EatingAsia

The Forest and the Trees

Markets are wonderful places. Markets with second-floor perches especially so.

This market in Sererit, a town on Bali's northern coast, was already buzzing when we arrived before dawn. It consists of a hulking square building bordered by alleys of varying width. In the early morning alleys to the sides and front of the markets are crowded with vendors who sell fruits, vegetables, and materials for religious offerings from plastic tarps laid on the pavement.

At sunrise these vendors are packing up, and by 7am they're gone, leaving in their wake the detritus of wet market commerce: pineapple tops, stray scallion leaves, snakefruit skins, the odd clove of garlic or finger of fresh turmeric crushed under foot. 

Meanwhile, the 'back alley' - the lane tracing the length of the market building's rear wall - has come alive. This is where the fish vendors head. From 8 o'clock on this space becomes increasingly claustrophobic. It's exhilerating, alternately standing amidst the whirl of activity and gamely dodging rapidly moving loads of rambutan and sloshing buckets of seafood. We like the confusion - where did that guy with the load of turmeric-marinated tuna go? Did you see that elderly woman's spectacular sarong? She's over there, bargaining for flowers - whoops, no, she's gone.

And then, sometimes, it's just exhausting. Sometimes we see only the forest, when we want to see the trees. Which is why a market with a second, open story that overlooks a particularly frenetic selling area is a fantastic thing.

From up here we see that several vendors, whom I've passed at street level a few time already, are selling krill. I know how Filipinos eat krill, but I wonder what Balinese do with it? And we notice that though these ladies are trading in seafood, they're also hawking the makings for the offerings that Balinese make to ancestors and spirits several times everyday: flowers and green bananas, betel nuts and dried leaf garlands to be hung on altars, even altars themselves.

From up here what seemed, down there, to be utter chaos assumes a certain order. Deliveries are made. Sales are negotiated. Greetings are exchanged. The pace seems -almost - leisurely.

And from up here we have space from which to pick out details: the offerings made by every vendor before the business day starts;

the ingenious way bean sprout sellers 'air' their wares to keep the sprouts on the bottom of the tray free of damaging moisture;

the beauty of something as everyday as a coconut grater.

It's up here, too, that we can explore local a.m. treats, like sirat, the thinnest, flattest possible rice flour 'pancakes', sprinkled with coconut and liberally lashed with liquid gula aren, dark and smoky sugar made from aren palm sap.

A cup of sweetened Balinese coffee on the side, and we're good to go back down below, into the crush.

From Boat to Market

Before it's kinilaw, tuna is just one of many catches of the day, here arriving at one of Surigao City's fish landings.

This landing is a small stretch of beach wedged between a wholesale seafood market and a disintegrating pier extending out into the water from a collection of stilt houses varying in condition from basic to decrepit. Not very far offshore are several islands - alluring masses of verdant green, some ringed by pearlescent sand.

 

While Dave is wandering around with his camera I speak with a man named Eric Estaban, owner of some of the boats unloading in front of us. He tells me there are several kinds. Banca are the largest, so large in fact that they have to weigh anchor offshore and pass their catch to smaller boats for transport to shore. (In more general terms boats of almost any size can be a banca, including passenger boats.) They're deep-sea boats with crews of about 30 men that spend 2 weeks at a time in the Pacific, returning with up to 7,000 kilos of seafood.

The medium-sized boats pictured above are called lawa-lawa. Many lawa-lawa carry spear-caught coral reef fish (some of them endangered, unfortunately). Spear fishing is done by 2 or 3 men at a time, at night with the aid of a torch.

Kaka are the smallest boats here. Some, outfitted with lights, are squid boats (lights attract squid to the surface of the water), and some are 'service boats' whose sole purpose is to accompany fishing boats and carry the catch. Squidding can be lucrative, Eric tells me. His boat, which cost 60,000 pesos (about U$ 1,500), usually brings in 8,000 pesos (U$ 200) worth of squid a day. From that amount, of course, he has to pay the middleman and his crew, buy fuel, keep the boat in good repair, and support his family. Still, at age 32, he's managed to make enough from the fishing business that he inherited from his father to grow it to 4 squid boats, 4 service boats, and 6 lawa-lawa.

