Favourite Food Items:
Cooked or raw, processed or fresh, bottled or packaged, cheap or not.
15/ Sambal Belacan
It's the perfect condiment. It brings out the flavour in our dishes. It gels raw salads and rice together. It opens up the appetite and makes it say “Ah!” All you need sometimes for a satisfying meal is just hot white rice, sambal belacan and ikan masin. Yum…
Strangely enough, many Malaysians get into it while living abroad. Afterall, homesickness usually hits your tastebuds first. Maybe it's the perfect combination of spiciness, pungency and acidic that harkens home comforts and staves off loneliness and overseas blues.
16/ Nasi Lemak Bungkus
Yup, it’s the one wrapped in banana leaf with only the essential ingredients inside. Coconut rice, sambal bilis, boiled egg, cucumber and perhaps a nut or two. There are 2 schools of thought on this. Some like it cold because according to them having it hot makes it taste soggy. It's better cold because the banana leaf flavour would have soaked deep into the grains and it's less starchy. Some like it warm because on a rainy, cold day nothing beats a warm packet of nasi lemak in your hands. The rice falls in grains when you unwrap it and the sambal is still wet. It also indicates that it’s freshly made.
Link: Top Ten Must Haves
17/ A Perfect Half-boiled Egg
When it's done perfectly, the naked egg should plop on your dish when you crack it. You should not have to scrape the sides. The white is ‘just’ opaque and the yolk must be just about to form with a silky gold texture. When you poke a spoon in it, it should just ooze out into the pores of the white. We eat it with soy sauce and some pepper. It's one of those things that give you an instant feeling of well-being when you eat it but it can just as easily piss you off when they don't do it right.
Link:
Foodsters’ Invasion Ipoh: Sin Yin Loong
18/ Kicap Tamin
The perfect companion to a half boil egg and white rice,
kicap Tamin seems to have a saltiness that's just so good. A homegrown brand, they've kept the taste consistent all these years. Now the weird thing about kicap tamin is that most people use it as a condiment instead of a cooking sauce like most of the other soy sauces. Honey, our Head of Content reminisces, “I remember hot rice with butter and kicap tamin and hot fried fish when I was small. To this day the smell of butter and soy sauce just makes me feel all warm in the belly.”
19/Ramly Burger Patties
King of Malaysian fastfood. Mr. Ramli Mokni created an industry from nothing. It's still a processed patty but the thing about a Ramly patty (either than spawning a whole street burger industry) is that it totally captures Malaysian tastebuds where instead of juicy patties, we like them flat and crispy at the edges. Watch the
FF5 Street Burgers video on our FriedchilliesTV.
20/ Lingham's Sos Cili
It's just the vibrant red colour touching on vermillion spilling on a plate that instantly lifts your spirits. It's the perfect companion for fried items like keropok and cucur. It's sweeter than most chilli sauces, yet still does not retract from the spiciness. And ooh, try it with chicken pie- it’s a revelation.
21/ Maggi Mee
Who doesn't remember the reliable 2 minute noodles, promising something filling in the time it takes you to boil water? So much so that today Maggi has become the default name for any instant noodles. Most Malaysians at one time or another would have maggi mee in their survival kits. In boarding school or college this is a midnight lifesaver. We love the curry flavour. Simplest way to make it into a meal is by putting an onion omelette on top with a scattering of scallions and fried onions.
Link:
www.maggi.com.my
22/ Choki-choki
“Comes in handy when you can’t afford a cigarette!” Quips Vini, our cameragal. "I stole my first choki from Kedai Makcik Ros in Kangar Perlis”. Now you know Auntie. If you've always wondered if the mice are carrying off your choki it's actually that cheeky Indian girl from down the road. Afterall, chocolate in a plastic- what more do you want as a small child? And you can squeeze and suck it out- minutes of fun. “Even now when I can afford better chocolate, I still like choki-choki, I have one in my handbag right now”, she smiles.
Best Guilty Pleasure
23/ Aida's Cupcakes
We know we're not supposed to put in anything that's too close to us but seriously Aida's Cupcakes are one of the BEST. In fact, it has brought together many of the people we work with today. It's light as a feather but she tops it with scrummy whipped cream cheese. We love to watch people bite it for the first time and see the child-like delight on their faces.
