KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — It’s Chinese New Year and Malaysia’s capital is deserted once again as citizens enjoy one of the many holidays observed by a nation with an array of races and religions.

But the nonstop stream of festivals, which began last October when Muslims celebrated the end of the fasting month, is being met with grumbles from business and industry who say the nation cannot afford all the merry-making.

After Malaysia’s majority Malays celebrated Eid al-Fitr, it was the Hindus’ turn with the Diwali festival of lights, then Christmas, followed by traditional New Year and now Lunar New Year. [Malaysia’s holiday bonanza no fun for business. AFP via Google News. February 11 2008

I realized how many holiday we Malaysians (and Kuala Lumpur and Selangor) have when I started to realize most week since December had been 4-day week. I culminated last week with the Chinese New Year.

Or rather the parallel street behind Jalan Alor, at the corner opposite Nova Hotel, I believe. The meal above costs RM6.50 (erm, under USD2) — slices of beef; entrails like crunchy stomach lining and intestines; and more conventional beef balls in a clear soup served with dry noodles with a minced meat sauce — think Chinese-style spaghetti ;). The most important condiment is the highly addictive garlic chili sauce which is my favourite in the city. My dessert is another popular local drink to ‘detox’ or ‘cool’ the body: think citron presse but made with fresh lime juice and preserved sour plums (gat chai shuen mui). Ah simply blissful. Definitely worth my random drive there to get my fix.

NON-HALAL

For more photos, read on. ;)


Beef soup. YUM YUM.

Located at the city’s red light district, I always find the area very bohemian, reminds me of Soho in London too ;)

It was as easy as one, two and three.

One. The first KL 24 hour Food Crawl began.
Two. It was just the two of us – plonkwonk and Sharizal Shaarani.
Three. It ended after three places.

At the stroke of midnight April 1, we ended up at the burger stall near the Esso petrol pump in Jalan Kasah in Medan Damansara, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. We ordered the Burger Special as we chatted with the burger boys about their business.

The burger special was a meat patty sliced through the centre and grilled on a hot plate, then wrapped in a fried egg with paprika powder before the usual condiments of onions and lettuce plus mayonnaise was added to the burger in a seeded bun.

Nice. They finished cooking it in five minutes and we took the equal amount of time to finish it off. Meanwhile, Hafiz had sent an email about some Laksa – noodles in either tamarind soup or curry – somewhere in Ampang but that suburb was just out of Kuala Lumpur city.

We then moved on in the light drizzle to the nearby suburb of Bangsar – across Medan Damansara – for some really good Mutton and Oxtail Soup stall in Lucky Gardens but the stall owner had shuttered for the rainy night.

With time to spare, we moved on to downtown Kuala Lumpur in search of Hokkien noodles but that stall had also closed for the night. We finally headed a couple of streets away to a Chicken Rice stall near an equally famous Chicken Rice shop.

The meal was simple – steamed chicken with steamed rice in chicken stock and some excellent blended fresh chillies and lime sauce. Barley water and hot Chinese tea provided an able complement to the meal.

We were already fquite full but pressed on in search of good food. A quick stroll through the Tung Shin area – a square of streets in the centre of the city filled with Asian cuisine popular with tourists – in search of something light to eat.

There was a lot of food but we gave it a miss.

Something light was the order of the night at two in the morning and we decided to head the northern edge of Kuala Lumpur for some Dimsum – steamed and fried bite-sized meat and vegetables – that probably inspired the Spanish tapas and Persian meze.

So we made to Jalan Ipoh where a row of shops served dimsum that were being steamed in giant wicker baskets as displayed in the photo or fried in giant woks. We ordered a few with some Chinese tea and struggled to start eating sharp at 2 am and finished most of it 30 minutes later.

That was that. We had enough. We went home with a promise to be hungry and try again in the weeks to come.

Apart from Hafiz’s suggestion, I guess I was wrong about Malaysian’s craze for food. Or maybe its just the people who are online surfing the blogs – maybe they are just used to 24 hour burger joints and Indian Muslim restaurants plus the Starbucks where WiFi is free.

But we will try again. This was just the test run.

By the way, more photos will be posted at plonkwonk as soon as possible.

We talk long and loud about the best food in the city and the country, of what can be found in every nook and cranny across the nation.

So, to celebrate April Fool’s Day and Malaysia’s 50th anniversary of independence and also MBKL’s existence – plonkwonk and friends – whom I will name later, are initiating the KL 24 hour Food Crawl!

You propose, we dispose – the best food of the hour every hour on the hour.

The challenge is simple. Send in your thoughts on the best food that is available for any or every given hour available that hour within the confines of Kuala Lumpur. Email it to plonkwonk@gmail.com

The April 1 KL 24 hour food crawl will be the prototype crawl, starting midnight April 1.

It’s a Sunday so some places might not be open. It will be in KL so please don’t suggest anything out of the 96 square kilometres that make up the city. It does not have to be pasta or bread pudding.

Street food or anything like steaming hot chicken rice with roast chicken at 3am will be fine.

And yes, you can join in. Everyone pays for their own food and as tastes might vary, I won’t ask those who propose a certain dish at a certain hour should pay if the dish is crap. So it won’t be a freeloader thingy.

Finally, anyone who can survive 24 hours crawling and chewing, moving and munching from spot to spot across the city will be named the the First KL Champion Food Crawler. And no, I won’t call that person a fool.

Yes. I have a thing about food.

Its called a stomach.

Cheers!