Eh, lapar lah! (Malaysian edition)

one of the main reasons of my coming home to malaysia: makan. everyone has their favourite eating spots. some would travel hundreds of kilometres to get their nasi kandar or ikan bakar fix. yes, i’ve heard the many stories. kl-ites travelling far across the city itself for, say, the ultimate roti canai brekkie. as for me, i just can’t be bothered. i’m a resident of taman tun (hidup ttdi!). i have all i need here. like the nasi lemak at the bus stop behind the sekolah menengah.

well, okay. anywhere within a three kilometre radius is considered near enough for lazy ol’ me.

a perfect morning for me would be breakfast at restoran mosin, home of the nasi buhara. i’ve got mates who’d go for sembahyang jumaat at the ttdi mosque all the way from as far as bukit jalil, so as to increase their serum cholesterol levels. a morning paper, teh tarik kurang manis (that’s actually quite manis) and mutte’ roti*. i know. what’s so special about a place like this? i know people swear to rotis at rajoo’s in pj, for example, but when you frequent a place for years on end and the people know your name, give me this place any time! yes, i can get ‘em to make my roti garing and minyak-free. why bother go drive and face morning pj traffic, when this place is only 5 minutes away from my house.

for thosai garing and nasi daun pisang, jaipur at tun mohd fuad is highly recommended. it is one of the cleanest eaterie i’ve ever been to; it even received a grade A in cleanliness from dbkl!

another way to make my mornings (or lunch time) perfect is subang ria in kj. i think everyone knows this place. as always, after touching down at klia, we’d drive down here immediately for makan. this has been my routine for the past 16 years, without fail (this place was on the way home from subang airport then). ah yee’s penang-style char kuey teow is best eaten before office lunch hours, as the servings are slightly larger and fried a couple of minutes longer (your kuey teow will be fried in less than 2 minutes otherwise!). my favourites would also be the noodle soups (mee hoon soup or sometimes a permutation of other forms of noodles and soup/curry would do fine for me), chapatti and yong tow foo. as mentioned above, this is another place where saying the word “biasa!” would get us our drinks in no time at all.

the only western fare that i’d go for in malaysia would be… fast food joints! like a kid, i look forward to a&w’s large mug of ice cold root beer and their ever-diminishing-in-size coney dog (my dad says that it has like halved in size since the days of the papa/mama/baby burger in the 70’s). used to enjoy my root beer at their 24-hour establishment near amcorp in pj, but with OU having almost every franchised eaterie known in kl, i don’t have to look any further now. no a&w in the uk lah. as far as i can tell, the brits don’t really drink root beer. those who’ve tried say that it tastes like cough medicine. their loss.

this is another item that is a must-have for me:

it must be my taste buds or something, but personally i just don’t see much difference between kajang and non-kajang satay. my local satay haunt is behind the pasar besar taman tun next to li’s gerai nasi campur. as far as i’m concerned, as long as the beef satay is succulent and tak liat, it gets my stamp of approval. kajang or whatever. if you ask me, the best satay that i’ve tried was satay endut in ipoh which i had many years ago. no lemak. zhang! li is a taman tun institution for the past 20 years. every evening you get a disorderly queue of people after work ordering their nasi bungkus dinner. li also does a mean mee jawa and roti john. and the four-ringgit nasi lemak and ayam goreng… i like.

muhibbah seafood is another of my favourite spot for dinner. noel’s three-shop lot establishment started as a humble stall years ago at the aminuddin baki precinct. apparently, he used to be a hotel chef, which explains the scrumptiousness of his dishes. i have to say muhibbah used to be so much cheaper years ago, where RM30 would get you all the dishes you see in the photograph above. although a little pricier now, the food is still great. most of the dishes come in three platter sizes, most of which, like the deep-fried squid, mixed vegetable with japanese egg (san kong) tofu and lemon chicken, can never go wrong in my books.

well, of course, there is home-cooked food, but i’ll give that a mention some other time!

*roti telur