Where to first?

I've been living away from Malaysia for about 18 months now. Although by some standards, that isn't a very long time, for someone who has hardly left the country in the past 20 years, it sometimes feels like an eternity. Moving to another country, there are so many things that you leave behind. Before moving, you experience the excitement of being able to travel and live in another country, but there's also the dread of leaving behind family and friends, places you go to regularly, and in most cases (especially for Malaysians) the food.

Nowadays, you can find a Malaysian restaurant in most countries. If you're ever in London, you can enjoy a mouthwatering "daging salai masak lemak cili api" at Bonda Restaurant and in Luxembourg, you can start a fire in your tummy with a "sambal sotong" at Restaurant Malaysian.  Every major European city now has a Malaysian restaurant, so there's always a place where you can get the flavors of Malaysia whenever you don't feel like cooking.

However, to me, it's never the same as being home. Maybe it's the environment, maybe it's the weather or maybe it's the company. Eating a tomyam in Den Haag never feels the same as the superb tomyam I get at Restoran Sri Melaka at Amcorp Mall in Petaling Jaya even if the ingredients are the same.

So now that I'm back in Malaysia for a week, you would think I would have a "things to eat list". Surprisingly, no. It's 3 a.m. in the morning of my first day back in Malaysia, and I can't decide where or what I'm going to have for breakfast. Shall I go to "Raju's" in Jalan Gasing for roti canai? Or maybe to "Ulik Mayang" for some nasi dagang (But then again, I had that a couple of weeks ago in Den Haag)? Or, maybe since the main topic of this blog is about nasi lemak, maybe I should go have that.

Oh well, I'll make up my mind when I get up in the morning. I might be spared the agony of indecision anyway since I am still awake at 4.00 a.m. so maybe, by the time I wake up, it'll be lunch time.

Nasi Lemak in Luxembourg!!!

Yes!!! You can get nasi lemak in Luxembourg. BUT, (and that is a very big “but” as indicated by the size of the font) you either have to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia, or part of a tour group with 10 or more other people.

I spent the weekend in Luxembourg with my wife and our friends SHA and SI with their 18 month old son Khaleef. We went on a shopping expedition to Mettlach, which is a small town in Germany, just 30 minutes across the border from Luxembourg. For Malaysians who have lived in the Netherlands for a period of at least 3 months, you will know that Mettlach is the home of “Villeroy and Boch”, or V&B for short, the makers of fine tableware and other ceramic and crystal products for over 2 centuries.

SHA and SI with Khaleef

In all honesty, we didn’t really spend that much time in Luxembourg. We arrived on Friday afternoon, walked around for a few hours and stopped for some delicious hot chocolate at the "Chocolate House", spent the night, and left for Mettlach at 10.00 the next morning. We had planned to return to Luxembourg before the shops closed (maybe we thought we wouldn’t get enough of shopping in Mettlach), but by the time we got back to Luxembourg, it was already dark. We spent a total of 9 hours on our shopping expedition (that includes the drive to Mettlach and back).

A Collage of old pictures from the "Chocolate House"

When we got back to Luxembourg that evening, we were all hungry and tired and just wanted to grab some dinner then head back to the hotel for some much needed R&R. Prior to leaving for our shopping expedition, I did a Google search to find out if there was a Malaysian restaurant in Luxembourg.

Hey presto! There was one, just 2.5 km from the city center,  the “Restaurant Malaysian” on the Rue de Rollingergrund, Luxembourg. My wife suggested that we head there for dinner before we go back to the hotel. Since all of us were tired and had pounding headaches (my wife and SHA from all the dilemmas they faced while shopping, SI and me from looking at the bills) we decided Malaysian food would be a good choice.

Restaurant Malaysian on the Rue de Rollingergrund, Luxembourg

When we stepped into the restaurant, the first question we asked the Maitre d’ was “Are you Malaysian” (this is a very important question to determine the authenticity of the food). He replied that the chef was Malaysian and offered to call out the chef when we wanted to order (apparently the menu was not good enough for us).

