This past year has indeed been an eventful year for us at Foodster Central. Oh there are many, many things on our favourite list but our Editor says that we can only choose 50! All the delicious makan places, all the cool kitchen gadgets, all the great foodie stuff to tell you guys.. 50 only? Sigh... Anyway, here are the categories we divided them into :

Favourite Food Ambassador, Favourite non-Malaysian, Favourite Neighbourhood Butcher, Favourite Food Event, Favourite Traditional Remedy, Most Travelled Local Cuisine, Most Fun from a Disposable Item, Most Ingenious Use of a Bottle, Favourite 5 Kitchen Items, Favourite Food Items, Best Guilty Pleasure, Cheapest Happy Snack, Most Expensive Yummy Dish, Favourite Food Locations, Favourite Eateries, Favourite 5 Food Production Stuff, Favorite Creative Director's Camera, Food in Entertainment and Media, Favourite 5 Brands, Favourite Anytime Activity, Favourite Ritual, Favourite Foodster Activity.

A good point to note is that we are not ranking them here. If they appear at no. 8, it does not necessarily mean that they are better than no 48. It just means that the category in which they appear is much later in the article. So without further ado.... after much argument, negotiation, debate, bribery, tears and approximately 50 teh tariks, here are the people, places and stuff we give the thumb’s up to for 2008.

"All the delicious makan places, all the cool kitchen gadgets, all the great foodie stuff to tell you guys!"

Favourite Food Guru

1/ Uncle Aru

He is our Food Guru because he literally taught people how to make tandoori for over 20 years. In a modest stall opposite Ampang Point he makes the most mouth-watering, succulent tandoori chicken and soft, baby's bottom naans. Sometimes we find ourselves driving the 45minutes from Damansara Perdana to Ampang in rush hour just because nothing else would do except for an Aru Tandoori. As for Uncle Aru himself he's just a cool dude, humble and always makes you feel welcome. Watch Uncle Aru's Tandoori on FriedchilliesTV

Favourite Food Ambassador

2/ Chef Wan

Here are reasons why Chef Wan is on our list:
- He’s been tirelessly promoting Malaysian cuisine for over 20 years without asking for anything back
- At a Gastronomique Conference in Malaysia recently, he lambasted Malaysian culinary schools for their cold efforts in promoting our cuisine, “you can cook a Béarnaise sauce but can you even make a good assam laksa?” He asked the shame-faced students
- His recipes WORK
Link: www.chef-wan.com.my

Favourite non-Malaysian

3/ James Oseland

The editor-in-chief of Saveur has had a life-long fascination with Southeast Asian cuisines ever since his first visit to Indonesia in 1982. Since then he has returned often scouring kitchens and streets for inspiration and food experiences. In 2006, he published Cradle of Flavour, a collection of recipes and writings on the cuisines of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Every month in Saveur he tries to include paragraphs if not full articles on our regional cooking. Yup, American he might be but his tastebuds are Asian.
Link: James Oseland

Favourite Neighbourhood Butcher

4/ Las Vacas

Las Vacas means The Cows or Lembu-Lembu. And indeed they have been integral to our parties, experiments and ho downs. They grind your beef fresh if you are looking for a burger and cut rib-eyes to your specified thickness. Recently they've started selling beef pies and where else can you get 1 litre of olive oil for RM17? Our chef-in-residence have been in and out of this shop so often, she must have a loyalty card by now. How apt that this Lunar Year is the year of the mighty Ox.
Link: Las Vacas Meat Tel: 03-7874 0711

Favourite Food Event

5/ NYC Food Film Festival

Alright, alright... yeah they gave us an award but the reason they are here is because they are one of the first people to recognise food films as a genre of its own. Plus they did the first one on a shoestring budget and set up an al fresco screen at the Water Taxi Beach in Queens. Oooh... and the venue also won best burger in the Queens borough for the Motz Burger. How cool is that? George Motz and Harry Hawke are the two dudes behind the festival. So can we say that Motz thinks it up and Harry cooks it good? Watch the video of Malaysia's Sloppiest Burger, Burger Om on FriedchilliesTV.
Link: NYC Food Film Festival

Favourite Traditional Remedy

6/ Young Papaya Leaf Juice (Jus Daun Betik Muda)

A power remedy. Juice from the young papaya leaf is said to get rid of flu phlegm. But the true miracle of this juice is for dengue fever. We have been hearing reports that the bitter extract of this leaf can increase platelet count in dengue cases. How to: pound a young leaf which is cleaned (not boiled or cooked) into a pulp. This is then filtered with a cloth to extract the bitter juice which will yield one tablespoon per leaf. The recommended dose is two tablespoons per day.

