Ramadan Market in Dungun, Terengganu, August 2011

I’ve been living in Kuala Lumpur for about a year now and I’m finally beginning to grasp the food scene. It’s overwhelming is all I can say. When I first arrived, I’d have Chinese food and someone would call it Malaysian, the same thing with Indian food, and of course, Malay. I kept asking everyone I met: “Okay…so, what exactly is Malaysian food?” The most common answer was a mix of all these foods, slightly transformed from their native sources. Anyway, long story short, I’ve coined Malaysia the food Mecca of Southeast Asia, and as a food writer, I feel lucky to be spending some time here.

Ramadan Market Scene

Sweet Foods to Break the Fast

I’m an insanely curious person by nature, so when presented with all of these different  Malaysian foods, I had to learn about them. I’ve been taking Indian cooking lessons, so my confidence in that cuisine has sky rocketed. My Indian spice rack has become my friend, not a confusing array of bottles and small packets. I’ve even started making my own paneer.

Chicken Cooked in Clay Pots

Nasi Lemak

I have a Chinese cook at the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence; she’s been there more than twenty years. We’ve been having a veritable food fest in the kitchen…I teach her western and she returns the favor with Chinese. She’s the Chinese grandmother everyone should have: sweet, charming, nurturing, and she loves to please people with food. The first time she made her Peking duck with pancakes I nearly wept. It was almost as good as Da Dong’s in Beijing.

Making Chicken Wrapped in a Flaky Dough

Mortabak Cooking

This leaves the third chunk of the food puzzle: Malay food. I’ve tried some traditionally Malay dishes in the past year, in restaurants here and there, but it was still quite elusive until I ventured to the Ramadan Market (called bazaar Ramadan or pasar Ramadan) in Terengganu, about a five-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur, last week. I got a glimpse of Malay food in all its glory. It was a visual and olfactory feast—a state of nirvana for a food junkie like me. I honestly could not imagine being there on an empty stomach, which was exactly the state of everyone else around me.

Squid in Banana Leaves

Fish Sausages Waited to be Fried

During the holy month of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting from dawn until dusk (including all food and drink, water, too), markets start to pop up in cities across Malaysia in the late afternoon, around three. They cater mostly to the Muslim crowd, who eat voraciously after dusk, and to anyone else who wants some really good Malay dishes for dinner. But because it’s Ramadan, it’s the only food market I’ve been to (and I’ve been to many, from Zaire to Macedonia) where no one is eating. No one. I wanted to try everything, but there was no way I was about to dig into a mountain of food knowing everyone else was hungry. By six thirty, most of the stalls were sold out. People were heading home with all of their goodies in plastic bags to dine together at their family tables.

Rice Cakes in Bamboo

Making Fresh Sugar Cane Juice

I am happy to report that at the market, I did recognize some things being sold: grilled marinated chicken, nasi biryani (fried rice with meat), nasi lemak (rice topped with garnishes, including fried anchovies, peanuts, eggs, shrimp paste, etc), laksa (spicy noodle soup) popia (spring rolls), fish sausages, mortabak (a flaky dough, called roti canai, filled with curried chicken and onions), squid or fish cooked in banana leaves, dry beef and chicken curry, barbecued fish and chicken, chicken cooked in a clay pot, and the list goes on. I’ve still got a lot to learn.

My kids instantly recognized the KFC-like fried chicken and French fries…gourmet globalization at its worst. My husband patiently stood in line to buy me a bag of freshly pressed sugar cane juice. Enjoy this photo essay. It’s an adventure I won’t soon forget.

Sweet Drinks in Bags

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