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Kind words about EatingAsia in newish (to us, anyway) food webzine tuttifoodie. Thanks to tuttifoodie's editor and the San Francisco food blogger who penned the article.

Anyone wanting to keep abreast of edible finds like Himalayan goji berries (who knew?) and Hawaiian black sea salt, chow events like an annual South Carolina festival celebrating chitterlings (fried pig intestines), and, of course, must-read blogs will want to head here to sign up to receive tuttifoodie's twice-weekly issues. I just did.

Sweet Buns, Sour Puss

'Business not so good these days,' the owner of this Chinese pastry shop tucked away on the curve of a sidestreet in Chow Kit told us.

We humbly offer some advice: greeting repeat customers (as in, twice in three days) with a scowl and a grunt, followed by an 'Oh. You're back,' is unlikly to boost sales.

That said, it's worth braving the attitude at Sin Wah Bee at least once, to bask in the shop's yesteryear atmosphere and partake of its truly handcrafted baked goods.

Look past the tins of manufactured biscuits fronting the shop straight back to the kitchen, which stretches all the way to the back of the building. Here, things are done as they have been for the forty years since Sin Wah Bee first opened its doors. The dough for each bun is cut and shaped and filled by - depending on the day - one or a small army of grannies and aunties seated behind tables with steel tops dulled from use.

Biscuits and buns - all filled with yellow bean paste - are baked in ovens at the back of the shop, cooled on darkened wood trays,

and transferred to the front, where the store's moody owner wraps them in crisp, waxy paper.

Biscuits and buns, sold from a glass-fronted wall cabinet behind the counter, vary by shape, dough type (crisped and browned or soft, tender and flaky), and level of sweetness. Some are more savory beany, others tooth-achingly sweet, but all are exceptionally fine, the beans ground to an almost silky smooth paste. The presence of lard is suggested by the light layers of dough that make up each bisuit wrapper. (Sin Wah Bee sells a halal version of its biscuits as well).

We'd love to tell you more, but the shop owner doesn't welcome interest in his shop's product, even from a self-professed food writer. Will we be back? Probably not. But we're very glad to have sampled this bit of old-time Malaysian deliciousness nonetheless.

Thanks M, for leading us to this little gem.

Kedai Sin Wah Bee, Lengkok Raja Laut (one block behind Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman), Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur. Closed Sundays and public holidays. Orders welcome.

Update June 2008: This shop is closed. We can't say we miss the owner but we are very sorry that his buns, and this little bit of culinary history, are no longer to be found in Chow Kit.

Magical Mushroom Mee

Chow Kit is better known for its unsavory after-dark activities than for its edible offerings, but that doesn't stop old folks, young folks, moms and dads and kids - doughheads of all stripes - from flocking to this stall at the end of Lorong Haji Taib 5, the heart of the red light district, for mee cendawan, wheat noodles with mushrooms and pork.

Tucked into a corner next to the building housing the Malaysian Chinese Association, Tian Ya Ker is the home of some of the finest noodles in town. Yong Chin Seng and his wife (she cooks, he directs traffic and gabs with the customers) have been working from this slab of pavement for thirty years. Since this isn't a part of town that invites wandering, most of their traffic is repeat customers.

Many vendors in Malaysia proffer homemade mee, but not nearly as many make their noodles right on the spot. To the left of Yong's wife's cooking station, at a stainless steel prep table pushed up against the wall of a building, a spry aunty - who doesn't quite reach my shoulder but nonetheless strikes me as entirely capable of taking on just about anyone who looks at her the wrong way - turns flour and water into dough smooth as silk, then rolls it out with an empty beer bottle.

She cuts it by hand, eyeballing the noodles' width as she goes, then shakes the noodles loose before piling them in a basket that goes behind the cooking area, waiting to be depleted (the wait isn't long; aunty prepared two batches of noodles as we ate).

Each order of soup is prepared separately, then combined with the noodles.

The result is sublime: thick, substantial noodles - a bit wider than your average pan mee - with the chewy firmness of northern Chinese-style dao shao mian (knife cut noodles), in a cloudy, funghi-licious broth packed with sliced fresh shiitakes, mustard greens, and pale strips of pork.

There's so much good stuff going on in this bowl it's difficult to pinpoint the highlights, but the slippery, super wheaty dough strips and the fragrant mushrooms are immediate attention grabbers. This mee cendawan only gets better as you eat. As the seconds pass the noodles give up starch, transforming soup - by the time the bottom of the bowl is in sight - into a thickened mushroom stew.

Tian Ya Ker's popiah (fresh spring rolls) are praiseworthy as well.

