Thin is good - Not!

Yesterday I watch a movie with my friends. The movie is call "Borat". In the movie, Borat is taking lessons on how to tell jokes. One of the way the teacher explains to him is how to use "Not" to make a joke. So like Borat, I also learn something new!

After watching the movie, I suddenly feel like I want to eat a burger. I think if you read this flog, you will know that I don't like to eat fast foods, especially burger. But once in a while (maybe like once in a year), I don't know why I really feel like I want to eat a burger. So what I do is I go to nearby One Utama, and I buy 3 burgers! One from McDonald's, one from Burger King and one from Carl's Jr. I think maybe if I eat the 3 burgers, maybe I don't feel like eating one for 3 years.

I ta-pau the burgers back to eat with my friend. When I open the burger, I am shock! The burger look so small. I never remember the burger to be so thin. Thin is good - Not! I think I have to take photo to show everyone.

So first, I take a ruler. The ruler is not to measure the burger, but it is to show the flog visitor what is roughly the size. I start with the McDonalds burger.

The McDonalds burger is call "beefburger". You can see that it is very thin and small. And the taste also quite dry. And the burger is burn slightly. But it is also the cheapest - it is RM2.75 with tax. Out of the 3 burger, this one really is not nice at all. The burger is so thin that I can hardly taste the meat part. So, next I eat the Burger King.

The Burger King one I like the best. It is also call "beefburger". It is slightly thicker than McDonalds, but it taste quite juicy. The bun has sesame, but it is nothing I will recommend to flog visitors. The cost is also more - RM3.10. The last one I eat is the Carls Jr - I have read so much about it in other people's flog, that I am excited to try it at last.

The Carls Jr one is the most expensive. It is RM7.95! Maybe because it has a special name - Famous Star, and also has cheese. Also they give you "branded" chilli sauce and tomato sauce (Heinz) imported from Thailand. But actually it is the cheapest burger in the restaurant. All 3 burger I got were the cheapest burger in the restaurant. It is a bit thicker, but the taste quite the same as Burger King. But Carls Jr put tomato, lettuce and raw onion in the burger. The raw onion is quite spicy and pungent because it is the white colour onion, not purple. I'm not sure why the restaurant want to say that they give you a whole lettuce leaf, and not the shredded one. After all the lettuce is nothing special - it is the cheapest iceberg lettuce - I don't see anything special about the taste of a whole leaf compare to shredded leaf. It is still the same lettuce!

Actually after I start eating, I start to regret. Actually the burger is not really nice, and the bun is full of air. When I press the bun, you can see that actually it is a lot of air and little dough. It is so flat that the ruler cannot measure it.

After I eat all the burger, I think of my lovely breakfast of pork noodles and kaya toast, and how much cheaper and how much nicer and and how much nutritious and how much more lovely is Malaysia food!

Weekend breakfast

Everyweek I wait for Saturday to come. That is because it is the start of the weekend. And if you read my earlier post, you can see htat I start the weekend with a good breakfast on Saturday.

Always when I eat my breakfast, I will read the Star newspaper. The Star newspaper like all daily newspaper in Malaysia cost RM1.20. I don't think so the news in the Star is better than New Strait Times. When I see the Star newspaper, sometimes I am disappointed. It is full of advertisement. And all the advertisement is all the same - it is bank products, telco talking about the cheap talk on the phone, shops selling furniture. Sometimes I wonder who can be bother to read these advertisements? Maybe the advertisement is read by only people working in the bank or telco or furniture shop, to see what their competitor is doing, but normal people, I don't think so they bother to look at the advertisement. But the business world is changing, so maybe one day, the newspaper will pay the readers to read the paper and advertisement inside the paper.

But after I say all that, I still think that actually the Star give better value than other newspaper. It is thicker and heavier, so when I sell it to the old newspaper man, I always get more money than if I buy New Strait Times or other paper. That is why the Star is still my number one newspaper.

Today as I am reading the newspaper, I notice there are more and more Merdeka story. To all dear visitors to this flog from oversea (I am happy to report there people from 10 countries), I wnat to let you know that this Friday 31 August 2007 is Malaysia 50th anniversary of independence from the colony rule of Britain. So it is a very important history for Malaysia. And as I am reading the paper, I hear at 9.40 a.m. the fighter planes flying very loudly above the kopi tiam. I think they are preparing for the Merdeka parade.

