EatingAsia

Magic Mushrooms, Thai Style

We're in Bangkok on a short assignment. Less than twenty-four hours we've been here, and my oh my have we eaten well.

Two hours ago: gaeng het (mushroom curry), a big bowl of love cooked up on Thanon Larn Luang by a cart-pushing Isaan native. Her fungi-packed display case (cloud ear and oyster mushrooms, meaty het lom, and various other unidentifiables) stopped us dead in our tracks. A gander at the array of greens on her cutting board decided us on an order.

Gaeng het prep is quick: a couple ladels of broth (slightly herbal, very vegetal) into the pan, followed by handfuls of cubed pumpkin and loofah gourd, a spoonful of pickled something, and plenty of each variety of mushroom. After it's brought to the boil the curry is seasoned with bplaa raa, fish sauce, chopped fresh chilies to taste, and white pepper.

In go plenty of chopped greens - pumpkin vine, something resembling Vietnamese rice paddy herb - and, if you like it sour, copious slivers of a long green and reddish shiny leaf that tastes a lot like lime (but isn't lime leaf). A fistful of chopped cha om and basil finish the dish.

This must is the most restaurant-like street food we've ever had. It made us long for a proper table and chairs, a side of sticky rice, the setting in and time with which to linger over it. Still, standing on a curb, passing the bowl back and forth, we basked in the rich meatiness of the mushrooms, the curry's brilliantly green vegetal notes, its bracing spiciness (we asked for extra chile), the light sourness offset by sweet pumpkin, and the mild little hits of white pepper heat that competed for attention with boldly fishy bplaa raa.

This vendor is ever on the move, but her gaeng het is well worth the hunt. Try the market on Thanon Larn Luang by the bridge, in the evenings.

Road Food

One measure of a country is how well one can eat on its roads. Italy, with its autostrada pit stops serving toasted panini and espresso (and selling hunks of aged parmesan Reggiano and every sort of salumi under the sun), scores pretty high. So does Thailand. On our last tour up north we rarely drove more than half an hour without encountering a tempting edible, everything from barbecued chicken to ice-cold corn juice (incredibly refreshing).

Our beloved Malaysia disappoints in this department. The main north-south highway is dotted with official rest stops that dish up nothing of worth. Finding eats in the kampung (villages) lining smaller roads is more often a miss than a hit. Most boast a tom yam or ikan bakar shack or two that appear to be after dark-only operations. The daytime driver can travel quite a while without running into a snack. So this laksa lean-to, on highway 58 north to Setiawan, was a pleasant surprise.

The menu here is short - laksa, fried bananas, and kueh (sweets). To drink, air nira nipa and coconut juice. From the table inside, we enjoy a calming view of endless emerald rice paddies and shudder at the sound of unnervingly close high-speed traffic.

The elderly couple running the place is friendly and he, despite protestations to the contrary, speaks excellent English. They've been in business for over a decade and enjoy a steady parade of customers (on a Sunday, at least).

She describes her laksa as Penang-style. It's extremely spicy and very sour a la the northern island, but the broth is uncharacteristically clear. What this bowlful has going for it is big chunks of fish, a pronounced tang that I suspect is derived more from tamarind than from the sour slices known as asam keping, and loads of sliced fresh chilies that tingle our tongues and burn our lips.

Just the thing to recharge the batteries of a tiring driver facing another couple hours behind the wheel.

Laksa shack, highway 58, about 45 minutes from Setiawan. (There are others in the general vicinity.)

'Tis the Season ...

...in Singapore and Malaysia, at least, for yu sheng (yee sang, in Cantonese), a dish of raw fish tossed - for luck - with sweet, sour, fresh, fried, and crispy ingredients. Both Singaporeans and Malaysians lay claim to this Chinese New Year banquet fixture, but it probably originated in China's Guangdong province. Read more in the Wall Street Journal, here.

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.