The obviously fresh skins are paper thin but nicely chewy. In spite of their delicacy, they're well up to the task of holding together a filling of teeny dried shrimp, peanuts, boiled jicama, omelet strips, and nubs of crisp-tender long beans without falling apart. The forward flavor of the filling ingredients (over chile paste) and a hefty dose of white pepper make these popiah especially memorable. Tauhu bakar (grilled crispy tofu, split and stuffed with shredded cucumber and topped with a black shrimp paste based sauce and chopped peanuts), though delicious, pales in comparison.

Tian Ya Ker's noodles are the first I've not felt compelled to doctor with the housemade sambal - garlicky sour loveliness that it is - the broth and ingredients are that good. Perhaps it's 30 years' experience that lends such flavor. Or perhaps it's the muscle that goes into making the noodles, or the little bit of love that goes into the soup pot.

Tian Ya Ker Mee Cendawan, front of 32A Lorong Haji Taib 5, Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur. 7am-5pm. Closed Tuesday.

Weird Veg

Unlike the weird fruit, this weird veg (bottom, above) did not road trip and share lodging with us around northern Thailand. But it did pop up in just about every market we visited, from Lampang north to Tha Thon, and from Fang east to Nan. It wasn't entirely new to us - we'd come across it once before, at the stunning central market in the northeastern Malaysian city of Kota Baru.

In Thailand we saw the weird veg raw, in all its stiff, leathery, blade-like glory; and we encountered it grilled, charred skin scraped away, and rolled, ready to pound into a paste or eat with a dip. One vendor told us the weird veg is extra delicious deep-fried.

We imagined the weird veg grew from the ground like an aloe vera (it has the same rubbery texture), but on a minor road somewhere between Phayao and Nan Dave spied it hanging high in a tree - quite a feat, since as driver his eyes should probably have been glued to the tarmac. Neither the moto-riding teen nor the pickup-driving farmer that passed us by seemed to think it strange that a couple of farang had parked and gotten out of their car to take photos of pods in a tree.

We're still not sure exactly what the weird veg is. Market vendors in Chiang Mai called it leet manggaw ... but also maleet mai. The truck-driving farmer, when asked, told us we were taking pictures of leen mai. In Nan, the lady selling the prepped specimen below told us it's called maleen faa.

'What's it taste like?' we asked.

'Kom. Kom maak maak!' Bitter. Extremely bitter!

Bitter appeals to us almost as much as spicy, so we bought a leaf to go. After slicing and bagging the weird veg, the vendor pointed us towards the back of the market and several stalls featuring nam prik (northern-style 'dips'), where we picked up a bit of nam prik ong (mild pork and tomato dip) and nam prik num (spicy green chile dip) to accompany  the leaf.

Back in our room, we cracked a cold one, splashed duty-free Dewar's over ice, and dug into our leen mai. It was perfectly prepared, yielding but not mushy, with just the barest whiff of char from the grill. It tasted of asparagus, artichoke, and ... bitter melon concentrate? We wanted to like the weird veg, but neither the sweet-savory porkiness of the nam prik ong nor the slightly Mexican overtones of the flavorsome green chile dip could save most of the bag from the trash bin.

Kom. Kom maak maak, indeed.

Update - Thanks EatingAsia reader RST, keeper of a seemingly boundless knowledge of obscure edible plants. The weird veg tree is indeed Oroxylum indicum, more commonly known as 'midnight horror' (because, in the moonlight, the hanging pods resemble a bunch of upturned daggers). A bit of googling revealed that the tree is native to India and southern China (and northern Thailand?) and that the seeds are said to have cancer-fighting qualities.

Frustration and Thanks

While newspapers in the region champion the resiliency of Asia's net-iness in the face of the earthquake off the coast of Taiwan more than a week ago ... we still can't get a decent connection. I've been trying to upload photos for the past two days with - as you can see from this photo-free post - no luck at all.

The timing's pretty crappy, given we've been at half-speed since the meltdown of our slide scanner early last month and new, yum-licious photos would be just the thing to complement our Best Food Blog - Photography nomination (if you're here to check out the goods, by the way, do us a favor and click on our archives, November or earlier).

At any rate - now seems as good a time as any to send a heartfelt thanks to the readers who've voted for us and left nice comments on this blog and emailed me their best wishes and even, in the case of one, gone above and beyond the call to support us in the contest. Winning would be nice, but after all this, which is really the best part of the whole thing .... totally unnecessary.

Here's hoping for better connectivity in the coming week. Thanks all!

Vote Now, Vote Often

News to me, via a fellow food blogger: EatingAsia has somehow landed in the finals for 'Best Food Blog - Photography' in a contest sponsored by the Well Fed Network.

When did this contest start? Who nominated us? How did we make it into the finals? What is the Well Fed Network anyway? Who the heck knows? But if you've got thirty seconds and you think we're deserving, amble over here, scroll down to the photography section, and cast your vote. You have until January 9, US east coast time.

