We got a late start, opting to sleep in a bit this morning.... Yes, Beth. Slept. In! The Bickersons had arrived next door late last night, so we're hoping s later start would help them decide to leave Malaysia. No such luck unfortunately.
The buffet breakfast here is one of the best we've had on the trip (I am the lone dissenting vote - you'll have a hard time defeating the Citadines breakfast in Shunjuku - come on, they had gyuudon and Japanese curry rice....). However, we are seeing some bizarre hoarding and some really pushy people at the buffet. For some reason, almost everyone is acting like there's a food shortage - getting 8 pieces of toast, then leaving 6 for waste. A small woman in front me, waiting for fried potatoes, proceeded to take the whole buffet refill of potatoes on to a single plate back to her table. I don't get it. Maybe the clientelle here are not used to buffets... It's really weird.
We set out in foot again, this time in the other direction, towards the main park area to the western side of the city. KL has some enormous areas set out as parkland in the city, so a check goes into the column for that. We passed by the national mosque - a more modern looking mosque that's on the outskirts of the park.
Inside the park, we made our way to the famous bird park. Abby giggled at the ever present superlative - it is the worlds largest walk through aviary covered with copper tensile mesh (ok I added that last part, but we do get a kick out of the way that you can always get a "world's largest..." statement to be true if you add enough qualifiers and Abby and I have a running gag were we make up the superlative). Having said all that, it IS freakishly big and quite beautiful.
There are thousands of birds and hundreds of species of birds throughout the grounds. These Pelicans wondering around were quite big!
At 12:30, we decided to check out a bird show, which was actually quite funny. Here are a couple of sample clips.
I wanted to keep,walking through the park, but it was high noon in sweatsville and we were all in need o f,a change. I grabbed the first taxi I could and it turned out to be a wild and wacky ride. I've posted a jerky video of the inside of this guy's car, but let's just say he was an extreme collector. The weird thing was that he was quite serious (even insisting we not out seat belts on in case we would ruin some of his decorations. Half bizarre, half hilarious. It turned out to be "the world's most decorated Malaysian taxi that the Tyndall's had ever ridden in".
Simply Enak was the name of our next food tour adventure. I'd found our guide, Mimi, on trip advisor (yes the same place I'd found the North Borneo train experience on.....sigh) and booked this a couple of months ago. Long story short if you want to skip ahead.... It was excellent!
Mimi was 25 - a Muslim Malay former Samsung employee turned food tour guide. She was very engaging and formed a rapport with everyone pretty quickly. We were joined by a Muslim Aussie with Albanian roots named Sylvie who was in KL by herself for a week.
Mimi was taking us through the Chow Kit area, which is actually a lower middle class area with many Indonseian immigrants. It, like KL and the rest of Malaysia, is a bit of a melting pot of cultures, languages and foods. We tried biscuits at a Chinese family-run shop that totally reminded me of the place Fiona took us to in Hong Kong. This triggered many questions about "Halal" because Sylvie couldn't eat any of the treats that had been made with pork lard. I'm sure most of you know, but I will record here for future reference, Halal is kind of the Muslim equivalent of the Jewish term Kosher - a designation that ensures the food on offer has been sourced and prepared in a manner that is consistent with religious guidelines. For the meat part, Halal means no pig! Goats, chickens and cows must be slaughtered in a specific way and after reaching a particular age (no veal or lamb for these people!).
The whole discussion prompted many questions regarding the Muslim faith which Mimi was more than happy to answer. Could she eat at non-Halal restaurants? Yes, SHE could but some Muslims would not. In Malaysia, non-halal certified restaurants will be very open with what menu items are Halal and what are not, and she could trust the owners to tell the truth. The places might not be Halal certified because they sold liquor (a no-no for Muslims) or just didn't want to go through the process of getting certified.
