Crema Catalana; Harper's Restaurant & Lounge, Malacca

I realize this is an inopportune time to write yet another post that combines my love for delicious, beautiful desserts and delicious, beautiful Arsenal, because the latter GAVE UP A GOAL ON SUNDAY NIGHT and in the chaos that ensued, my homeboy Adebayor got sent off, my man Fabregas got injured and I noticed that my boy Nasri is growing out his hair and it is in that awkward is-it-long-is-it-short-either-way-it's-agreed-that-it's-definitely-not-great-looking phase (don't worry, you're still my boy!), and all of the above effectively ruined the closing stages of my weekend. If you think I am exaggerating, think again. I even got sick on Sunday because I was in such a crabby mood about the win that should have been that my frustration boiled over into a fever.

Anyway. My point was this may be an inopportune time to talk about Arsenal, but quite clearly and as evidenced by the previous paragraph, I do not care. I had crema catalana in Malacca and I'm still thinking about it. And no, that's not a non sequitur.

I didn't even know the French Creme Brulee had a hotter Spanish cousin. I was sadly ignorant, but am now enlightened, and would like to enlighten you as well. People, meet Crema Catalana.

It LOOKS just like Creme Brulee, with the burnt sugar top coating, but once you break the barrier, you get hit with a custard 10 times more fatty than that in Creme Brulee. It's thicker and creamier and heavier and milkier and dang it, those Catalans have outdone themselves, because if I had a dollar for every time I had Creme Brulee and thought 'this is delish but I wish that the custard was so creamy that it would make the proverbial cat that got the cream keel over in a milky coma' I'd be kinda rich right now.


I like both though. Just like I like both the French and Spanish football national teams and can almost never choose between the two, though Spain wins out marginally this year (mainly because they do not consistently disappoint me and break my heart like the French do). And this is related to Arsenal because Arsenal is a combination of the Spanish AND French and the entire time I was eating this I was thinking about Arsenal and wishing I could also have a plate of creme brulee so I could complete the Western Continental Europe football love (cause I've got love for you too, Portuguese national team minus Christiano Ronaldo) but I didn't say anything to goosey because I thought he would have been like wtf, you are weird. So I stored it away and wrote about it instead.


If you really want a non-sequitur because you got excited by the almost-non-sequitur above: I am freaking obsessed with Katy Perry's Hot N Cold (even though it hurts my linguistically snobby heart to type the title of that song in all its abbreviated shortform slang). In fact, I am so freaking obsessed with the song that I've been listening to it on repeat for the past two days and STILL have to fight the urge, whenever I hear it, to get up on the bed/office desk/couch/LRT seat/wherever I may be and throw on a wedding veil (ala the music video, obviously) and shimmy my shoulders and ooze attitude and point at mirrors while simultaneously shaking my booty in a joyful 80's stupor. You can take the girl out of the 80's, but you can't take the 80's out of the girl. It is slightly disturbing that as an almost-24-year-old I am fighting the same urges that I succumbed to as a barely-6-year-old when I used to slink around the couches at home pretending to be Madonna on a gondola in the Like a Virgin video. AND we didn't have MTV then, no no. The brilliant idea and irrepressible desire to shake my booty was completely inherent. Viva la pop music!

Seafood Part 3; Malacca

I have a sneaky suspicion, first pointed out by an overly observant goose (he stares at me too much) and confirmed by my eyes, that my arms have gotten marginally fleshier. Although my weighing scales beg to differ. One of you is lying to and deceiving me! If it's the weighing scales I can just throw them out and get a new set. If it's my eyes... matey, we have a mutiny on our hands.

Plus I saw pbil and was like, "OMG you lost so much weight!" And then he was like, "YOU lost weight!" And then I said "really?" And he said "no, I was just saying that". Turd. Maybe it was better when he was scared of me and afraid that I would tell my parents nasty things about him and spoil his relationship with my sister.

