Spicy Prawn Olio Spaghetti; Bianco

You know that feeling when you're pressured into eating something you don't really want to eat but then feel compelled to not only pile on copious amounts of whatever you are eating but also lick the plate clean upon finishing? Usually occurs when grannies, elderly makcik auntie types and temperamental chefs, all of whom cook the food in question, are around?



Yeah that's sort of what I felt when I ate this pasta. I actually wanted to try their kung pao chicken pasta which was the special for the month, but when I ordered it, the waitress was like, "Really? Really you want to try that? The chicken? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?" like I was submitting a Final Answer to the Million Dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or I was about to read out my "I Do" vow in a wedding to a mass murderer who would surely kill me on my honeymoon or I was about to sign my soul away to the devil or something.

So I got understandably freaked out by her creepy questions and in my state of freaked-out-ness somehow ordered the dish that she recommended in lieu of the kung pao chicken. And then because she recommended it and kept coming over to check if I liked it and how fast I was eating it, I felt pressured to scarf the whole thing down although I felt fairly ambiguous towards it.

Which really brings to head a couple of key issues:
a) the trick to getting me to do something is to confuse me and make me doubt myself. Definitively ordering me to do something will not work, and if she had ordered me to order the spicy prawn olio pasta I would have been like NO who do you think you ARE, my MOTHER?! (though not even my mother orders me around precisely because she is aware of the trick that I am in the midst of revealing)
b) did the kung pao chicken really taste that bad or did she just want it for herself?

Makes you wonder, right?

Seafood Part 2; Malacca

I had no idea Malacca was famous for its ikan bakar and seafood in general. But now I know, and can concur that the reputation is deserved.

Somewhere in a random little restaurant off the beaten tourist track, I ate the following with nasi lemak (because Malaccans are so enamored of the fatty that they eat nasi lemak (!) in place of normal white rice).

Ikan Bakar: with half the fish sliced and cooked in sweet and sour sauce, and the other half sliced and cooked in some... err, other sauce (I wasn't paying a lot of attention when we ordered, perhaps because it was done mostly in what seemed to me to be rapidfire Malay)


BUTTER PRAWNS!: The fattest little suckers I've seen or eaten thus far in Malaysia

Stingray: I kept thinking of the jolly schoolteacher stingray in Finding Nemo. I know. Morbid. It's a good thing the taste was worth it


And, the best for last: Chili Crab! I usually don't like doing a lot of work to get to my food (part of the reason I have never learned how to cook. Other reasons include: having lived with my sister, who now has a CUPCAKE BUSINESS, and my former roommate, who is now studying how to be a chef at the CIA. The way I see it, it's like the Powers That Be gave me a free pass with the cooking thing) and crabs entail a LOT of work.

The exoskeleton is hard as nails, you have to be extremely careful not to cut yourself on the crab shells (or is that just me?) and not to slop crab sauce all over your shirt and face and neck (is that just me as well?) and you work your way through all that cracking and pulling only to arrive at a piece of flesh that is approximately 30% the size of all the exertion through which you went (assuming exertion can be measured in size terms, but my blog, my measurement scales).


Yet it is SO WORTH IT. It is akin to trudging through a treacherous icy mountain to get to an exotic Shangri-La. It is like manually digging giant holes, with just a rusty shovel, over an entire beach, to find a treasure chest. It is similar to watching an Arsenal game full of missed chances and clenched fists and tears of frustration; a game that is redeemed at the last minute by some beautiful footwork executed by beautiful players that culminates in a beautiful, long awaited goal.

If crab meat was the reward of every arduous task I had to face, I might be a lot more productive a person than I am now.


Ironically though, post-dinner Iman was anything BUT productive. The aftermath was a mini mountain of shells and bones and a comatose overly satiated Iman who kept passing out in the car on the way back. Oh well. Good plan in theory.