Mimi came from a devout yet flexible family. She was not "forced" to wear the hijab (head covering), but rather she chose to begin wearing it in her early twenties as a sign she was getting more "serious" and devout. It was fascinating really. She told us about weddings (average 1200 guests... From the bride's side only!). She also told us how much food was woven into Malaysian culture (so much so that the country seems to be the only one in Asia we've seen that has an apparent obesity problem) - even expressions and greetings relate to food "hi, have you eaten?". Social gatherings and business après-meetings always have food at the core. In many ways, food serves the same purpose that alcohol does in our culture, but because they're Muslim, they just can't go to the Squire for a few Hoegardens (Drool-cleanup on aisle 3 please!!!).
We tried a lot of street food as we wove around and through the alleys of Chow Kit. Here is a pic of a typical roadside street food setup - deep fried sweet potatoes, bananas and breadfruit. Yum.
In between food stops, we would duck in and out of markets, and continue the exploration through Mimi of Muslim customs. I kind of thought Sylvie would chip in with her perspective - I haven't found too many reserved Aussies! However, getting her to say more than yes or no was a little bit like pulling teeth.
We sat down at a little place along one covered alley and had some amazing satay - beef, chicken and goat, followed by cucumber and shallots. Apparently those veggies have anti-carcinogenic properties and Malays eat them with satay as sometimes the meat on the sticks get burnt a bit. We also tried an assortment of drinks - iced coffee, tea, carrot, padan leaf and condensed milk and lime juice. The whole juice culture here and many places in Asia is interesting - almost everywhere you go you can see signs with dozens of different pictures of different coloured juices. Most that we tried were good - though the padan one tasted like bubblegum - it had a ton of condensed milk.
I give total props to the satay cooks: They stand next to white hot coals all day, cooking stick after stick of meat satay, occasionally fanning the meat so it doesn't cook too quickly. Abby gave it a quick try...
We ventured into the fruit market, with Mimi offering to show us what any fruit we wanted to taste was like. We'd tried most by this point on our trip and we were all trying to manage not to eat too much based on our now extensive experience with food tours. Robin was trying to coax Sylvie into trying fruits ("you really should try this durian - just to know you did it, you know??") but she would always respond "I think I'll pass".
We stopped at a stall that sold Murtabak. Oh, that was awesome. I only had one eighth of the beef curry onion paddy with egg covering but it was so good. The paddy was only 3 ringett ($1) which is crazy - but again consistent with what we always learn on these food tours - local food is good and cheap.
We stopped and watched a guy make a pancake for us. We'd seen these a lot around Birneo, usually made with sugar and peanuts in the middle. The girls requested chocolate inside this one. Everyone was salivating watching the making of the dessert - even Sylive cracked s smile..... Until they spooned in sweet corn all over the baking shell... what the "frick" is up with the obsession with ruining dessert with corn in this country!!!
We walked through a very busy wet market that had huge cow hooves and cow heads on display. Mmmmoooooving on, we stopped to sit for a coconut juice and more cultural investigation. We were really surprised to learn that Mimi had a Korean boyfriend. What we know about the fun loving Koreans is they love eating meat (especially pork) and they love to drink. Her boyfriend would have to convert to Muslim if they were to marry - no ifs ands or buts about it. It did sound like he liked Malaysian food - he came to Malaysia with a six-pack and left two months later having gained 12 kilos. It was so shocking, Mimi said, that her boyfriend's mom called Mimi and asked her what she'd done to her son! Malaysians love their food. We walked through a patch of chow kit that is a bit of an anomaly in KL - an undeveloped area that is owned by native Malays who refuse to give up their land and also refuse to develop it. Weird but wonderful.
We stopped at a Chinese place for some nice noodles. I loved that we were moving through the three main Malaysian cultures, because that would mean.... Yes.... Indian was next! We ordered a bunch of different roti - Canai, onion, cheese. All amazing. The girls watched the chef make the rotis.... So cool.
They also served some rice and chicken. I was stuffed at this point, but Robin dove right in, Muslim style. She had no qualms about sinking her right hand into the plate and scrounging for a good finger full of food. This one, out of the four of us, just does not hesitate. Her favourite expression is "when in Rome!".
We said our goodbyes to Mimi at around 7:30. It was a great experience, ranking up there with Tommy from Hoi An and Fiona from Hong Kong. In fact, I'd wager to say that Mimi is the "world's best Chow Kit focused, Muslim food tour guide with a Korean boyfriend".
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