Living vicariously through the lives of others...

A foodie friend has been travelling Asia, and emailed her eating adventures, below, back so we could all experience it second hand through her. I hate her! Read it then get online and book yourself a holiday later this year!

From Fri 27th April:

Greetings from hot and sticky Kuala Lumpur! I arrived here last night after a short stop in Singapore, and have just spent a few days in Melbourne pottering about. The flight over was good, and it was only 6 hours 50 minutes from Adelaide! Watched a couple of movies - Pursuit of Happ'y'ness (Will Smith), and Beatrix Potter (Rene Zelwegger), which left only a short time to fall asleep, and eat! Singapore airport is amazing! All the shops and food you could possibly want... I could live there!

I am staying with some friends (Gavin and Juanita) and we are heading off to Malacca (where my dad was born) tomorrow morning for a night. The rest of the week in KL then next weekend in Penang. Mostly, I am looking forward to the local food - trying some new things as well as having some of the more traditional dishes like char kuey teow (spicy stir fried flat rice noodles with chinese sausage and fresh clams). This morning I went to the food markets and then the supermarket. It was great to see all the different produce that we don't get in Tassie. All sorts of strange vegetables and fruits - and, you can get fresh fish balls at the supermarket!!!! JOY! (I bought 3 packets to have with my noodles for brekkie!) Tried a strange red banana, and bought some funny looking beans called 'four corner beans' which are kind of long and square with frilly ridges.

After that we went to an Indian street stall for lunch - lunch for four of us cost $7 Australian TOTAL!!!! My shout! Roti chani, tandoori chicken and drinks. I had some 'pulled tea' which is made with condensed milk... hmmm... .different, but good. Can't wait to have some big mud crabs, some yum cha, and of course, lots of noodles! I suspect the next 12 days or so will be all eating, drinking, and a tad of shopping. As usual, I will bring back lots of photos of my meals.

Tonight, we are cooking up a curry feast, then having some chendol for dessert, which looks like green worms!

The weather today hasn't been too bad, and now a big thunderstorm has just broken... it's great... bucketing down, and the thunder is so loud it sounds like boulders are landing on the roof!!

Anyway, will update you on my food expoits as my week progresses!

From Mon 30th April:

Hi Guys!
Well, Malacca was hot, hot, hot! Enjoyable, but 2 days is enough to take it all in. Beautiful old town but the fashion is kitsch and the souvenirs are tacky. When we arrived, we went searching for a lunch spot. We ended up eating at a very local spot - dingey, dirty, and no one spoke english. Food was good tho... sweet & sour pork, barbecue pork, asian greens, chicken curry, chinese omelette - once again, so cheap - fed the five of us for around $10, including drinks!! Did the tourist walk after lunch, sweated bucketloads, and for dinner we found a great Chinese 'rice ball' restaurant where we had some great food - fantastic roast duck in a very tasty sauce, silken tofu, barbecue pork, chicken rice, hainan chicken, steamed fish cake, wanton soup and assam whole fish. The restaurant was right in the middle of the night market so did a round of that but, nothing worth buying - all really cheap crappy stuff, but if I hadn't eaten so much for dinner, I would have taken advantage of some of the street food which smelled sooooo good - small squid on a stick, fishballs, dried pork, steamed buns...

This morning after my fusion breakfast of Nasi Lemak (steamed rice, cucumber, greens and chilli paste), sausages, baked beans and fruit, I went to the Baba Nonya Museum - this is my dad's heritage. All the furniture, clothing and decorations were so ornate, and I recognised the pink and green special occasion dinner settings that my dad's mother gave my mother. The pictures on the walls were all hand embroidered - each one taking around 5-6 years to complete! Some of the carvings on the stairways and doorways apparently took around 10 years to complete so the married craftsmen who came from China to do the work often took a second wife in Malacca!

Arrived back in KL this afternoon. Stopped at a roadside stop for lunch and, after trying to tell myself all morning I would stop eating so much, I had 3 dishes - char kuey teow, fishball soup, and a plate of stir fried very thin rice vermicelli with a spicy chilli sambal. Excellent, and sure beats the usual roadstop hamburgers, fried dim sims and chiko rolls!!!

Apart from all the food, Gavin and Juanita are moving to India in July and it's going to cost them too much to take their wine in - so, we are drinking their fine wine collection! They have some fantastic wines from France and Italy. Yes... I will come back a very FAT JAC!

I have yet to see the sights in KL and will be doing that over the next few days. Tomorrow, a bit of shopping!