she, the epicuriousgirl.

our family does not normally have turkey on christmas as we prefer to have it on thanksgiving instead. this “tradition” is very much attributed to the fact that the only cook for turkey in our family is my aunt, who spent her formative years in the united states.

however this year, she broke the norm and we had quite a feast on christmas eve. her usual stuffing is oriental in nature, glutinuous rice with mushrooms which is just delish after having imbibed all the bird’s juices while being roasted. she also used some of the turkey dripping to saute the greens with garlic. mashed potatoes with butter and cranberry sauce became the accompaniments. a family friend who came for dinner brought roasted beef, which looked rather promising.

as we gathered by the table, grace was said and my aunt carved the turkey. passed the plates of turkey around and i got such a huge chunk! but it was definitely one of the best bits as it has stuffing stuck under it which i enjoyed tremendously. i didn’t like the beef as much as it was a little on the dry side. but i guess that’s what happens when you get the sides. however, the company was good and laughter was aplenty.

i didn’t stay for dinner long as i had a gathering & gift exchanged with ex-colleagues to attend. they had tonnes of food too but all i managed were some agar-agar (jelly) as dessert. the crowd was fun-loving so we had quite a eventful gift-exchange with some outrageous dares thrown in, lol.

all in all, it was a merry, jolly christmas for me, with some surprising gifts and a blast with loved ones. here’s hoping the very same for new year’s.

we happened to be in damansara uptown last thursday and decided to walk down the shops around the standard chartered bank row in search of a nice place for lunch. noticed quite a few modern kopitiamlike eateries, serving the typical white coffee, roti bakar, curry noodles etc which i didn’t feel like. instead we settled for this seemingly new-ish restaurant bearing the name “Sea Star Kitchen”.

i was a little surprised to see a hakka specialty - “lui cha” (客家擂茶) in its menu. i am not unfamiliar with this dish as it’s one of my grandmother’s specialty. as she does not skimp on the ingredients, i have always been a little reluctant to eat this whenever i eat out as most of the times they fall short in comparison. the soup is perhaps the most important, as it’s cooked with a consortment of pounded herbs, tea leaves, sesame seeds, peanuts etc. to make the dish more flavourful, it is served with a variety of stir-fried greens (seven types being the norm), roasted peanuts and a trio mixture of pickled radish, beancurd and dried shrimps.

when served, the dish seemed promising despite the soup being a lighter, brighter shade of green than i am used to. taking into account customers who may want to go easy on the soup, the soup was served separately. unlike the way my grandmother cooks, the beancurd & pickled radish is served separately here, together with stir-fried cabbage, leafy vegetable (bok choy), leek, long beans, coriander (chinese celery) and roasted peanuts. a very promising beginning indeed. eager to tuck in, i poured all my soup into the rice and its accompaniments and just dived in.

so, the verdict. the soup was a tad too salty for my liking, which i guess helped the dish live up to its other name - “Salty Tea Rice”. and there wasn’t enough oomph from the pounded herbs which probably meant that i was far too used to the abundance of herbs used in my grandmother’s version. still, it was more authentic than i would expected it to be but i wouldn’t be craving for it anytime soon (unless my grandmother has returned to my hometown and i have no frozen rations. afterall, beggars can’t be choosers, can they?).

the restaurant also served a variety of other quick meals and my colleague opted for the salted fish & chicken fried rice which was actually quite delicious due to the lingering wok hei (a certain smoky taste brought on by the hot wok). i think the only complaint was that the sunny side up served together with the fried rice was too oily! another thing that i thought was too oily was the soft shell crab which we ordered as a starter. i couldn’t understand why the chef topped the crab with fried shallots as well, as it didn’t add any value to the dish. the price was also a little steep at RM7.90 each.

Note:Written on the 14th October 2006 at my previous blog. Thought it would be good to continue to “promote” kelantanese fare a little, so decided to import it here.

i have been having a craving for authentic kelantanese cuisine as i recall the delicious array of the food i had during my visit to Kota Bharu 3 years ago. so when the very same friend who brought me there the last time said she was going back, i didn’t hesitate in tagging along.

sadly, my cravings were not fully attended to as we didn’t realise how Ramadhan month affected the state. most malay restaurants were not opened until evening and even if they had opened, we were turned away because they only wanted to cater for the buka puasa (breaking fast) crowd. the variety of food we were anticipating in the ramadhan bazaars were also lacking, in comparison to the ones back here. still, i managed to sample some of the more well-known kelantanese dishes.

As soon as we touched down, we went straight to a ramadhan bazaar and got myself a pack of Nasi Kerabu, or also known as Nasi Ulam. The rice is tinted blue from the petals of flowers called bunga telang (clitoria). The blue rice is then served with a combination of fresh aromatic herbs ( mint, basil, lemongrass, kaffir lime/ turmeric leaves, bunga kantan (torch ginger flower buds) etc), raw vegetables (bean sprouts, long beans etc), salted egg, kerisik (grated coconut), tumis (pounded chilli paste) and a good serving of ground black pepper. Along with the other goodies we bought (such as murtabak, kueh cara berlauk, onde-onde), we sat down at the grounds of Kelantan Golf & Country Club to partake our late lunch. As good as this was, I wished the vendor gave me some fish crackers.