When we arrive at dawn much of the landing's activity is already over, but every ten minutes or so a couple of boats pull to shore and are quickly unloaded.

Large catches are carried straight into the wholesale market, where they're watched over by the guys who hauled them in until someone makes a bid.

Bids are spoken here, not whispered as they are at some other Philippines seafood markets.

Once a bid is accepted (it's up to the fisherman) it's recorded by the market's managers, who act as middleman (and woman). They record each transaction in a couple of notebooks (no computers here!) and collect the money from the buyer, which is in turn passed on to whomever is representing the boat that brought the fish in, minus ten percent.

The product is then dispatched, via various modes of transport.

We found this tuna being packed into styrofoam coolers in preparation for its journey to a destination four to five hours inland.

While all this is going on a parallel process takes place out on the beach, where small-time vendors not registered with the market wholesale small catches from their portable tables.

What's on offer here can vary in size from a just three or four 6-inch squid to a good-sized single fish. As inside at the market, fishermen hang around their middleman waiting for an offer.

It can be a good place to pick up a recipe or two.

The seller of these slender squid advises turning them into kinilaw:

'Mix coconut vinegar with lots of chopped ginger, sliced red onion, chili chopped fine, and green onion leaves. Clean the squid and slice it, then add it to the vinegar mixture. Eat it with tomato. And eat it right away. If you leave the squid in the vinegar more than one or two minutes it will shrink and get hard. Then it's not tasty anymore.'

Eric tells me that most of the fisherman on these boats are from Hikdop, the largest island opposite this boat landing. By now it's 8am, the end of their day nine hours until they return to their boats and prepare to head out after another catch.

Shave Before Serving

A trip to the wet market never fails to turn up something new. This morning's visit to Temerloh's always enjoyable Pekan Sehari ('one-day' market - Sunday mornings only) was no different.

Today every other vegetable vendor, it seemed, was displaying small piles of hairy eggplant. We'd seen 'bald' versions of these bristle-haired vegetables in Thailand, where they're called ma-euk; in Nan we learned to squeeze their innards into nam prik kapi (shrimp paste 'dip'). But we'd never encountered them with their fur (we didn't know they have fur), so we didn't know what we were seeing.

Malays call this member of the Solanum genus buah terung asam, or sour eggplant 'fruit'. The vendor who sold us our tumpuk (pile) told us the hair could be easily removed with the blade of a knife (she was right - a matter of a few gentle scrapes), and a fellow customer shared a recipe for a hairy eggplant condiment to eat with rice.

Once we got home I gave the lot a good shave and wash and then ate several uncooked, out of hand. Raw, this variety of eggplant that Malays call a fruit tastes nothing at all like a vegetable. It's thin-skinned and juicy, pleasantly sweet-sour, and has a somewhat floral essence reminiscent of passion fruit.

The rest I put in a pan with water to cover and added asam keping (the dried slices of a green fruit called buah asam that give Malaysia asam laksa its hallmark sourness), a few chilies, and a hefty pinch of salt. After the liquid came to a boil I allowed the eggplant to simmer for just a few minutes, removed the pan from the heat, and let the vegetables cool in their water bath. Cooking brought out the eggplant's vegetal flavor, but they still retained quite a bit of sourness. This will indeed be a delicious piquant accompaniment to a plate of rice and a rich, coconut milk-based Malay curry.

You might find shaved hairy eggplant at Thai supermarkets, fresh or frozen. Definately worth a try, raw or prepared as below.

