Friday, September 28, 2007

Lets Talk About Food :]

This is Wanton Mee. So far, this is my favorite food here in Malaysia. It’s a fried noodle with soy sauce usually comes with pork, duck or chicken on top and broccoli leaves. This part is what they call the “Wanton”. It is usually served with a “Mee”. The Mee is the one with soup. It is ground pork covered with spring roll wrapper. In the Philippines, it is synonymous to a “Molo Soup”. But I think there is a slight difference with the way the ground pork is prepared.

My second favorite is the Cantonese Kuay Teow (read as kuwey-teyaw). Let me describe it the best way I can. It is also a noodle but this one is with thicker noodles usually served in a large plate (large serving). The noodle is a bit sweet and spicy. It comes with vegetables, seafoods and egg. I can say that this one is like a Knorr Soup (in the Philippines) with noodles and other ingredients inside.

This 3rd one is called Fried Kuay Teow. The noodles are the same as the Cantonese Kuay Teow but this one has no soup. As its name says, it is fried and is cooked with bean sprout, carrots, pork and some sauce and spices. It is usually spicy but we can request to lessen the chili.


Other foods here are mostly fried rice. In the Philippines, we eat fried rice together with a viand. Here, they eat fried rice without viand. We can request for a telur dardar [scrambled egg] to be served with it with additional payment [usually 50cents] or if we don’t want a scrambled egg, we can request to change it to telur mata [sunny side up egg]. There are varieties of fried rice here that we can choose from. It can be a nasi goreng udang [nasi=rice; goring=fried; udang=shrimp] or nasi goreng kampung [with anchovies] or other fried rice that they can think of. For me, Chinese foods are superb! They have one food called “Bakuteh” which is like Sinigang in the Philippines. There are varieties of Chinese foods that are available here. And what’s important is they serve pork. I think Pinoys cannot live without it. Jay-ar & I usually buy it in a wet market in China Town. One of my Pinoy colleagues always say, “Enjoy Life, Eat Pork!” Hehehe!

Most of the people here, usually Malays love curry. Sometimes, we will pass by a restaurant and the smell of the curry will stick on our shirts. And I think most of you already know that most of the foods here are spicy. So when we order food here, we always say “tak nak pardas” [no chili] to the waiter so that we can eat & enjoy our food.

When it comes to drinks, there are lots of good ones that we can order here. The most common is the “teh o ais limaw”. This is also common in the Philippines. Teh o ais limaw is the same as iced tea in the Philippines. Here they call it Iced Lemon Tea in English. They also have here the “teh ais”, which is an iced milk tea. I like this very much because it really tastes good & because it is not very common in the Philippines. Here in Malaysia, it is quite a common drink. If we want this milk tea to be hot and no ice, we should order a “teh tarik” instead of teh ais. They have different names depending if we want it to be served as hot or cold. Soft drinks are usually not patronized here. I think people here, especially Chinese folks, are more health conscious than us so isotonic drinks are more common here that cola drinks. The well-known isotonic drink here is called 100 plus. This isotonic drink is like a Gatorade that also comes with different flavors like lemon & orange. They also have the flavorless one & the clear colored one. But here, it is available in a 1.5 liter bottle. I haven’t tried the one with the clear color but my favorite flavor is lemon. So in our refrigerator, there is always a stock of 100 plus instead of Coke. But I have to admit that I am missing the taste of Coke already.

But even if I find Chinese foods nice, Filipino dishes are still number 1 for me. [syempre, love your own] that’s why I started to learn to cook here. When I was still in the Philippines, I don’t cook. I just eat. =] There were times that I would like to try to cook but I was defeated by my laziness. Moving here in Malaysia didn’t give me much of a choice. I had to learn how to cook. Had to learn it for myself and for my hubby. Otherwise, we will be eating the same old thing every now & then. Good thing though, it seems that the food fairy was guiding me in this learning process.

I can say that I was able to cook meals that I never thought I could cook. As of this writing, I already experienced cooking Pinakbet [Mixed Veggies with Bagoong], Sinigang na Baboy, Nilaga [any kind], Chopseuy, Pininyahang Manok [Pineapple Chicken], Pancit Bihon, Pork Steak, Giniling with Patatas, all kinds of Adobo [Pork, chicken, liver & sitaw [beans]], Tinolang Manok, Spaghetti, Ginataang Pusit & Others… My next target to cook is Menudo, which is a challenge for me because Jay-ar’s mom cooks a very delicious Menudo. Well, lets see. I’ll update you on my first attempt to cook Menudo. I’m actually excited about it. I’m always looking forward to learn new things.

Anyhoo... writing this post really made me hungry. So I got to go now to grab something to eat. Bon Appetite!

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