The decor of the restaurant, your usual Malaysia poster and the "Wau Bulan"and something different, a picture of the butterflies of Malaysia

The chef, Chong came to our table and suggested a few authentic Malaysian dishes. We agreed on sambal sotong (squid), sweet and sour fish, udang (prawns) cooked in tomyam gravy (usually a tomyam is in the form of a soup but this time it is much thicker) and some veggies. We were hoping the seafood was going to be fresh and asked if he could make butter prawns instead, but since Luxembourg is a land locked country, they had so source of fresh seafood so they couldn't make any butter prawns. No matter, if the food was good we’d be happy anyway.

Surprisingly, the food was excellent. Even though the sambal was a too thick and you don’t get much of the delicious gravy, the sambal sotong was superb (I’m not usually a big fan of squid. Too rubbery for my taste). Cooked to perfection, it had just the right amount of hot and sweet. The prawns were my favorite  The tomyam gravy with its wonderful mix of lemongrass, tomatoes, chilies and cabbages were a perfect blend for the prawns. I've always liked sweet and sour fish and this one didn't disappoint. Although they used fish fillets instead of fresh fish, they were fried to a crispy golden color before being doused with the sweet and sour gravy.

The veggies, Sambal Sotong, Prawn Tomyam and Sweet and Sour Fish. Yummy!

All in all, it was a wonderful meal. After the meal, the chef spent some time talking to us and telling us about his experience in Luxembourg. It was then that he told us his experience of cooking breakfast for our former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, when he was on a state visit to Luxembourg. Tun had insisted on having a Malaysian breakfast so Chong had prepared some authentic Malaysian food including nasi lemak and murtabak for our former premiere.

He also told us that he had Malaysian groups in his restaurant before, visitors from Malaysia on official business in Luxembourg, embassy officials, and once in a while, people like us, Malaysian tourists exploring the culinary delights of the city. From there, I deduced that Chong could make nasi lemak for me if I was part of a tour group, or maybe, if I called in advance and made a special request. Next time I make a trip to Luxembourg (and I am very sure there will be another shopping trip to Mettlach) I'll call him in advance and find out if I can get some nasi lemak.

Nasi Lemak in Lisbon???

Last weekend was our wedding anniversary. My beautiful wife and I have been married 2 years and like our first wedding anniversary, we decided to go away for the weekend. So this year, we decided to go to Lisbon, Portugal (I had other plans but apparently watching a football game live in a stadium is not romantic enough for an anniversary weekend).

Since I couldn’t go to Liverpool and watch my football team play, I decided to try and find out if there was any Malaysian restaurant in Lisbon. I thought that if I couldn’t enjoy a football game during our anniversary weekend, maybe I could find a place that serves nasi lemak and enjoy my favorite meal instead. So before we left, I googled “Malaysian restaurant in Lisbon” and got 2 possibilities. The first was “Malaca Too” which was on Rua Rodrigues Faria and the other one was “Duck Tale” on Rua de Escola Politecnica (Got the addresses from Google too).

The Farol Design Hotel in Cascais, Portugal

We left for Lisbon on Wednesday evening and arrived quite late in the evening. The hotel we chose to stay at was the Farol Design Hotel located about 30 km west of Lisbon in the town of Cascais. The setting was perfect for an anniversary weekend. The hotel was originally a 19^th century mansion owned by the Count of Cabral. All the rooms are individually designed by local and foreign fashion designers. So the rooms were absolutely beautiful.

Hotel swimming pool

Besides the rooms, the hotel’s swimming pool was situated at the back of the hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We spent a lot of time just relaxing by the pool, basking in the warmth of the sun and the beautiful weather, surrounded by breathtaking scenery and enjoy the soothing hands of the masseuse too.

On the first full day of our stay in Portugal, we decided to remain in Cascais and explore the quaint little town and all its offerings. We hired two bicycles from the hotel and cycled into town, riding past the marina and the “Cidadela de Cascais” before stopping in town for lunch. It was a wonderful day to just take things easy. We returned to the hotel in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the day by the pool.

Cidadela de Cascais

On the second day, we decided to go to Lisbon, enjoy the sights of the city, and maybe try and make a beeline for the Malaysian restaurant so I could have a go at their nasi lemak (if they had any). Unfortunately, the trains were on strike, and for a second day, we were stuck in Cascais. No matter, we just returned to the hotel for more afternoon delight in the sun and a wonderful relaxing massage on the rocks.