Cheapest Happy Snack
24/ Keropok Bantal
Or pillow crackers. It's addictive and delicious. “It's what me and my friends eat while hanging out”, says Ebee, our graphic designer- best of all it's cheap and if you put it in an air-tight container it lasts forever. Who needs popcorn when you can have keropok bantal?! It is amazing how a mixture of wheat flour, oil and a little bit of seasoning can make people crave it more and more.
Most Expensive Yummy Dish
25/ Lobster Char Kuey Teow
At RM140 per plate, this is probably one of the most expensive CKT’s on earth. They are in this list because someone actually dares to elevate our street food into a dining experience. It works. The slick noodles complement the melt-in-your-mouth quality of lobster like a dream. They serve 70-80 plates everyday but it’s only available at Awana, London.
Favourite Food Locations
26/ Boh Plantation @ Habu- “Would you like some tea with that view?”
If you’ve not visited a tea plantation with its luscious valleys of serene greens, you should. “Sitting on top of the world quietly sipping fresh tea with some scones and nasi lemak is one of the best food experiences in the world”, sighs Adly, our CEO.
27/ Bagan Lalang- “fried squid while watching the sun set.”
This food haven is a journey in itself! Hardcore foodsters find themselves on dark roads way past Sepang and perilously close to Morib to get some sea breezes and fresh seafood. There are many places here to eat and you can play around at the beach first before settling down to a sunset dinner.
28/ Batu Pahat- “24 hours of assam pedas”
Batu Pahat is in our list for two reasons. One is that any town that serves assam pedas 24 hours a day (early birds get it at the market as early as 5am and night critters can choose from the assam pedas alley) need to be applauded. Secondly, this is where we shot our first food video. Kedai Mak Limah, who we still thinks serve the best assam pedas EVER is where we lost our make-shift microphone, almost got run down by a car and shot Riz's first debut as our host.
29/ Jalan Pudu- “Where does it begin and where does it end?”
This incredibly long road has all kinds of goodies here. We start with the siew yoke at the Pudu market in the morning and end with the Chee Cheong Fun at the Lorong off no. 444 at night. It's got a lot of history and you’ll never go hungry on this road. There's Tiger Jit Singh for great chapattis, Sek Yuen one of the oldest Chinese eateries in town and hot pots galore in the streets surrounding it.
Favourite Eateries
Obviously there are tons of places where we like to eat but some just stand out and we pay tribute to them here.
30/ Sweet Appam in Bangsar- Favourite Hang-out
Auntie Chelo makes the best apom in a saree! We come here in the evenings after a hard day’s work to hang out and brainstorm. They also serve hot currypuffs and toseis but it's the apom, folks that draws us back, crispy and wet and like a foreign journalist once exclaimed, “tastes like sake!” S@#t man, sedap giler.
31/ Williams- Favourite Roadside Stall
Not subtle, not shy. It’s top grade food beside a drain. It's unashamedly Malaysian and William the dude who owns it is very opinionated about his food. If he thinks you are being silly ordering something, he'll give you something else. Infuriating but it doesn't stop you from coming back.
32/ Yut Kee- Favourite KL Kopitiam
Since pre-war days it's been around watching people drink margarine roasted coffee and crunching toast. Yut Kee is still going strong and hasn't changed much through the decades. They still serve roti babi, chicken chop and homemade kaya. What's more, Mervin (third generation) seems to be happy running the place. We salute you dude!
33/ Champor-Champor- Favourite Restaurant Abroad
We think this restaurant is just FABULOUS. Think about it, the road that they are on is dark and ill-lit near London Bridge and then you enter into a Moulin Rouge of colours. Adu the chef and his partner Charlie have created a true dining experience. And even though the food is categorised as fusion, the ingredients and spirit is Malaysian. Adu does the lightest tempoyak consommé and delicious Sarawak inspired ceviches. They also won best curry in London last year beating Indian fine-dining, Cinammon Club. Well it's actually a lamb korma but think about it, Best Curry in curry-mad London- well done boys!
"All the delicious makan places, all the cool kitchen gadgets, all the great foodie stuff to tell you guys!"
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Thank you to The FriedChillies team for putting in Las Vacas Meat Shop in your TOP 50. All the best for 2009
by Vacas January 19, 2009 9:23AM
This is a great article. Well done FriedChillies
by dim dim January 19, 2009 2:05AM
babe, thank you for spreading the good word about malaysian food to everybody! Makes our work so much easier!
by Adly January 15, 2009 11:02AM
thanks guys. i'm truly honoured to be mentioned here despite there were so many good Msian food bloggers these days
by babe_kl January 15, 2009 8:00AM
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