The Albatross
Friday 24 May 2024
I love Asian food, Malaysian, Thai, Indian, Chinese, bring it on. However, if I eat rice today, I worry I may never poop again. It has a binding effect on me. Even lovely oily noodles, wok seared over blistering heat are not soothing the passage way. The difficulty is not necessarily in the starchy goodness alone, its in the ratio. Huge amounts of rice, some tasty protein covered in sauce and token vegetable. We had similar difficulties in Japan and Hong Kong. Even the small serves of dahl and falafel haven’t provided the adequate motivation.
The trouble is that eating out is insanely cheap, last night we had a vegetable dish and two other mains, plus two serves of rice for under $10 AUD. I’d love to tell you what we ate, however I have no idea as they spoke no English, the menu was in Malay and the entire transaction was conducted by guess work, poor sign language and quite a lot of laughter on both sides.
The other problem is that every apartment you rent here, even the poshest ones, have a very poor kitchen. It may have a big fridge and a cook top, however, very little to cook things in. At best is a fry pan and a very small thin saucepan. There is nothing in the way of cooking staples such as salt, pepper, sugar, oil etc. I can make us a decent breakfast here by cunningly using a flat bread (thank you mission wraps) as a liner for a pan and slow cooking some cheesy eggy goodness with different exotic toppings. Dinners are the problem. We were okay with this. We would eat lunch out, then go to a restaurant and grab take away, to eat at our leisure back in the climate controlled, wine filled domain of our apartment of the night. But………..
I need some vegetables, and I’m sick of Asian food. The next two nights meals are going to cost us stacks more than eating out, however we have lentils, carrots, mushrooms, eggplant etc. We also have the forbidden meat. Pork. Malaysia is secular in name, although the vast population is Islamic, throw in some Buddhists, Hindus etc, and you have a bunch of folk who don’t dig the pig. Interestingly when we went through Sabah and Sarawak (rather than the Malay Peninsular) quite a few years ago, pork was common. Is it because of a large Chinese Malay influence or a cultural change.
I have no problem with the constraints at all. You can obtain wine and some pork products, and some restaurants will serve you beer and a cocktail, but generally if you want to buy a bottle of wine and bacon, you must go to a Western style supermarket in big shopping mall and go to the special, clearly marked naughty corner. Choices are typically a bit limited. Yesterday we hit the mother lode.
Hanks, attached to a very western supermarket selling all sorts of treats (even Vegemite, although for some reason only available over the counter), has a huge range of wine and charcuterie, uncooked and frozen pig products, including some delectable sausages. Easily the best refuge we’ve found for satanic treats. We bought wine there yesterday, however, we didn’t commit till today until we had checked out the kitchen.
Today I bought a decent pot, several types of sausages, lentils, pasta, pesto, vegies and nice French loaf of bread. It’ll be worth it. Lunch was a couple of brilliant snags with onion in a super crusty French stick, tonight is a porky mushroom pasta with stacks of veg. Yum.
Oh, it’s quite nice here too, we watch the colourful fishing boats go up and down the river, last night was an epic lightning storm (lightning every night this trip, but this was huge), and it’s glorious looking across the city from the 27th floor. Other than that, we had a day off, and we both loved doing bugger all after months of travelling. Right now, a rain storm sweeping across the city whilst the beautiful call to prayer is ringing out from two nearby mosques.