The calibre of photography on the other nominated blogs (EatingAsia claims the distinction among nominees, I think, of featuring photos of primarily unstyled edibles) - not to mention their readership numbers vis a vis ours and our dismal showing thus far - suggest we haven't a chance in hell of winning.

That's OK - it's an honor to be nominated (thanks, whoever you are), and to have made it this far. Honestly.

P.S. Nevermind the post's title - one vote per person, please!

Duck Truck

Freshly roasted fowl peddled from a mobile choppery - is it any wonder we love Kuala Lumpur?

This roast duck purveyor, a Penang native, has been selling from the same piece of real estate for twenty-five years. Every weekday morning he fires up his home roaster, imbues 25-30 ducks (55-60 on Saturdays and Sundays) with smoky herbal goodness, and then - with the help of his son - transports the lot to this stretch of tree-lined road in the mostly Chinese OUG (Overseas Union Garden) neighborhood.

He's marked his spot with a gigantic concrete duck, erected at the base of the grassy hill where his truck is sited.

Ducks are sold whole or cut to order. Newspaper and plastic is the wrapping material of choice; some patrons show up with metal trays ready to be filled with a few chopped birds. Plastic bags of gravy and chile sauce accompany each order, but we eschewed both in favor of savoring the flavorful, juicy meat on its own. Spots of crispy skin and a minimum of subcutaneous fat indicate that these beauties have been roasted long and slow.

On Fridays our roast duck master takes delivery of a load of biscuits and sweets from Penang (this will come as no surprise to anyone acquainted with Penang-ites, who fervently believe that their island's food is the best in Malaysia and, therefore, the world). A box of 'Bee Hiang Penang Tambun Biscuits' went down a treat with Dave's colleagues, and I have to rate the kaya puffs (pictured hanging, below) as among the best I've sampled: admirably flaky crust enclosing plenty of exceedingly coconuty but not-too-sweet kaya (coconut 'jam').

It's not a bad way to make a living, he concedes - relaxing in the shade between sales, exchanging news with old customers, and watching the world go by.

Leong Hup Roast Duck truck, OUG, Kuala Lumpur. Directions: driving along Jalan Klang Lama from Mid-Valley, take a left at the traffic light with the sign for OUG, and then the first right. Leong Hup is the first truck on your left (beware the pretender parked further along the street, on the other side of the cement duck). Monday-Friday, 3pm until sold out; Saturday and Sunday, 1:30p until sold out.

New Year Wishes

We met Juney, a young imam from Bayua village in west Sumatra, when we were wandering Maninjau village's main road. He cycled past us and then circled back to introduce himself, shaking our hands and smiling a smile that stretched from ear to ear. After a few minutes of conversation he asked Dave and I if we'd consider visiting the English center run by his mosque. The students, he told us, had never had an opportunity to practice with native speakers.

The next afternoon we caught a bemo and rode the 3 kilometers, past rice paddies that run right up to the base of wooded hills on one side and the shore of Lake Maninjau on the other, from Maninjau to Bayua. We worked our way from one end of Bayua's one-block main street to the other, asking in rudimentary bahasa Indonesia where we could find the English Center. Finally we wandered through the deserted market (Bayua's lively weekly market is on Friday) to find one of the village's mosques and, behind it, the English center.

The teacher, a girl in her late teens with a small voice and excellent English, greeted us and led us inside the classroom. Twenty-five or so students - girls, mostly - ranging in age from about 10 to 14 sat behind old-fashioned wooden-topped desks arranged in neat rows. The room was dimly lit, the walls grimy with age.

It was slow going. The students were unbelievably shy. After lots of stops and starts - exchanges of 'Hello, how are you?' and 'What is your name?' - some began to lose their stagefright and relax. To try to get the kids to talk we asked simple questions and then walked the rows, indicating for each student to answer. 'What is your favorite food?' got the best response.

Juney arrived about thirty minutes into the exercise. We sat up front with him, smiling smiles that we hoped would encourage the students to venture forth with their own questions. Every five minutes or so Juney would interrupt to explain a point in Indonesian. We heard the word 'American' a lot.

Dave had brought his camera and tripod and, after class, he herded the kids into the schoolyard for what would be their first class picture. This was the easy part. They giggled and joked, and really got into it when Dave asked them to all jump straight up, with their hands pointed to the sky, for an 'action shot'.

Before we left the school Juney explained that, at every opportunity during the class, he'd reminded the kids that we are Americans.

'I wanted them to have an image of Americans that counters everything they see on TV and hear spoken every single day.'

Wow. That hit home.

Our wish for 2007? More tolerance, more respect, more empathy. Less stereotyping, less suspicion, less hate. From all sides, everywhere in the world. 

We're a little late, but Happy New Year!