Hairy Eggplant Condiment

hairy eggplants

a few slices of asam keping or other souring agent, such as several lime leaves or a teeny knob of tamarind

chilies, as many as you dare - sliced down the middle for more heat

a generous pinch (or more, depending on how many eggplant you have) of salt

1. Place eggplant, asam keping (or other souring agent), chilies, and salt in a small pan. Add water to cover.

2. Bring the water to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer a few minutes. The eggplants are done when they give to pressure. Remove from heat and let them cool in the liquid. Store in the refrigerator but serve at room temperature, on their own or with rice.

Commerce and Community

It's Not All Business at Kuala Lumpur's Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul

KLue  January 2008  Issue 111

Text: Robyn Eckhardt     Photos: David Hagerman

Should the Ministry of Tourism want images with which to promote multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural Malaysia, it needn't look farther than Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul ('New' Sentul Market).

Ramshackle appearances aside, the thirty plus-year-old pasar is a Malaysia-Truly-Asia marketer's dream. The cavernous structure, anchored at one end by a Chinese temple,is located a short walk from Amru Ibni mosque and sits just across the street from Kuil Sri Maha Kaliamman (a Hindu temple). Inside, the market is a seamless transition, over the length of a football pitch, from Chinese to Malay and Indian sections, each populated by vendors of fresh ingredients and cooked delights.

A tiny pork stall, partially obscured from view by corrugated metal dividers, sits just behind the Chinese temple's main altar. Beyond, incense curls over the heads of grizzled caffeine jockeys filtering their thick brew, a couple tending to customers at their bounteous kuih cart, and sellers of noodles and yung tauhu. At tables interspersed amidst the food and drink stalls Indian and Chinese sup on curry laksa, char koay teow, and Cantonese fried mee as they're serenaded by the faint strains of Chinese opera.

Plastic net bags of mandarin oranges and bunches of bananas suspended from the rafters of fruit stalls mark the beginning of a vegetable section heavy on Malay and Indian goods. Stacks of burdock root and bundles of choy sum give way to curry leaves and daun kesom (polygonum), pristine pucuk paku (fern tips), and mounds of lengkuas (galangal). Seats and tables sit cheek to jowl with stalls offering me rebus and soto ayam, nasi lemak, freshly griddled chapati, and pillowy appam.

A row of sundries shops operated by Malays, Indians, and Chinese line the market's back wall. Indians heading to the temple pick up jasmine garlands at the flower shop as home cooks with curry on their minds queue for grated coconut and freshly extracted santan (coconut milk).

   

'Hey there, how you doing, Cat Man?' asks a Malay dad, young sons in tow, as he passes an elderly Indian gentleman scratching the heads of one of the market's resident felines. Cat Man beams at the kids, nods to their father. From behind the counter of a vegetable stall two rows over, a vendor in her thirties gently pushes a gratis bundle of chilies into the hands of a protesting granny.

In this cramped center of culinary commerce the residents of Bandar Baru Sentul seem to have found the sort of amiable coexistence that, at times, eludes other parts of the Klang Valley. It's a sociability that hasn't been willed from above, but that has come about as a result of the market's position between several large mixed-race housing flats. Sellers and customers live together, shop together, and eat together. Over more than three decades this commercial space has become not only an extension of the neighborhood but a source of community, and pride, as well.

'Look at this market!' instructs the youngest of a group of Chinese men reading newspapers and sipping teh tarik as, nearby, an elderly Indian woman rolls out dough for chapati.

'We've got everything,' he says. 'What do you want to eat? Malay food, Chinese food, Indian food? It's all right here!'

Four blocks away, opposite the mosque, the finishing touches are being put to a new three-story building. Its completion will herald the end of old Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul, a prospect greeted here with ambivalence. While most agree that the cheerfully painted structure's spanking new cleanness will be welcome, vendors fret over rents that will rise significantly with relocation. Meanwhile, customers worry about convenience; for the market's many elderly shoppers, especially, the extra walk will be a burden.

Then there is the new building's design. The old market vividly illustrates the social function of Kuala Lumpur's (and all of Malaysia's) traditional wet markets - there's more being exchanged here than goods and money. With its open layout, narrow aisles, and tables placed willy nilly, the old market effortlessly integrates business and pleasure. Should friends or acquaintances meet over piles of produce, there's invariably a spot nearby to which they can repair for a cup of coffee, all the while remaining within gossiping distance with the produce vendor.

