Popeye's Chicken; Taman Tun

Near the top of the list called Random Things That I LOVE LOVE LOVE But Nobody Understands How I Am Able To Muster That Much Passion For Said Things, jockeying for a spot alongside: Jeopardy (I love Jeopardy. LOVE WITH ENTIRE HEART. Am COMPLETELY enamored of the little blue BOXES OF KNOWLEDGE. I love Jeopardy so much I tend to speak in excited upper case letters when I discuss it, and also answer ALL trivia in QUESTIONS ala Jeopardy. For example the question "What is the capital of Finland?" Would receive the answer "WHAT IS COPENHAGEN!!!" from me); tempeh goreng and ikan bilis and feta cheese (just writing about them at the same time makes me want to cry tears of happiness); popped collars (I know, I know... they're passe and an accurate indicator of douchiness. But like a moth to a flame, I just can't help myself); dispensible pop music (current favourite song being My Life! Would Suck! Without! You!... you stay eloquent, Kelly Clarkson); heated debates (I like yelling out my opinion in a forceful manner and I do not apologize for it); Arsenal FC (my love runs a deep dark, Arsenal-home-jersey-coloured red and is, obviously, unaffected by the fact that they have disappointed me and every other Gooner miserably this season); libraries and the smell of old books (it's like an unhealthy but academic fetish), is: Southern style biscuits.



I LOVE BISCUITS. Despite the fact that the rest of the world uses the word "biscuit" to refer to a cookie and in America biscuits are, perplexingly, baked bread. Biscuits melt in your mouth. Biscuits are a beautifully light shade of golden. Biscuits are hard on the outside, but soft and buttery on the inside. Biscuits are like the embodiment of HUMANITY: however hardened the exterior, it is still just a cover for the warm, rich, fuzzy goodness of the interior (why yes I AM an idealist, why do you ask).



I haven't eaten biscuits since KFC at Cornell (I used to request to be taken there on date nights, no joke) so when Popeyes opened in Taman Tun and I heard they were serving biscuits I was understandably over the moon. And then I ate Popeye's biscuits. And they were weird and salty and not soft enough or warm enough or EDIBLE ENOUGH. And now I'm just pissed off. I am never going to Popeyes again and I stand by my word on this. You don't just play with a woman's emotions, serve it to her, let her eat it, and then let her down, Popeye. You just don't. I intensely dislike you, Popeyes of Taman Tun. INTENSELY dislike you.

Mushroom Chicken Chop; Cosy Corner, Ampang

Mushroom chicken chop drowning quite happily in its mushroom gravy. The 'quite happily' may actually apply more to how I felt when I was eating it rather than how the chicken may have felt about being drenched in mushroom sauce, but only marginally, because who WOULDN'T want to be swimming in gravy with french fries to keep you company?

Chicken Rice Balls; Restoran Famosa, Malacca

Oh those Malacca-ites, coming up with off-the-wall variations of tried and tested foods.


Apparently Malacca is famous for its chicken rice balls. I had no idea. I only started to vaguely realize that everyone comes to Malacca to eat chicken rice balls when we had to jostle our way through a bustling crowd just to get into a winding line that lead into an even more crowded restaurant, presumably because it was the biggest chicken rice ball restaurant on the heritage block.


I was also very mistaken about what the chicken rice balls actually WERE. Is it just me, or is the term 'chicken rice balls' somewhat misleading? Are they chicken? Are they rice? We know they're balls: but balls of chicken AND rice? Or chicken OR rice? Or 40% chicken 60% rice or vice versa or chicken flavoured rice or rice flavoured chicken?! The possibilities are mind boggling. Naturally, my boggled mind immediately and wishfully went for the first option (because it is the most awesome, obviously: why, yes, I WOULD like to have an entire mini chicken rice dish mouthful in one ball, please), so I was more than a little disappointed to discover that the chicken rice balls were actually just rice balls, albeit balls made from the rice used in chicken rice.


I was also disappointed by the actual balls. I couldn't get over my initial well-that's-just-WEIRD reaction to eating rice formed into tiny spheres. I mean I don't like bubur (so nay to rice in porridge), ketupat (nay also to compressed rice), or pulut (hell to the nay to glutinous rice) so it didn't come as a surprise that rice balls evidently also do not do it for me.

I think of these chicken rice balls as a result of the hyperdiversity of Malacca's historical culture and aftereffect of having endured Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Malay, Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British influences in the space of just six centuries. My theory is that Malaccan food is now having some kind of culture shock hangover that is manifested in the rolling of rice into balls. (BALLS, people. Why would possess you to want to roll RICE into BALLS? It serves no function. The balls aren't bite size, so they don't become any easier to eat. They totally lose the chicken rice flavour, so the core of the balls just become bland. And they were CHEWY!) This is clearly a culinary cry for attention. Perhaps the equivalent of teenage arm cutting or myspace suggestive-picture-whoring, but in any case, an unmistakeable attempt to highlight its colorful cultural ancestry in order to distinguish itself from its peers by saying look at me! I'm different and unique, I have this wacky take on a beloved Southeast Asian food dish!

Yes, chicken rice balls are that addled Malaysian teenager who speaks with an MTV-honed American twang despite not really speaking proper English, who is desperately seeking to leech off perceived "cooler" Western cultures and as a result morphs into something wholly unique and amalgamated, but yet, not cool. Not cool at all.

Butter Chicken, Garlic Naan, Mango Lassi, Papadums; Khaana Peena, Mont Kiara

The last pre-Ramadan supper:


I love this restaurant. I love Indian food. I may be terribly biased right now because during Ramadan any sort of food looks intensely appealing but I stand by those two statements.

On a side note (because with my blog you get pictures AND a little random story) I used to want to marry an Indian man because I love saris, Indian weddings, and Indian food. Only by 'used to' I mean 'sort of still do.' And by 'sort of' I mean 'admittedly'. Call me superficial, but how awesome would it be to wear a pretty sari at your wedding and have people dance around you Bollywood-style while munching on naan and papadums and washing it down with lassi?!

PRETTY DAMN AWESOME I tell you.

Dry buttermilk chicken with fried rice; TPH

Aka the sole reason I miss Brunei. Other than my family. Sort of.