Magic Mushrooms

We're in the food court of our new favorite KL wet market and, having just finished coffee and toasted, halved buns sandwiching kaya (coconut 'jam') and grossly thick slabs of butter, are about to give up our seats, when my eye wanders to the other end of the table. Two young women are eagerly tucking into noodles. One of the eaters dives in with her chopsticks, secures a tangle, lifts it high, then brings it back down to the bowl. Over and over again she does this, coating the noodles in thickish dark goo.

We've been in Malaysia for a while now, and when it comes to tempting edibles we're getting pretty jaded. But Oh. My. Got to have one of those.

The old guy behind the cart serves plain old wonton mee and a not-too-uncommon twist on wonton mee, topped with stewed mushrooms and chicken feet instead of pork. Order 'everything, dry, mixed' and you get it all: a nest of both wide and thin egg noodles sauced with dark soy and topped with thickly sliced mushrooms, sticky char siew (barbecued pork), bits of chicken, chicken feet (we opt out on this item), and chopped green onion.

The pork's great and the chicken is fine, but what makes this dish is the overwhelming forest-floor essence of the funghi. The rest of the ingredients are bit, albeit pleasant players in this one-act play of shroominess. We've never eaten anything the likes of this pasta, not even in northern Italy at the height of fresh porcini season.

This guy could teach us a thing or two about coaxing every ounce of flavor from a mushroom. But if he's like most hawkers, he won't. All we can do is return to his stall to supplicate in front of another couple bowls of his magic mushroom mee.

Wonton mee stall, across from coffeeshop sporting yellow 'Hainan Tea' banner, food court of Imbi Market, behind Jalan Imbi, downtown Kuala Lumpur. Mornings. A mere 5 ringgit a bowl for everything but the chicken feet.

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.'

The Winson Berger

Some foods must be tried because ... well, just because.

We had grazed to beyond bursting at a great little market on the edge of Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, and were on our way out when we were confronted with the Winson Berger.

Soft squishy buns, waxed pork, chicken floss. Initially, it's not tempting. But the Winson Berger has so many things going in its favor - the jerry-rigged portable prep station lashed to the back of a motorcycle, the funky hand-lettered sign, the jowly vendor.

Plus, there are customers. People are queuing for the Winson Berger. Two people are, anyway.

The grill's a nice touch. A bit of char can kick even the softest, squoogiest of breads up a notch.

Winson is generous with the waxed meat, which has had it's own turn on the barbie.

It's the first time I've eaten chicken floss voluntarily. I generally don't care for meat that's been processed to achieve the texture of cotton candy. But I want to experience a full-on Winson Berger, so I go with it.

It's surprisingly good. The bland soft bun and salty, chewy waxed meat work well together, the cucumber is fresh and crispy. Next time (yes, I think there just may be a next time!) I think I'll tweak my Winson Berger a little: leave off the floss, request double the amount of cucumbers and waxed meat, and skip the overly sweet chili sauce.

But if nothing else, the Winson Berger deserves a place in the pantheon of KL original eats.

Winson Berger, outside the entrance to Imbi Market (behind Jalan Imbi), downtown Kuala Lumpur. Most mornings (but not Sundays).

A New Home for the Elephant God

The streets of Kuala Lumpur hide small, usually anonymous treasures. We've often wandered past makeshift Chinese and Indian shrines tucked away in alleys or lodged under trees and wondered what they're about, how they came to be, who worships there.

Near Imbi market we're alerted to an auspicious Indian occasion by the presence of hanging decorations made from coconut leaves. A new shrine to Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god, remover of all obstacles, is being conscecrated by a priest (in black) and his assistant. We're waved over by the small group of worshippers.

The shrine, or tiny temple, sits at the base of a sacred Bodhi Tree, a type of tree that, we're told, is rarely found in Malaysia's urban areas. One of the worshippers, a young man, 'owns' the shrine. The idea to set it up just came to him, he says. He arranged for the consecration ceremony, hiring the priest and arranging for a vegetarian meal to be served afterwards. He will be responsible for insuring that the temple is maintained and, when necessary, re-consecrated.

