EatingAsia

Choo-Choo Bah-Dah

It was pretty embarassing, actually. There Dave and I (residents of KL going on three years, now) were, giving Andrea Nguyen an 'insider's' tour of the city's best eats, and she ends up introducing us to one of its tastiest street treats.

'Are those choo-choo bah-dah?' Andrea asked, pointing to the browned dough patties nestled amongst a Chow Kit kuih vendor's sweet and savory offerings. Andrea had sampled the filled pastries for the first time the night before at - of all places - her hotel restaurant's buffet.

As we found out later, the real name for these golden puffs of deliciousness is cucur badak, but in Malay a final 'k' is barely aspirated, almost swallowed ... and a final 'r' can be hard to catch if you're not a native speaker.  No matter, because that Chow Kit vendor knew exactly what we were talking about when we excitedly asked for a heap of choo-choo bah-dah to go.

Cucur badak are deep-fried sweet potato-dough dumplings filled with a spritely, spicy filling of grated coconut, shallots, chopped shallots, chilies, and lemongrass (the ones below had a few mustard seeds thrown in for good measure). The best versions incorporate enough regular flour into the dough to counteract a sweet potato's naturally high oil-absorbent tendencies, and go extra heavy on the chopped lemongrass so that it perfumes the other, more assertively flavored ingredients. When the proportions are right, a cucur badak's filling strikes a sublime note.

Cucur badak are one of the more difficult Malay kuih to find on the streets of KL, and unfortunately many of the versions we've sampled since Andrea's visit (to tell the truth, we've become somewhat obsessed with these little bites) are leaden with oil and insipidly spiced. The best we've had to date are those served up by the vendor that Andrea led us to, on the lane leading to the back entrance of Chow Kit Market. Even a few hours out of the deep fryer, her wrappers are crispy outside, delightfully chewy and grease-free within.

We're willing to travel some kilometers for a good choo-choo bah-dah, so if you have a favorite version do our obsession a favor and cough up the details in the comments below. In the meantime, we must give credit where credit's due: thanks, Andrea.

More Sek Yuen

June's issue of the literary webzine 'Words Without Borders' is devoted to food. I was very  flattered to be asked to contribute a post to the WWB blog. Read it here.

Patience Is a Virtue

Or so they say.

I hadn't intended to let the site go so long without a post, but I'm in the wilds of rural New Mexico and despite the recent installation of satellite internet at my folks' house the connection is impossibly slow, making the uploading of images a pipe dream. (And no, I'm not willing to lug my computer to the nearest wireless hot spot, half an hour away, to do a post. Does that make me a bad blogger?)

But the EatingAsia post drought should end soon. I hope to post, on Monday during my 5-hour layover at LAX (ugh), on an afternoon of fine Brooklyn eating. And I'll try to convince Dave to upload a few photos from KL that I can add words to from here, for a return-to-Malaysia post.

Thanks for hanging in there with us. And to those of you Stateside - happy Memorial Day weekend!

Bun, Unplugged

In Vietnam, sometimes things work, and very often they don't. We already knew this fact, of course, after two-plus years living in Saigon, but were reminded of it once again during our trip there last November.

We'd asked our very resourceful friend M if she might be able to help us get access to a bun (rice flour vermicelli) workshop so that we could document how this staple is made. Via a friend of a friend of a family member M came up with an introduction to the owner of a small, twenty-year-old bun factory outside the center of town. So one afternoon we caught a cab and, after enduring some nasty traffic, alighted and headed down one of Saigon's ubiquitous, anonymous alleys.

After a few rights and lefts and a couple more rights we ended up at a cavernous two-room facility thick with humidity and the smell of yeasty fermentation. As we entered the factory one of its delivery motos was heading out, saddled with baskets of fresh bun.

The owner, a taciturn but fairly talkative sort, led us to the rear room, where the first steps of turning rice into the flour from which the noodles are made occurs. 

The rice is first soaked overnight in water, and then mechanically ground. The rice-water is poured through a rectangular wooden sieve (above) into a big metal tub (above), and then transferred to a sort of rectangular trough. It's left overnight again, during which time the ground rice powder settles to the bottom of the trough. In the morning the water is drained off of the top (a process somewhat similar to that by which sago flour is made) and the damp rice powder is packed into huge woven bags. The bags are stacked on an ancient wooden press which, when closed, brings 1-2 tons of weight to bear upon them. Over a few hours the rice powder is relieved of its moisture.