Since it is nostalgia, I order some kaya toast for my breakfast. Kaya is coconut jam which is a traditional breakfast jam of Malaysia. You can eat it with toast, or sometimes it is the filling for pau (steam bun). Sometimes you can put it on kuih also (traditional cakes). Unfortunately I eat most of the toast before I can remember to take a photo but I manage to take the last part.

Since I am very hungry, I also order pork noodles. Here you can see that I order the "dry style" which is the noodles is not mix into the soup. It is serve separately in a soya sauce mixture. The soup is serve separately in a bowl. Inside there is mince pork, lean pork slices, vegetable and one egg. The soup is the type which is make from stock from boiling pig bones. So it is very delicious. The condiment which is given is the slice chilli in soya sauce. If you like a bit of spicy stuff, you can eat your noodle together with the chilli. Lovely noodles.

I also have my favourite kopi peng. I feel very satisfied after breakfast and after reading the Star newspaper. I can remember so much about my breakfast but I cannot remember any advertisement from the newspaper today.

BBQ Malaysia Style

Malaysians are very clever to adapt themself with new things. This is because Malaysian people are very open to new idea. We always love to try new things and if we like, we try and make it part of our life also. We love adventure, travel, all these things which take you to new things. We also always game to try new foods.

See how Tony Fernandes take a cheap discount airline and turn it into the most success cheap airline in Asia - AirAsia. See how Lim Goh Tong take a mountain and make it into a very successful casino resort in Asia - Genting Highlands. See how we take the Japanese car and then call it "Made in Malaysia" like Proton car. See how the Straits Chinese (also known as Baba Nyonya or Peranakan) take Malay food and culture and mix it with their own to make Peranakan culture and foods. See how successful Korean tv serial is in Malaysia - and somemore not many Malaysians can speak Korean. We even start our own Guiness Book of World Record so that we can make our own "made in Malaysia" records.

That is why I am not surprise that we also take the BBQ and make it to our own taste - satay. Satay (sometime call "sate" also) is BBQ meats with the sticks poke through it. Then you take hte meats and put it on a grill over a charcoal fire. You use a fan to make the fire strong and you must continue to turn the sticks so that the meats don't burn and turn black.

The most common meats you can find for satay is chicken, beef and sometimes goat. The one in the picture here is chicken satay. But if you try harder, you can find pork satay (in Penang there is very famous pork satay, and I hear in Malacca also got). You can also find rabbit, deer meat, cow's stomach, cow liver, cow lung, cow intestine, cow many things. (You can see that Malaysians don't like to waste anything that we can eat).

Satay is usually serve with peanut sauce which is a little bit spicy. In some places like in Kajang (not far outside KL), they give you peanut sauce which is not spicy and give you separately chilli sauce to add yourself. So you can control how spicy is your peanut sauce.

Also together with the peanut sauce, you usually get cucumber and raw big onion sliced. There is also ketupat (pressed rice wrapped in leaves) or nasi impit (press rice not wrapped in leaves). To eat it, you just use the stick like in the picture to poke the onion, cucumber or rice.

If you are so lucky to fly first class or business class for Malaysia Airlines, you will get serve satay on the plane. I remember I see on TV before how the plane satay is made - the satay is actually BBQ on a real charcoal fire inside the Malaysia Airlines kitchen in the traditional way. That is why the satay really taste very good. If I flying first or business I will take a photo of the satay to show everyone, and it will be a good advertisement for Malaysia Airlines.

Malaysia foods - Very good leh!

One thing about we Malaysian people is that we always like to share. We share our good luck, our good food with our good friends. And because we very welcome people to our beautiful country, we quickly be good friends with them, and always invite them to makan wiht us.

The first time foreigners eat with us Malaysian people, they are always very shock at 2 things. First thing is how many different types of foods we order, and second thing is how much the bill is. They usually cannot believe their eyes and ear. I have so many times hear them say "Holy shit! It cost less than 10 bucks!". Sometime they say "10 quid" or "10 euro" or "10 Aussie" or "Holy cow" and so forth. But it is because they are really shock.

So to all readers who never visit Malaysia yet, I want to tell you that this country is a foods paradise. I have already said before that you get all type of food, and you can get food for cheap. But let me show you how nice it is to eat Malaysia style.

Last night I go for dinner with 3 friends. They also like to eat foods. Actually they are very kind to say nice comments about this flog. Thank you, friends.

