I know, I should have blogged about meeting Martha Stewart sooner but I just felt that I should wait. I know that she was excited to be here in Malaysia so when she tweeted that she was going blog about her travels, maybe it's best to wait until she finished blogging about it first on her blog coz it kinda feels like I am stealing her punchline if I blogged first. At FriedChillies, we are such huge fans of her work and are really very excited that she is here.

Anyway, when the local papers broke news early last month that Martha Stewart will be visiting Malaysia, I got questions from everywhere asking me whether we would be taking her around for a food crawl? My answer was "I dunno" because I haven't got a clue how to meet her. I knew that she was planning a trip to Asia because weeks before that, we got a heads up from some of our friends in the US. And then when several Malaysian government agencies started emailing us with questions on recommended makan places suitable for "a big VIP" coming sometime in May, we knew she was coming. For sure!

She had always wanted to visit Borneo (ever since she was small if I am not mistaken), to see the orang utan's and rainforest. Our 6 degrees thing with Martha is through Zak Pelaccio the owner of Fatty Crab New York, who so happens to be a good friend of Honey and me. We kinda got intrigued on how a Fatty Crab in New York looked liked and filmed him in New York for one of our TV Worlds Best Malaysian Restaurant episodes. Zak followed Martha here and wanted to introduce us.

I had the good fortune of meeting her, Sophie Herbert (her niece) and Memrie Lewis (good friend of Martha) the first morning she was in Malaysia. Really enjoyed meeting them. All foodies. I knew Martha and gang were foodies when the food came and all they wanted to do were to try the different flavours and all kinds of food and dipped them in everything and talked about what more good stuff is served. Sophie lived in India for a while so she enjoyed the different flavours, Martha and Memrie just took to the food and loved it. Thosai, Vadai, roti canai, uppuma, manggo lassi and believe it or not, teh tarik all around the table. Breakfast was at Naga's, a nice cozy place in Little India chosen by Ahmad, her designated Malaysian bodyguard. (good choice, dude!).

Our next food meet was really a rendezvous. I had a call from Martha's tour guide Najib saying that the gang wanted some crabs for lunch. We were already out food hunting with Zak. Jori(his partner) and him were game for crabs so it's on! So, OMG! good crabs are usually dinner food. And to add to the challenge, it had to be somewhere in KL or slightly out only because she has a full schedule to keep. My criteria? Crabs must be GOOD! Craaabbb!!! Where? Fatty Crab? Opens at 6pm. Hoi Peng SS2? Opens 6pm, Carey Island or Jin Chwan? Too far.., Robson Heights? Dunno whether they open lunch. Went through our seafood list on FriedChillies and found that Fresh Unique is open for lunch. So, salted duck egg crabs here we come!

Lunch was a feast of dim sum, chili crabs with mantau buns, bamboo lala in unique sauce(she calls it razor clams), clams in curry and soy, kailan fried 2 ways, chili crabs, salted duck eggs crabs and kum heong style crabs. Oh yes! Steamed Soon Hock too. This is one of my favourite place to bring first time Malaysian foodies (didn't know that they open for lunch) because people get excited when they see rows after rows of live seafood and we dine overlooking this view. Food was just fantastic and everyone enjoyed it.