When thoroughly pressed the powder is light, chalky, and so dry it's hard to imagine that it ever contained any moisture at all. This is just like the rice flour packaged in plastic bags that you buy at the store.

 

As Dave finished setting up his lights and began photographing the action in the back room, the factory owner moved us to the front, where the rice flour is mixed with hot water to a pancake batter-like consistency and poured into a sieve set over a huge pot of boiling water. As the batter strands hit the water they set firm. After a bath in cold water they're drained and gathered into bundles.

The noodle bundles are left to drain further on perforated metal mats (opening photo) and then packed into plastic bags for delivery.

Would we like to share more bun-making pictures with you? Definately. Unfortunately, just as the owner was showing M and I around the front room and Dave was getting ready to photograph the whole process in the rear room, the factory owner's sturdy wife strode in and pulled the plug on our tour.

'What are you doing? Are you crazy, letting these foreigners in here with their camera?' she bellowed at her husband (M translated).

Apparently the Mrs. hadn't been consulted about our visit, she wasn't at all happy about it, and she wanted us out of there, fast. Dave quickly packed up his equipment and, under the glare of her evil eye, we hightailed it out of the factory. Whether she thought we were spies attempting to steal her bun secrets, whether she was nervous because of recent news stories about bun makers using optical brightener to whiten their noodles (M said it was pretty common knowledge), or whether she's just a difficult woman who enjoys embarassing her husband in front of visitors, we'll never know. But one thing was for sure - our first-hand lesson in bun making was over.

Better luck next time.

Bidor Duck Noodle in Shah Alam

We've been informed that famous Bidor duck noodle is coming to the Klang Valley. Pun Chun will be opening a new branch in Kota Kenuming on May 15. Family member Stephen invites everyone to stop in and sample the duck noodles and other menu items.

I'll still be in the US, but you might spot Dave there.

10 Jalan Anggerik, Vanilla AC 31/AC, Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam.

In Print

We are alleged to have a cover story, on a Bangkok market and neighborhood that we really truly love, in today's Wall Street Journal Asia 'Weekend Journal.'

As this post goes up I'm en route to San Francisco. If anyone can confirm and provide a link, I'll add it once I've touched down.

Update: Find the article, on Bangkok's Nang Leong market, here. (Thanks to Chuck and Cupcake for the link.)

Launched

Back in January I quietly added to our sidebar a link to Dave's photography website. Now that it's about 95% there we thought we'd put it out there. If you hop over (hide your computer's menu bar and take it to full screen - yes we know some scrolling is required) you'll see food but not only food, and some images you've seen before but many you haven't.

Dave's still fiddling with the galleries - there are images to add and some to remove yet - so if any particularly appeal, or don't, feel free to let Dave know, directly or via comments here.

Thanks.

A Fine Fritter

'Robyn!' Amy puts her hands on her hips and fake-frowns at me. 'Why'd you come so late!?'

Amy works for Pak Din, who mans the grill at his stall in the Lake Gardens. When it comes to ikan bakar (barbecued fish) Pak Din has few peers. Arrive after lunch and you'll find slim fish pickings; his stall's daily array of delicious curries, sambals, and vegetables is also likely to be depleted. Which explains Amy's consternation when we stroll in at 2:45p.

But this day we've come not for ikan bakar, but for another, less widely known Pak Din specialty: corn fritters. They're available weekday afternoons only, for just one hour. I've had the pleasure, but Dave - a bit of a corn obsessive - has not.

'Ah, fritters!' Amy brightens, then disappears out back of the stall and returns with three plates, which she lays on our table. 'Which do you like for pictures?' she asks. She knows us well by now.

After an unusually long wait (someone had called ahead to place an order for one hundred fritters) Amy emerges bearing a a mound of what appear to be jade and gold-flecked clouds. One bite confirms that these fritters are possibly the most artfully crafted deep-fried item on earth: barely a hint of grease, impossibly light, chewy and crispy at the same time. Studded with corn kernels (that's Asian corn, which is older, starchier, and less sweet than - but every bit as flavorful as - the varieties of corn eaten off the cob in the States), and bits of Chinese celery and red onion, and encased in a lacy armor of browned shallot shreds, they're impossible to resist. Even for a deep-fry-phobe like me.