First the types of foods we order. Because it is only friends, and we don't have any guest with us, we order only normal. So we get 6 types of foods - steam fish with ginger, steam egg, steam pork (you can see that Malaysia foods cater for the healthy eaters like 4 of us), sizzling tofu and 2 type of veggie - brinjal with mince pork and bitter gourd with pork rib. You can see from the pictures the different types of foods we order.

The steam fish is fresh water fish called grass carp. The flesh is very smooth. The steam egg is actually 3 type of egg mix together - chicken egg, salted duck egg, and century egg. The steam pork is with ginger and salted fish. Very steam leh!

We eat the food with rice, and also, the restaurant give us chilli padi (small chilies) in case we like spicy. So you can add some soya sauce to the chilli also if you like salty and spicy. For example, if you add to the brinjal with mince pork, you get a new taste - spicy brinjal with mince pork.

The food is freshly cook and serve hot. It taste very delicious. We all love it. We eat till we are full, unfortunately we didn't finish all the foods. There was a bit of brinjal leftover on the dish, but actually I think for 4 of us, we are already eating a lot. Tomorrow must go jogging.

So, many of you must be asking now, how much is this feast cost? Well, without drink, the food total cost is RM65 (USD18.60, EUR 13.80, AUD23.20 or GBP9.38). I already can hear people from all over the world saying "holy cow". Very good leh!

Lovely fast food Malaysia style

I am always confuse why people in Malaysia like to eat western fast foods so much. McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King and all these other fast foods. It is not that hte foods are tasty, it cannot be that the foods are cheap because they are not, and it cannot be that the foods are healthy because I don't think so they are. So why do people like to eat fast foods?

I think it is because many people nowadays cannot be bother to learn how to cook. Also maybe they like to experience American culture through fast foods. Also maybe because they like foods with a lot of sugar and fats. Also maybe because they like to eat with hand and not bother wiht fork and spoon and knife. Many reasons.

But I think that in Malaysia we are very lucky. We also have fast foods, but they are quite nutritious. What I am talking about is the foods that we can get at our kopi tiam (coffee shops or eating stalls). We have many varieties to suit everybody's taste. If you like rice, you can get chicken rice or economy rice. If you like noodles, you can get all sorts of noodles - fry, soup, braise, with chicken/fish/pork/beef/vegetables. If you like meat, you can get all sorts - roast, fry, steam. If you like duck or chicken, we have it. If you like Indian, Chinese, Malay or other types of cuisine, we also have it. If you are vegetarian, there is also vegetarian foods for you. Many times we can get all these foods under one roof, like in many kopi tiam or food courts. And the food is very cheap. We can easily get a meal for about USD1. Yes, you are reading correct - for RM3.50 or USD1, you can get a bowl of noodles in many places. I will show you below.

Here is my breakfast yesterday. As you may read before, on Saturday, I always have a nice breakfast. It is call "pan mee". The noodles is made from flour and water (I don't think so there are eggs), and is rolled in a pasta roller. In some stalls, the stall keeper just use the fingers to make the dough into small pieces. That is the homemade style.

Here I order the noodles dry, so it is mix wiht black soya sauce and some garlic oil. There is also a meat sauce make from mince pork and dark soya sauce, black woodear fungus and dry shitake mushroom. Then last is the ikan bilis or anchovies which is fry till crispy (first picture at the top). I also get a bowl of soup with vegetables and some pork slices in the soup.

This is also available in a soupy version where the noodle comes in a bowl of the soup. All the other ingredients are the same. All together this cost RM3.50 or USD1.

I also have a cup of kopi peng (local coffee with milk). The coffee is strong and with a lot of milk. It cost extra RM1.50 (USD0.43). All the orders arrive in 5 minutes, but it is early in the morning and the kopi tiam is not very busy yet. Both the noodle and the coffee is very delicious, and it is a good start to the weekend.

Food from the past

Nowadays in the newspaper, everyone is talking about our 50th merdeka celebration. Everyone always remembering how life is like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Always, they say that we have make much progress as a country since merdeka. Compare to the time whne we are under British government, the newspaper say that we now have a better life.

I think that is true. But if you say compare between 30 years ago and now, I don't know if that is true. I remember 30 years ago, life is very simple, and safe. (I can only remember 30 years ago because I not so old to remember 40 years ago). I can walk to the sundry shop to buy things and not afraid of getting the handbag snatch. Now stand outside the house also afraid of snatch thief.

30 years ago, I think also our life very different. I think I never eat many things that we can easily get now. Example is the sushi. Or thai food, or croisant, pizza, lasagne, chocolate fountain. McDonalds also never open yet in KL. We only have KFC and A&W. I remember I always eat the Baby Burger at A&W. Today, we have so many choice! So I think life is better today.