My friend’s parents operate “Restaurant Kwang Ling” along Jalan Post Office Lama in Kota Bharu and their versions of Nasi Berlauk and Nasi Dagang has been featured in local food guides in magazines and even on telly! They do sell other hawker food such as fish ball noodles (where all fish balls / fish cake are homemade), curry noodles, prawn noodles etc. but its their Nasi Dagang that gets sold out quickly. I myself had to wait til my last day to get to taste it as it was sold out the previous day by the time I arrived at the coffeeshop. Nasi Dagang (or Nasi Dagae in Kelantanese), literally translated to mean “Trader’s Rice” is a special type of reddish brown rice mix cooked with coconut milk. It is served with ikan tongkol (fish curry) most frequently, together with half an hard boiled egg and some chilli paste. But as my friend wanted to give me the full deal, she gave me a bit of everything available such as the daging kerutuk (juicy, tender beef pieces), prawns and gulai ayae (chicken curry). The tastiest dish is definitely the beef, which I can’t get enough of.

Nasi Berlauk is on the other hand, the staple Kelantanese breakfast. It is white rice with various dishes and I had it on my second day at my friend’s parents’ coffeeshop and opted for the daging kerutuk, with half an hard boiled egg, salted fish & chilli paste. Most of the fish / vegetable accompaniment dishes are cooked with tumeric and galangal infused yellow gravy. After the food is sold out by noon, we normally make our way to the Siti Khadijah Central market where my friend’s mother does her shopping. The wet market is vibrant and made up of mostly women vendors, who sit amongst their fresh produce and has become one of the most photographed markets in Malaysia due to the visual delight the explosion of colours provide. Most of the photos turn out with a yellowish tinge due to the yellow walls.

Lunch after my first visit to the central market involved another of Kelantan’s specialty - Budu, a fermented anchovy sauce that is added with chilli, onions & lemon juice and eaten with rice, fried fish and ulam (assortment of herbs) / blanched greens (okra, long beans, pucuk paku or fiddlehead fern). The greens & the fish are dipped into the brownish condiment, and eaten with rice. The salty and sourish taste can get very addictive as most people tend to add rice when eating this! And apparently, this ancient sauce is considered to be full of anti-oxidants and potential free radical fighters.

My friend’s mother also bought us Akok, a Kelantanese kuih (sweet cake) which made mainly of duck eggs, coconut milk and brown sugar. The taste and texture is akin to eating creme caramel, and was surprisingly delicious despite its humble appearance. When served hot, the quivery, custard-like texture seems to melt in one’s mouth. Mhmm.

And of course, we did go and “makan siam”, meaning eat Thai. We went to “Ban Kok” at Wakaf Baru and I was treated to true-taste Thai food. We had Kheng Som (Asam Pedas Fish) which was deliciously sour & spicy. I specially requested for yum woon sen (vermicelli salad) which was one of the best i have ever had. the lime juice and fish sauce combination hit all the right notes. We also had belut patpet (river eel) cooked in a spicy, turmeric base which I enjoyed. my friend had her kangkung belachan. there was the clear tom yam soup and also an oyster omelette. vaguely remembered an ex-collegue’s recommendation to have fried bees but no one else seemed interested so another time, perhaps.

on the second evening, after a visit to Wat Machimarram Varran where the largest sitting Buddha was, we went galivanting around Tumpat and discovered another small Ramadhan bazaar where I sampled some authentic Kelantanese fare such as Etok, kerabu beko and this purplish seaweed mixed with kerisik (grated coconut). Etok is a small, pebble-sized, freshwater corbicula clam which is cleaned throughly before being marinated with crushed shallot, garlic, salt etc being being lightly roasted and sold in newspaper cups. The trick to eating this is to place the clam between your teeth and pry it open. it took me a while to get the hang of it, but the juices that spurt into one’s mouth as soon as the shell is pried open is perhaps the reward for one’s patience.

The kerabu beko’s main ingredient is of course the buah beko, a kind of fruit, similar to the Petai but is much wider, and grows tall. The outer skin is hard and has to be scrubbed clean by means of boiling or direct heat. Once it’s softened, it’s sliced thinly and combined with pounded shallots, grated coconut, mackeral fish flakes, lime/ calamansi juice, black pepper and coconut milk. Alas, I am rather clueless as to the name and ingredients of the purplish seaweed snack that I had as my friend’s mum had no clue either. it was a little chewy but was complimented well by the grated coconut and sauce.

my last meal in kota bharu is khau jam (”mixed rice” in thai), a spicy herbal rice salad. the rice is cooked in the juice of over 50 types of blended herbs & leaves, giving it a brownish-green colour and is served with the very same accompaniments as “Nasi Kerabu”, such as the herb mix & bean sprouts, budu sauce, grated coconut, chilli paste, fish flakes/crackers etc.

well it looks like I did have the majority of the kelantanese food i wanted eat save for Ayam Percik (grilled chicken flooded with a nutty sauce) and Sup tulang which was planned to have at Yati’s on my last night there but we were turned away. Perhaps next time I should try this recommendation for Ayam Percik.