The fritters are served with a sweet-hot dipping sauce, which Dave and I go hot and cold on. It's likeably spicy, but the main event is so scrumptious in and of itself that a dab of sauce seems gilding the lily. In the end we eat most naked (the fritters, not us).

We're not the only ones enjoying a mid-afternoon snack - several folks at tables around us are tackling plates heaped as high as ours, all by themselves. Pak Din's fritters are worth a drive across town. They merit putting cholesterol and calorie concerns out of mind for at least half an hour. And they definately justify playing hooky.

Ikan Bakar Pak Din, Tanglin Food Court, Jalan Cenderasari, Lake Gardens, Kuala Lumpur. Fritters are sold 230-330p, Mon-Fri (closed public holidays). Four fritters for one ringgit.

Last Malaysian Tastes ... For a While

I'm heading back to the States later this week.

While it will be great to see family and friends, smell that sharp San Francisco air (I'm hoping for fog), return to Manhattan (which Dave and I left 18 years ago - haven't been back since!), and eat fresh flour tortillas wrapped around New Mexican goat cheese and roasted green chilies while taking in the view from my parents' porch, there are a few things about this trip that I'm really dreading. Intra-US air travel, for one, driving on the wrong side of the road for the other, and - most of all - being without Malaysian food for 21 days. I've thought about trying to sneak in some sambal belacan to see me through, but I know I'd be sniffed out by an SFO security beagle in seconds.

So, I'm bulking up on Malaysian flavors before I leave. Saturday afternoon it was assam laksa which, for me, is more quintessentially Malaysian even than char koay teow and nasi lemak. There's something about assam laksa's sourness tempered by characteristically Malaysian sweetness, and the combination of intensely fish-flavored broth with the freshness of mint leaves, pineapple, and cucumber, that tell me I'm not in Thailand or Indonesia or Vietnam or the Philippines, but firmly on terra firma Malaysia. Assam laksa is also truly pedas (chili hot). I know the scuttlebutt is that Malaysian food is sooooo spicy, but I really don't find it so. Assam laksa is more the delicious exception to the rule than an accurate indicator of the overall spiciness of this country's cuisine.

This bowlful was had for lunch from a stall on Madras Lane, inside the Chinatown (Petaling Street) wet market. It's a good version, though I generally prefer my assam laksa soup to be thicker with fish flakes. The addition of chunks of canned sardine (yes, canned) is a nice touch and the sambal (you'll need to ask for it if you don't look like a Malaysian) is truly fiery. In two weeks I will so be pining for this lunch.

Assam laksa stall, Madras Lane, KL Chinatown. 830a-3pm, closed Monday. Note: it's the last stall in the row, directly across from the barley teh stall. Note also that vendors in this market are proprietary about seats - be sure to sit in the section of the vendor from whom you've ordered.

What a Useless Tool(s)!

I'm jumping on Tomato's bandwagon. Herewith, my most useless kitchen tool: turkey turners.

In 1998, when we moved from Shanghai backback to San Francisco (a stateside interlude that ended with our relocation to Bangkok a little over three years later) I went a bit kitchen acquisition crazy. I'd bought virtually nothing for the kitchen since we left the States in 1994 and reacted by going overboard. These turkey turners are the most useless of my useless tool acquisitions during that heady period.

They're useless not only because turkey is never on the menu here at Chez Eckhardt-Hagerman in Kuala Lumpur, but also because piercing a turkey's skin is exactly what you don't want to do when you turn it. You want to keep that skin intact, holding all the lovely juices in. And, as I learned the first (and last) time I used these things, they're damn unwieldy when you're trying to maneuver a sixteen-pound carcass. Two wads of paper towel accomplish the job much more efficiently.

I guess the only question is, since I haven't used these things since November 1998, why do they still occupy space in my kitchen drawer? More to the point, why have I moved them from San Fran to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Saigon, and from Saigon to KL?

Into the bin with them.

Update: Apparently us useless kitchen tool owners are asked to also name our most useful kitchen tools. That's easy: an excellent knife, a knife sharpener, a good cutting board, a mortar and pestle or other grinding mechanism, and a silicone spatula (doubles as spoony thing and spatula to cook with).