So since I thinking of yesterday, I eat lunch at an old kopi tiam (coffee shop in Hokkien). It serve dishes and rice. So when you order hte food, they will heat up for you. They have many type of soups and all sorts of old type of home cook dishes. Example is the fatty pork with salted fish, stew deer meat, chicken cook in rice wine, claypot curry fish head, and many type of soup - peanut, pork rib, herbal chicken, and more. All that we eat with rice.

The fatty pork with salted fish is very good. You can see it is the brown colour dish. They also put a bit of dry chilli so it is a little bit hot and salty. We also eat the stew deer meat which is the black colour dish. This is very tender and juicy. It is really delicious. We eat with rice and some veggie.

I feel very satisfied after eating. The food go very well with the memories that I have of what I use to eat when I was still small. It is a perfect meal for this month.

Devi's Corner, Bangsar Baru

I always like to tell people what a wonderful country is Malaysia. As you already knwo from reading this blog, the people in Malaysia are multi-racial and multi-cultural. But if you are from oversea, you may not know that Malaysia welcome all people from all over the world. First, we have Visit Malaysia Year 2007 to attract tourist to come to visit Malaysia. Second, we have Malaysia my 2nd home program to attract foreigner to come and live in Malaysia. Third, we also get foreign worker to come nad work in Malaysia.

Of course the first one cause many Middle Eastern restaurants to open near Bintang Walk (because the Middle East visitors like to stay in the many hotels htere), even KLCC has restaurant which serve Middle Eastern buffet. And even Mandarin Oriental hotel (the top hotel in KL) sometimes do a Middle East food promotion at the Biba's Cafe.

But if you see carefully, the 3rd one is the one which has a big affect on Malaysian food because the number of people is quite large, and they stay long in Malaysia. So many different nationals in Malaysia - example, in my office building, the security guard is Nepal, the cleaner is Indonesia and my colleague is Australia. In the petrol station, is the workers from Bangladesh. In the home, our maid is also Indonesia, but my friends got maids from other country like Phillippines, Cambodia. And some people say in the "karaoke bar" in KL, the girls are from China. (Actually a friend say that the karaoke bar should be call a "kuku-ok bar" - some of you maybe don't know that "kuku" is a slang word for the man's thing, so you can guess what is happening in there). So many different countries, and some of them open restaurant - example, I read about the Nepal restaurant in Jalan Silang, the Indonesia nasi padang in Sentul, the Australia meat shop in Plaza Damas, the Korea restaurant in Ampang and many more!

I was thinking all this things when I having my dinner at Devi's Corner. That is because at Devi's Corner, many of the workers are also foreigner. I not sure if they are from India or Bangladesh. I scared to ask because they can think that I maybe from the Immigration Department, and don't know if they will phooi into my food.

For the dinner, I eat like economy rice style, which mean all dishes put onto the same plate with the rice. I have chicken varuvaal, mutton varuvaal, cabbage and rice. You can notice that I love varuvaal (which is a dry curry). It is so delicious and lovely, and I think there is no ajinomoto because I am not thirsty after that. The chicken and mutton very tasty and tender. The cabbage is crispy and the fish curry I pour on the rice is very delicious also.

The service also very good here. There are many workers on standby so that when it is crowded, many of them can work serving customers at the same time. Also, they are very nice and friendly, and they take the trouble to learn Bahasa Malaysia, so they can also take your order in Bahasa. They also open until late so you can go there after going to hte Bangsar pub.

China and India meet in Malaysia

I am thinking today about our Malaysia's happy birthday. For all my readers from oversea (and I happy to say that this flog got readers from 8 country at the moment), I want to tell you that Malaysia is going to celebrate the 50th Merdeka anniversary. It mean htat we are 50 years independent of the colonial rule of the Britain. On 31st August 2007 is the 50th anniversary of our independent day.

So one very important point about Malaysia is that we have a multiracial society in Malaysia. That mean that we have Malay, Chinese and Indian and others living in one country. So it is very important that we have peace and harmony in between all these people. I have hear before that people say that the Chinese in Malaysia not really love Malaysia, example is when Malaysia vs China in the Thomas Cup badminton, the so called Chinese in Malaysia sure support China. I can tell you that is not true. I think that is a bad example because I think our Chinese cheering for the team that they are betting. You can see during the World Cup football, everyone is supporting all sorts of countries - Brazil, England, ARgentina, Germany, Portugal, Africa, Australia - whatever team that they bet.