Anyway my theory is that my body is stocking up for the winter in the form of fat. I think my body is somewhat confused by having spent every December over the past few years in the freezing arctic tundra that is Ithaca In the Depths of Winter and now come each December, it just starts to stock up on fat, even though it now resides in a tropical country that straddles the equator in so very intimate ways that the only way it could be closer to the equator would be if it WAS the equator. I do not like this fat on the arms business. I think I will pray for it to go away. I don't believe in dieting and I'm too busy (this thing that occasionally rears its virtuous head at me to admonish me once in a while and is called My Conscience has instructed to write that 'busy' is actually a euphemism for 'lazy') to exercise so it will have to be appeals to the Big Guy that will melt this stuff off my arms.

More seafood pictures from Malacca because I'm too busy to run down and get breakfast and want to feast on food in some way, any way, even just visually.

We had to choose our own fish. Like I know how to tell one piece of raw fish from another or something.

Our meal in all its precooked slimy glory


Sting Ray

Ikan bakar


Malay calamari

Chili crab... with peas. Yeah, I don't know why the peas were there either.

Why hello Mr. Crabby, it is very nice to meet you and let us shake claws (clearly my mother never told me not to play with my food)

I Can't Decide Whether I Heart Or Do Not Heart Chanel Beef Jerky Bag

Someone very awesome and ingenious once said that all art is quite useless, and that there is no such thing as moral art or immoral art, there is only art done well and art done badly (I am paraphrasing like crazy here; sorry Mr. Wilde).



This beef jerky Chanel bag is totally useless. It is also very totally art, because the House of Chanel did not actually go off the sartorial deep end and fashion a handbag out of preserved meat, an art student did. What I'm more interested in is how I feel about it as art though. And I'm on the fence about whether it's done well or badly. On the one hand, it actually LOOKS like a real bag, so points for technique. On the other... I always put food into my bag, but the reason I've never thought of my bag AS food is because that thought is disgusting. And in beef jerky bag's case, smelly as well.

I wonder what the message is. Designer goods are fleeting trends with the metaphorical life span of perishable foods? Or designer goods are lasting luxury investments, as evidenced by the smoked and preserved beef that was used in making the bag? It would be awesome if one could eat their designer bags? JERKY is awesome? I am stumped.

Cendol; Heeren Road, Malacca

I think I've documented before that I am not a fan of Malay desserts. None of them. Unless banana fritters with ice cream count as Malay, which I'm not sure about.

Whenever I articulate this dislike I usually get a dismissive 'pffft and you call yourself a Malay' in response, to which I would answer: i) I do not agree with the entire concept of race as a whole, only culture, so would not really call myself anything if the societal pressures exerted upon me by the hoi polloi to use the darn word weren't so strong, and ii) I love durians with a smelly, creamy, heaty passion, so that should somehow compensate for any cultural related pride and loyalty that I lack in regards to desserts. Hmm I'm digressing. My point was I do not like cendol but goosey does (one of the EXTREMELY limited number of foods that he likes/will willingly eat that I do not like/will not willing eat--I'm sure this means something figuratively in the grand scheme of Me & Him, but I am too busy to ponder this), so I took pictures of the cendol served at one of the many, MANY cendol stalls around Malacca.

Cendol is one of those foods I've always wished that I liked. It looks so refreshing and simple. Unfortunately it makes me gag. Enjoy the pictures anyway.

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.

Strawberry Mint Parfait; the Apartment KLCC

A pretty little young mint cream biscuit strawberry tower takes a time out from her Saturday afternoon tea date with a sexy and nonchalant strawberry cooler to pose for a picture.

I wonder if there's such a thing as a fashion magazine for food. Because this picture could totally be one of the Spotted Around KL: What Desserts Are Wearing This December '08 contributions.

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.

Seafood Part 1; Jalan Alor

Chili crabs on Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang. I ate you in a restaurant boasting sanitary conditions that would have shocked an OCD person into a heart attack, but you tasted so yummy I do not care.

This is just a teaser picture to whet your appetite (see what I did there?! Oh I LOVE puns) for the REAL seafood pictures that are about to come. Just as soon as someone wakes up and send me pictures from Malacca.

