang.

A short walk from the beginning of the Pekan Sehari, a fiesty granny oversees a canopy-covered family operation selling nasi lemak (rice steamed in coconut milk and served with a choice of meat, fish, and vegetable dishes) and noodles. The mee pedas boast a spicy beef broth fragrant with star anise, ladelled over yellow mee noodles, Chinese celery bits, and fried shallot pieces. It's richness comes not from coconut milk but from a good many beef shreds floating about the bowl.

 

Just past the U-shaped fish section lie a cluster of stalls selling char kuey tiaow and nasi lemak - but one would have to be crazy to choose either of those items over the wickedly delish sate and laksam dished up by a couple of well-fed siblings (we suspect they are, anyway - they look an awful lot alike), each anchoring the end of a long prep table. We followed our nose to the sate (lamb and chicken), which is marinated in a sauce hinting of honey and skillfully grilled over a continuously raging fire by brother.

The superbly charred morsels-on-a-stick are served with a chili-infused peanut sauce that doesn't suffer, as many sate sauces do, from sugar overload. Pressed rice squares prove handy for dipping up leftover peanut goo.

The sate are matched in scrumptiousness by sister's laksam, a Kelantanese specialty of thick rice flour "pancakes" rolled into ropes,

sliced into thick chunks, and topped with a slightly sweet (sweetness is a hallmark of Kelantanese cuisine) coconut milk and fish "gravy". Shredded cabbage and fresh bean sprouts add crunch, and this lady's fresh sambal delivers a hefty chili kick and enough sourness, from either lime or kalamansi juice, to cut the sweetness of the gravy. This laksam is as good, if not better, than any we sampled in Kelantan, but if chewy rice rolls are not your thing sister will dish up gravy and fixins with laksa noodles instead.

After a few hours of strolling and stopping, and a few bellyfulls of food, it's time to head back to KL. The beauty of Temerloh's Pekan Sehari is that it's far enough, and enough of a contrast to where we came from, to comprise a sort of mini-vacation. Yet it's close enough to allow arrival at home in time for a well-earned nap - no matter what one's form of transportation.

Temerloh's Sunday market starts around 7am. Though it supposedly lasts till 2pm, many vendors start to pack up shop around 10am, so it's best to arrive as early as possible.