Most Travelled Local Cuisine

7/ Nyonya

This cuisine has taken the world by storm. Nyonya cuisine is a gateway to our food. It's a sublime marriage of Malay and Chinese cooking and much, much more. We bet that the story of Nyonya food is the story of love. Someone married somebody and made some sweet, pungent music in the kitchen. And that's not all, it truly has a unique culture encompassing not only food but everything from clothing (sexy kebayas) to cooking utensils. In recent years with more people recognising and loving Nyonya food, it's brought more tourists to our shores.
Link: http://www.malaysianfood.net/Nyonyafood.html

Most Fun from a Disposable Item

8/ Bottle Cap Game

Ahh... the age before PSPs... a simpler time of spinning tops, RTM craft documentaries and Cumi dan Ciki. Get yourself 5 bottle caps. One bottle cap is 20 points. Stack them up like a tower then spin it (flick with your fingers). Make sure all five are spread on the ground. Take one out, then your opponent will select the pairs that you shoot. If you pass that without missing and without touching the other caps then you can 'timbang'. This is balancing the caps at the back of your hand and catching it for points. Even the rubber lining gives you hours of fun. It can be traded and won.

Most Ingenious Use of a Bottle

9/ Empty Nescafe Bottles as Currypuff Cutter

“When I was small, my grandmother used old Nescafe bottles as a cutter for making currypuffs”, says Riz our Creative Director. It's ingenious. Fill it with water and you can use it like a rolling pin to roll-out the dough. Then use the mouth of the jar or the cap as a cutter. It just shows that you don't necessarily need high tech equipment to make delicious food.

Favourite 5 Kitchen Items
This past year we’ve been busy filming cooking shows. Many, many kitchen items have passed through our hands. Here are our favourite characters in the kitchen cabinet:

The Skinny Jock

10/ Rubber Spatula (Most Versatile)

The ultimate kitchen tool for Aida, our chef-in-residence. In fact by now she has a pretty good collection of all kinds of rubber spatulas “it's essential for baking, for scraping the sides of your mixer and every last bit of batter. Very slim rubber spatulas are hard to come by but if you have one, you can scrape last bits of jam or honey or anything gooey from jars,” she grins.

The Earnest Nerd

11/ Measuring Cups (Most User-Friendly)

Easy to store and cheap. Measuring cups have made baking a whole lot easier for everyone. And they are hard-working and reliable. Aida says, “sometimes with weighing scales, it might breakdown hence you will not get the accuracy needed for baking.”

The Sexy Soccer Mum

12/ Kitchen Aid Mixer (Most Lust-worthy)

For gadget gawking there’s nothing like a Kitchen Aid Mixer. And it comes in so many colours. So pretty… We’ve seen grown men look at it like it’s a luscious piece of… err… rump... steak. There's something about the timelessness of a kitchen aid design that makes you feel like a true pro when using it.

The Trendy Kid

13/ Silicon Oven Mitts (Most Spiffy)

Why didn’t someone invent them earlier? Easy to wash, quick to slip in, heat resistant and comes in beautiful colours. They work!

The Old Rockstar

14/ Pestle and Mortar (Most Hardcore)

Aged rockstars strut less but they know their worth. If there's anything in our kitchen that dominates our cooking attention it's the Lesung Batu- a solid granite P & M. People all over the world have their own version of this most essential and basic daily cooking tool. In Indonesia they call it Cobek and their flattened mortar means you grind, more than pound. In Thailand there's the wooden version that pounds peanuts, chillies and onions for their salads. In Mexico they are called Molcajete usually made of basalt for grinding spices and maize.

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