On another note: upgraded to a newer BlackBerry today, courtesy of the generous coffers of the Malaysian Government, which means I can take more frequent food pictures. Yay! Yay! Yay! But before you think that Friedman was mistaken and there is in fact such a thing as a free lunch, think again, homie: I will be paying for this Berry in late hours at the office, rushed lunches, frenzied coffee runs, botched dinner plans with my beloved eating partner captain goosey p., and bucketfuls of stress and eyebags. Hmm. Now my enthusiasm is somewhat dampened. Maybe I should focus on the here and now: upgraded to a new BlackBerry, more food pictures for everyone. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake; Palate Palette

Good things come in small packages:

Vanilla bean cheesecake and dark chocolate topping


Wondermilk cupcakes (portions of a Generous Stranger Birthday Boy's birthday cupcakecake: he wanted to share the love, and no one says no to birthday cake and spreading of love, so we obliged. Happy birthday and gratitude to YOU, stranger boy!)


Other good things that also come in small packages:
Tiffany blue boxes
Breathmints
Espresso shots
Lollipops
Babies

The fervour with which I believe in this adage may have something to do with the fact that I am five foot nothing. MAYBE. Just saying.

I Heart Food in Books

I'm on the verge of getting sick again (what is up with you, immune system?!) and so (shock, horror) do not feel like eating nor looking at pictures of food. Let us not go into the details but suffice to say I have an extremely queasy stomach today. I will instead rely on thinking about imaginary food, which somehow manages to fill the unimaginary void in my stomach when I don't feel like eating in reality.

I found a post on Jezebel (and have since lost the link and am too lazy to google it, I apologize for my Monday Morning Laziness) about food in literature. I believe the exact title of the article was Screw the Plot: What's for Lunch?

I wouldn't go so far as screwing the plot because I'm picky enough about the books that I like and immediately and on principle reject formulaic writing, predictable plots, characters with the complexity and emotional ranges of two by four planks of wood, and Annoying Writing Styles in General, which means by definition I loathe, abhor and detest most genres, including chick lit, romance and mystery novels (yes it is EXTREMELY difficult for me to find books that I actually enjoy, let alone love), but I DO love reading about food.

And in honor of this food in literature idea I have compiled a list of the All Time Yummiest Food References in Literature (albeit most of said "literature" is actually children's books. Maybe as a child I was less picky about plot and so focused more on food? Or maybe I had a particularly hungry childhood, could be either) In My Opinion.

10. Enid Blyton's Midnight Feasts, in either the Malory Towers OR the St. Clare's series. Both boarding schools seemed to have ridiculous late night food orgies. Sausages and condensed milk and pot pies and tinned pineapples and tinned sardines and ginger beer! At midnight!

9. Ms. Trunchbull's ginormous special chocolate cake in Roald Dahl's Matilda, that she forced Bruce Bogtrotter to scarf down in front of the entire school because he dared to steal a slice of it, causing him to go into a chocolate cake coma

8. J.K. Rowlings' Hogwarts dinners. All of them. Plus anything Mrs. Weasley cooked, with butterbeer to wash it down

7. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I want to eat the entire factory. Minus the Oompa Loompas, because they creeped me out, and also minus Willy Wonka, because I don't want him to Veruca Salt my ass for being greedy

6. Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise. So simple and yet so yummy sounding that I used to make myself tomato-mayo sandwiches whenever I wanted to read the book, and I don't even LIKE mayonnaise

5. Hot butter on toast for tea in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, preferably to be eaten while one is warming one's feet by the fire in one's flouncy 19 century dress

4. ALL the campfire/stakeout food in Blyton's Famous Five series: sausages and ginger beer and hard boiled eggs and squashed Mars Bars and treacle pudding

3. Turkish Delight in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. FYI for those who have never eaten it: Turkish Delight tastes like rose water crap. But I still wanted to eat it SO BADLY when the White Witch offered it to Edmund and I totally would have sold out my siblings as well just to try some

2. Assorted food in Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series: Google buns (sticky buns with a warm, juicy middle), Toffee Shocks (toffees that would get bigger as you sucked on them and would eventually explode in your mouth, thus shocking you), Pop Biscuits (digestive type biscuits that would secrete honey with each bite) and Hot and Cold Delights (candy that would get hot and then cold and then hot and then cold and which I imagined to be some kind of bipolar ice cream bar)

1. AND THE BEST FOOD DESCRIPTION EVER: The Land of Goodies from the Faraway Tree (Blyton again). A completely 100% edible land full of candy houses and lollipop flowers and rivers of caramel and ice cream trees? CLEARLY THE WINNER.