In the new building fresh and prepared foods are relegated to separate floors. A food court, comprising stalls arranged single file along an exterior wall, facing outward and beyond conversation range of a clutch of permanently fixed tables and chairs, seems unlikely to encourage social exchange either among vendors or between sellers and customers.

'I just don't think I'll go there,' says an old-timer of the new market. If I want to eat, or even if I just want a cup of coffee, I've got to climb the stairs. And if I'm upstairs drinking coffee I'll miss my friends shopping downstairs.'

Only time will tell whether or not the new Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul will earn the affection of its community. The old market is a tough act to follow.

In the words of a banana seller no older than the market itself: 'This place, it's a classic.'

Blue Moon Over Bidor

In Bidor for a spot of duck noodle soup, we decide to investigate the town's market.

It's not large and, by 10am on a Sunday, it's half-deserted. But we find spanking fresh fish, tiny clams of the sort that seem never to show up in Kuala Lumpur's markets, mounds of thick-stemmed paku (ferns) sporting tightly coiled fiddleheads, and lots of petai, or stink beans. Bidor is almost synonomous with this aptly named (but delicious) vegetable - bunches of whole pods are everywhere. (This photo was actually taken on the pavement in front of Pun Chun.)

Small though it is, this market's a good one, because in its aisles can be found new-to-us ingredients. Like this wild vegetable sold by each of two elderly Chinese ladies who've staked out squares of market floor directly across from each other. They call it - as near as we can understand - kong ji xin, and tell us it's added to curries.

The stiff green leaves remind us of lemongrass, as do the concentric layers of woody flesh revealed when one of the scarlet bulbs is sliced open crosswise. On the tongue, there's astringency reminiscent of torch ginger flower plus a bitter punch that brings to mind arugala gone to seed. It seems more a Malay than a Chinese ingredient, but none of the market's Malay vendors know its name.

This morning the market holds other treasures too.

We stop at a stall to inspect a particularly enticing bundle of paku and end up chatting with a motorcycle-helmeted customer. Where're you from? he asks, and we go through the usual sequence of answers and follow-up questions: we're from America (say 'US' and most people don't know what you're talking about - in Asia, the United States is 'America') but we live in Kuala Lumpur we've been here a little over two years how do we like Malaysia? well we love it.

I like American music, he says. I play trombone. My brother-in-law, he's from the Philippines but he's dead now, he played saxaphone. We had a band, played in Kuala Lumpur. Long, long time ago.

Do you know 'Blue Moon'?

He brings one hand - the hand not burdened by a bulging bag of vegetables - up in front of his face, cradling a trombone only he can see. And begins to play, moving his fingers up and down, manipulating the keys.

Dah.... dah dah dah dah dah.... dah dah dah...

Softly half-huming, half-dah dah dahing 'Blue Moon', he hits every note pitch perfect. He's on stage with his Filipino brother-in-law, in a smoky club in mid-twentieth century Kuala Lumpur.

He draws out the end of the song long and sweet.

Wonderful!! we say. And mean it.

He's a little bit nutty, the vendor seems to want to tell us. We're not so sure.

OK, gotta go! he says. Nice to meet you. And walks, purposefully, out to his motorbike.

We'll be looking for him, next time we're in Bidor.

Vietnam's Black Gold

Cafe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee with milk) - if there's a better way to wake up in Southeast Asia, we don't know it.

We love Malaysian coffee. Thai coffee, sock-filtered the old-fashioned way (if you can find it), can be lip-smacking as well. Sumatran and Balinese brews give a certain endearing jagged-edged kick (just avoid the loose grounds at the bottom of the glass). A mug of Philippine barako is worth a bit of contemplation. But there is just nothing like a glass of iced coffee Vietnamese-style. So thick, so smooth, so caffeine-laden, yet so refreshing.