The priest begins by purifying the ground around the temple with turmeric water. Observers get a spray of drops as well, and are then invited past the line of coconut leaf decorations and onto temple's 'grounds'.

Laid before and to the side of Ganesha are apples, oranges, and mangoes, bananas in coconut halves, and a plate of rice topped with vegetarian foods. All will be distributed to worshippers after the ceremony is over.

Incense is burned and a flame passed before and around the shrine. A sanctified coconut is split in half and its water poured before the god.

After offering chandan, a powder made from sandalwood, to Ganesha, the priest smudges it on the foreheads of worshippers.

Those observing the ceremony from the temple's temporary 'kitchen' on the other side of the fence get a smudge as well, and so do we.

Before the ceremony is finished fruit is distributed to worshippers. The priest places it on a metal plate, along with a flower from one of Ganesha's garlands. Recipients rest their fingers on the rim of the plate as the priest blesses the fruit.

And then we're invited to lunch. Over in the kitchen, a 30-second walk from the temple, rice is swaddled in banana leaves and cloth. It's spooned onto banana leaves laid side-by-side on a long, makeshift table.

Out come bowls of southern Indian vegetarian dishes one after another, so many I lose count.

There's cabbage stewed with turmeric and cubes of firm tofu in a chile-tomato sauce. There's gravy thick with chunks of eggplant and potato and carrot, curried pumpkin, a raita of yogurt, cucumber, and onion, and a wonderful rice treat sweetened with jaggery. And there's a fried cauliflower dish that's found on most Indian menus, but this version is the best we've ever eaten, light on batter and grease, long on spice, and so light it almost floats.

   

We're not the only non-Indians here. Next to me sits a Chinese man who's worked at the market for years and, next to him, another Chinese vendor and his son. All wear a smudge of chandan on their foreheads.

'I know these people from the market,' he tells me. 'They're my friends.'

The mound of food on our banana leaves grows even as our stomachs shrink. We're forced to refuse the repeated offers of seconds made by our hosts.

After a while the owner of the temple appears with the platter of rice that was offered to Ganesha and offers it around (see opening photo). Tonight he'll fly to Kerala to make the pilgramage to Sabarimala Temple, an annual pilgramage that's the second largest in the world, after the Haj.

It's an auspicious thing to do, ingesting this rice that's been given to the god, and everyone wants a handful.

When we can eat no more we push ourselves back from the table. We chat with a man who's brother supplied the delicious food; he himself is retired from 30-plus years in the kitchen of the French Embassy. He also owns a small temple in KL, he says, and holds a ceremony there every year.

Feeling incredibly full - and lucky, to have stumbled across this occasion and been invited to participate - we take our leave and head back to the car, carrying our bag of blessed fruit.

Note: Many thanks to our hosts. This is but one of several occasions on which we have been welcomed - with grace and wide-open arms - to observe and photograph religious rituals observed by Malaysia's Indian community. Last year we documented another, larger gathering, here and here.

From Lahore to You

A Pakistani Brings the Flavors of His Hometown to Kuala Lumpur

KLue  Issue 110  December 2007

Text: Robyn Eckhardt     Photos: David Hagerman

It's a long way from KL to Lahore.

As we suffer through dripping skies and thick, wet heat, the capital city of Pakistan's fertile Punjab plains is awash in sunlight and shivering through temperatures that dip to freezing. While we gear up for the commercialized shopping frenzy that is Christmas, Lahoris ready themselves for Moharram, the first month of the Muslim calendar and the most sacred after Ramadan. As we thrill to the opening of not one, but two new shopping malls, the architectural heritage sites that dot Pakistan's storied second city give a nod to its ancient past.