A lot of pavements in Lisbon and the whole of Portugal are decorated with patterns such as this

Finally, on the third day we managed to catch the train to Lisbon. This was to be our last full day in Portugal, so we had to take in as many of the sights as possible. We had lunch at the Praca de Commercio and decide to climb up to the “Castello de Sao Jorge” after that (warning, it’s a very steep climb). Along the way, we stumbled across an art gallery with some beautiful paintings of Lisbon. We couldn’t afford the paintings, so we bought some tiles which had been glazed with copies of the artists painting. We even got the artist himself to sign the tiles. It was great.

The artist, Abel Grade

After that, we took a quick tour of the city, on a couple of “Hop-on, Hop off” buses. This took us to the early part of the evening and we still had to take the train back to Cascais. So needless to say, we didn’t get the chance to look for the Malaysian restaurants in Lisbon. Well, we had a great time anyway. We enjoyed our stay in Cascais and plan on going back again. Maybe next time we will have a chance to check out at least one of the Malaysian restaurants. 

Thoroughly enjoyed our anniversary weekend in Portugal

My Nasi Lemak in Den Haag

Since cooking my first nasi lemak back in my university days, I have perfected my nasi lemak to my own taste. Over the years, even though I haven't done it very often, I’ve cooked nasi lemak for friends (in university) and family (maybe a couple of times as I also love my mom’s nasi lemak). I have more or less perfected my technique and the ingredients that I use. I can now rustle up a delicious mouthwatering meal in 45 minutes.

When I first arrived in Den Haag, I didn’t know that many people here. My circle of friends consisted of my lovely wife and a couple of her friends who I met before on previous trips. So I had to make new friends. I decided I should try and extend the hand of friendship to the Malaysian community first as we probably had more things in common. I just had to figure out how to go about doing that.

One of the generalizations that I can make about Malaysians is that they will never say no to food. Under most circumstances, when you invite a Malaysian over to your house for any kind of food, you will get a positive response. Of course there are those who would decline because they can’t squirm their way out of a previous engagement, but if you ever invite a Malaysian to your house for a meal, be prepared to receive a “Yes” answer and in most cases, prepare a lot of food. We Malaysians, can really eat!

Based on this, I decided the best way to make friends here, especially among the Malaysian community is to invite them over for a meal of my nasi lemak. We decided on a small group, just five of us including my wife and I. It had been a while since I cooked anything (privileges of living with your mom for a few years). So I didn’t want to invite a large group just in case my nasi lemak didn’t turn out as I expected. These were to be my guinea pigs. 

Needless to say, my nasi lemak was a hit. I’ve cooked it a few times since and everyone in Den Haag who has had a plate would always have seconds. Nowadays, whenever I decide to have nasi lemak party, guests rarely decline whenever they receive an invite.

 P.s. Big thank you to the guinea pigs, my wife Zaiton Abdullah, and friends Samantha Lee, Zulfa Ashida Zulkifle, Johan Mokhtar and Azrina Kamaruddin

Devouring Nasi Lemak in Den Haag

Since I moved to the Netherlands, I haven’t been able to eat my favorite meal on a regular basis. I can’t just pop out to a stall and grab a stomach full of bliss like I can in Kuala Lumpur. So, if I do have a craving for nasi lemak, I have to cook it myself.

Cooking nasi lemak here isn’t really a problem. I can get most of the ingredients at the Chinese supermarket in the city center. However, I’m not fond at all of the dried anchovies they sell. They import the stuff from Thailand and somehow, it doesn’t fry very well. You don’t get the same crunchiness as you do with Malaysian dried anchovies after frying.

Because of this, I have to get my dried anchovies from Malaysia every time I go back home. Sometimes, as most of my friends here know about my obsession with the good stuff, they will buy some dried anchovies for me when they make a trip back home. After being here for 18 months, I have yet to run short of dried anchovies.

Besides my own home cooked version, I have had nasi lemak cooked by other fellow Malaysians as well. So far, I have tasted 4 different varieties (2 were cooked by the same person but in different quantities thus ended up tasting different). I think I’ll talk about all these different versions in future posts (if not, this will end up to be a very long post). As for now, talking about food has made me hungry so I think I’ll go and have some nasi dagang which was leftover from the weekend.

P.s. I didn’t cook the nasi dagang. I have no idea how to cook it.