We gave up long ago trying to figure out what the secret is. We tried brewing our own at home when we lived in Saigon, using the fiddly local drip-drippy stainless steel filters, then employing paper filters, and then the muslin sock technique. We used highest-grade Trung Nguyen coffee as well as beans proffered by various sellers about town, grinding it coarse and grinding it fine. We bought packets of pre-ground beans adulterated with additives. We stirred in sweetened condensed milk, then tried condensed milk and sugar. In the end our home brew never tasted even an eighth as good as the stuff whipped up by the gals at the coffee shack down the street.

Rumours abound concerning what goes into the stuff. We don't want to know. We don't care. We just want to enjoy our cafe sua da in ignorant bliss.

This proprietor of a neat little coffee room (calling it a 'shop' would be stretching it) on a narrow street in the vicinity of Tan Dinh market whips up her version the standard way, adding a shot or two of pre-brewed pitch black joe to a glass already annointed with sweetened condensed milk, piling in the crushed ice, then adding more coffee before finally giving it a stir. As always, coffee is accompanied by weak tea to 'refresh' the palate and wash away the sweetness of the milk.

We found something a bit different at Ba Hoa market, where this caffeine mistress presides over a short length of a tiled coffee 'bar' (the term is used loosely) with impossibly narrow, low-to-the-ground wooden bench seating.

She starts by stirring the standard sweetened condensed milk-coffee base, but doesn't blend the two compenents completely, leaving a thin layer of untouched milk at the bottom of the glass. Then comes ice and more coffee.

We don't know if her no-final-stir method is aesthetically motivated or if it affects the taste. We do know that this glass of cafe sua da, with it's lovely Jello 1-2-3 effect, is the best we drank in three caffeine-addled days.

We stayed for another glass, and another. And then returned the next morning for three more.

Cafe sua da, anywhere in Vietnam, 24 hours a day.

Follow Those Noodles!

In Vietnamese cities one must be alert to the existence of hidden culinary delights - dishes cooked in kitchens and served from stalls all but invisible to the untrained eye.

Working Saigon's Tan Dinh market one recent morning, we're made aware of the existence of one such enterprise when a tray-bearing woman emerges from behind the vegetable stall Dave is photographing. We eye the bowl of orange-tinted soup noodles balanced on her shoulder, and then crane our necks to peer behind the stall.

Sure enough, people are eating back there.

Stepping past the vegetable seller we find a family presiding over a splendid table. Today is the fifteenth (or the first, we're not sure which) of the lunar month, days on which many Buddhists abstain from meat. We're told by a regular customer that the fare served here usually includes pho and bun bo (rice noodle soup with beef), but today every dish is vegetarian. Scanning the groaning board we take in turmeric-tinted rice mixed with carrots and mushrooms and topped with roasted peanuts and cilantro; orange-sauced macaroni mixed with chopped fresh herbs and sliced tofu; plump fried spring rolls; crispy-skinned fried tofu served with chili-soy dip; assorted pickles; rice vermicelli in a clear broth packed with vegetables.

As dad serves seated customers and his daughter collects money and tends to take-away orders mom, perched on a low stool at one end of the table, piles basil leaves, cooked bun (rice vermicelli), pickled radish, lettuce, and tofu onto rice wrappers and rolls the lot into neat translucent logs.

We opt for a couple of these, as well as a bowl of the sunset-hued noodle soup that led us here. After telling ourselves that the stall's low-to-the-ground stools with seats the size of a dinner napkin cannot possibly accomodate our American-sized posteriors, we take a deep breath and sit anyway.

Elbow-to-elbow with our fellow diners, we hang our heads over our bowls of mi kari (yellow noodles in a curry-flavored soup) and breathe in their fragrant steam, then pull our faces back to admire the casual beauty of the presentation (opening photo). The pumpkin-colored broth, with its yellow chunks of potato and tofu and mahogany sticks of gluten, crowned with vivid green rau ram (Vietnamese coriander) and basil, chopped red chilies, and a pinch of coarse salt present a tableau that a professional food stylist would have difficulty improving upon.