When I tell this idea to my friends, some of them asking me, "What for you talk about these things? This got nothing to do with your lovely food." But I tell my friends that I very admire this writer for our New Sunday Times call "Jeremy Clarkson". He is a gwailoh who is writing about car things in our local newspaper, but he mostly write about other thing before he talk about cars. So I also copycat his style a bit.

So about our lovely food, I have say before that Malaysia is "truely Asia". And that is very true if you look at hte 1st picture up above. You can see that the pot is Chinese style (clay pot) but the food is Indian style (curry) and we eat with rice (anywhere in Asia also eating). And eating this lovely curry is Chinese and Malay (sorry, I not allow to take photo of my friends for this flog). Where else in this earth can you truely say that people have so accept other cultures into their life that even the food is a mix? That is why I give this flog entry the title "China and India meet in Malaysia" - truely Asia.

The curry is lovely taste, and you can see that it is still boiling when it reach the table because the clay pot keep the heat inside very well. This is a fish curry, and you can see in Malaysia, we eat fish with the bone and head still there. The fish head part is very delicious - you can suck out all the very nutritious jelly in the fish head.

What a unique country is Malaysia! The lovely food give you a taste of the culture of the country. Happy 50 Merdeka soon!

Max Kitchen and Wines

One thing about me is I like to read other people's blogs. So many blogs are so interesting with many nice photo. Soemtimes I can whole day just reading blogs and thinking about the lovely foods that all these floggers are enjoying.


I think if more people can spend more time taking photo about food, discussing about food, going out to eat food, trying many variety of food, writing the blogs about food, and arranging with friends to eat in the many new and nice restaurants, then sure there will be peace on earth. Because everyone so busy eating and doing all that, got no time for fighting a war. Sometimes I think maybe the people start war because they got no food to eat and no internet and no nice restaurant in their hometown. I think the United Nations should study this and see how they can be promoting peace through other method than they do now. Better they exchange recipe than exchange bullet.


I think of all this last 2 nights when I went to a lovely restaurant. Actually I read about this restaurant in other people's blog and they all say that it is a very good place. So I make a booking for a table for me and my friends. And we all really have a good time, and very lovely food.


There were many lovely sounding dishes on the menu, and I hope that I can slowly try all of them one by one. So I start iwth the first dish - a salad with portobello mushroom. It was very delicious - eveyrthing is perfect. But I have no photo because I shy to take a photo in such a nice restaurant.



But after I have a few wines, I no longer shy, so I take a photo of the bread. I think I drunk because the photo a bit senget.


I also take photo of my main course. This is a yellow fin tuna. It is medium, so you can still see inside not yet fully cook. I love it like that - like eating sashimi and grill fish at the same time!

My friend order the Wagyu beef cheeks. I only try a little bit because I don't eat beef. It was very tasty and soft. But he eat so fast that I got no chance to take a photo when the plate is still nice.

After eating that, I was sad that I already too full for dessert. So I only have a coffee. Next time I think I will go jogging before I go to Max for dinner so that I can really attack the dessert!


Now I know why all the floggers love the food cook by Max. He is a very talented chef, and the food is lovely. The portion also quite big and the price is very reasonable. I recommend everybody to go there to try the food. It is very easy to find on Tengkat Tong Shin behind Jalan Alor.

Proud to be Malaysian flogger

Today I am so proud to be Malaysian. Also I am happy to be a flogger so I can tell you all about what I witness today.





Do you remember I was recommending to you to visit D*lish (the place with the nice plastic fork and knife)? Today when I go to shopping to Bangsar Village, I was lucky to visit the charity event which D*lish organise. It is called "D*lish Urban Park and all donation will be send to Kids For Kids.






To make donation, everybody must buy a book of coupons, then you can exchange the coupons for interesting items which I see is mainly sponsor by D*lish. Example, you can decorate a cupcake or buy coffee or buy picnic basket with food.

The decorating cupcake was the popular item there. It cost RM5 per cupcake and you can decorate your own and they give you icing and other decorations to make the cupcake of your dreams. But if you lazy or don't know how to decorate you can also buy the ready made one which is on display - refer to the picture on top.







What I am proud of is you can see that Malaysian people are very caring and giving society. We always take time and trouble to help our fellow Malaysian who are not so fortunate compare to us. We should have more restaurant like D*lish who do good things like this, I ask all of you to show your support to D*lish for making this very good move.