KL may be apples to Lahore's oranges, but the two do have some things in common: keema, haleem, and zarda, to name a few. And thanks to a shy Lahori named Osman, ours may just be as tasty as theirs.

On a small lane that branches off Jalan Masjid Jamek sit a scrum of stalls offering naan and a few Pakistani dishes. The fare is not bad - hearty, somewhat flavorful - but all in all unremarkable. But the food that Osman serves from a nothing-much 'shop' at the end of a row of Malay stalls on nearby Lorong Bunus Dua is something else altogether.

Maybe it's because he hails from Lahore, a city whose residents are known for their love of eating. Maybe it's because this sturdy man obviously enjoys food himself. Or perhaps he's simply gifted in the kitchen arts (cooking being the trade he practiced before leaving Lahore not two years ago). He certainly likes to feed people. Tell him you're loving one of his creations and an ear-to-ear grin splits his usually solemn bearded mien in half. Osman derives much pleasure from the sight of a patron's cleaned plate.

Pakistani cuisine shows the influence of the foods of centuries of invaders (Alexander the Great and the Mughuls among them) and the many Indian Muslims who immigrated to the country in 1947 during the Partition from India. It's Punjabi with hints of Central Asia (the origin of the rounded vertical oven known as the tandoor), Persia, and the Middle East, sometimes challengingly spicy but also delicately aromatic. The country's regions connote culinary differences. Lahore is considered to have the best food of all.

Osman's sweets laid the trail to his savories. For the last two years he's been a fixture at the Brickfields Deepvali market, selling his heavenly homemade Pakistani halwa (a cross between a nutty Indian sweetmeat and Middle Eastern-style sesame-based halva) and rich Punjabi sweets such as burfi and fresh milk cakes. His mention of a fledgling Jalan Masjid India enterprising offering more substantial fare elicited enthusiastic response from these customers, and he offered a primer on how to find the place:

'Turn right at the Mydin - not the one selling clothes. If you get lost, telephone, and someone will come to fetch you!

The result was a lunch, taken by the tandoor, of flat breads (pillowy naan and ghee-laden paratha), keema (a dry minced-meat 'curry' dotted with peas), crispy okra flavored with onions, and tomato-ey channa dal. Because it was Sunday nihari, a cardamom-fragrant but tongue-numbingly spicy stew of tender beef in an impossibly smooth sauce garnished with shards of fresh ginger, also graced the table. All were accompanied by slices of raw onion, a condiment characteristic of the Pakistani table. Customers drifted in post-prayers at the nearby mosque, greeting each other in Urdu and English and filling the limited number of sears. The naan was so delicious that a takeaway order of ten somehow found its way into the hands of these visitors too stuffed to finish their nihari.

Daily specials are a sure sign of a cook who refused to be slap-dash with the preparation of traditionally complicated, long-cooked dishes. On Friday and Sunday it's chicken biryani. On Monday, mutton kofta. On Wednesdays diners are treated to a dish often taken during Moharram: haleem, a comfortingly warm-spiced porridge of wheat, lentils, and meat.

Osman, a friendly man but one, nonetheless, of reserve, is less than forthcoming when asked how and where he learned to cook. There the English - he doesn't speak much of it (and we speak even less Urdu) - but there's also his air of embarrassed humility. But ask if he has any sweets stashed away in the kitchen, and virtual verbosity ensues.

'You must come back on Friday,' he says, with what could almost be described as a twinkle in his eye, 'for the zarda (sweet rice pudding with nuts and raisins)!'

Osman's small shop is near the end of Lorong Bunus Dua, just off Jalan Masjid Jamek. As he says, take a right at the Mydin - and look for the tandoor.

Why Ramadan is a Great Time to Visit KL

Saveur's January-February issue points readers to one of Kuala Lumpur's best-kept culinary secrets: Ramadan markets! See number 40 in the Saveur 100 (print only).

Nice pics, Dave!