Meat is not missed. The thin but rich broth is Indian and Vietnamese all at once, ground chile and coriander and turmeric and cloves sweetened to the southern Vietnamese palate and tweaked with pungent fish sauce. Stirred under, herbs add the fresh lightness so characteristic of the country's cuisine. In our mouths the soft bun, chewy tofu, and crunchy lettuce of the rolls spar to delightful effect.

We finish every last drop, and the vendor is pleased. (We also garner a few thumbs-ups from customers at another table.) Following the example of others who've finished and departed before us, we extricate ourselves from our tight spots by remaining seated while pushing our stools backwards, then popping up once our knees are clear of both the stall's tabletop overhang and the shoulders of fellow diners.

As we're paying our miniscule bill a woman bearing a bowl of soup noodles crowned with a fat fillet of fish and accompanied by a plate heaped high with shredded banana flower and morning glory stems appears from the mouth of a narrow alley. We walk over and peer into the dimness.

Sure enough, people are eating back there. And from the looks of that bowl of noodles, they're eating very well indeed.

Tan Dinh market food stall - no address, no phone. Head for Tan Dinh market in the morning, cruise the street behind where the fish, vegetable, and noodle sellers are, and keep your eye out for women bearing trays of noodles.

Buy My Greens! Buy My Greens!

When we launched EatingAsia in 2005 an (at the time) Saigon-based, trailblazing food blogger suggested we incorporate the occasional bit of video. Two years later, we're finally getting around to it.

Today, EatingAsia enters the twenty-first century.

A couple weeks ago Dave and I took a first-time visitor to Malaysia to Pasar Pudu, one of our favorite wet markets here in Kuala Lumpur. Cruising the narrow corridor that connects Jalan Pasar to the huge open heart of the market, we walked smack into the sort of wall of noise that characterizes many southeast Asian wet markets. These vendors are all selling basically the same thing - bunches of Chinese greens - for pretty much the same price. How does a vendor in a situation like this distinguish himself and his product?

Thanks to Brett Martin for uploading the video (after my first two failed attempts).

Not Dinner

We came across this guy (or girl, we're not sure which) a couple weeks ago in one of the seafood sections at Kuala Lumpur's Pudu Market. He was offered for sale alongside mackerel and snapper and prawns.

His mottled shell stretched at least fifteen inches front to back. Turtles (or tortoises, we're not sure which) don't grow fast; he had to have seen at least a couple of decades on this earth. We couldn't imagine him ending such a long life in a soup pot.

'Should we buy him?' we wondered. Dave and I have a fairly large garden, and we've both long been enamored of turtles. We've swam alongside them off Thailand and Hawaii. They somehow strike us as noble creatures.

With the encouragement (and bankroll) of a sympathetic friend we negotiated a price with the seller. He, claiming that this specimen would draw one million in Hong Kong (really?!) wanted 300 ringgit (almost one hundred US dollars). We offered two hundred and he waved us away. We came back at 250. In the end the vendor - no doubt pitying the foreign nutters, with their utter lack of bargaining savvy - took 200.

We trundled LB (his name) off to the car and hurried home, where we soaked him and set him on a damp towel on the grass. We cheered when he stuck his head out of his shell and took a teeny step. We set some greens and water out for him and, figuring he needed to recover from his near death-by-cleaver, let him be.

The next day, as I was furiously googling, trying to figure out whether he was a tortoise or a turtle (different diets, different water needs), LB passed on. He'd been with us for only 24 hours, but it felt like a defeat.

Who knows what he'd endured in the days leading up to his appearance at Pudu. Now he lies in our garden, where we'd hoped he'd live out a long life. We can only hope he sensed his return to the outdoors in his last hours.

Rest in peace, LB. We tried.

Ghost Fish

Dried fish, Pudu Market, Kuala Lumpur