MALAYSIAN BORNEO: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in Kuching.

Malaysia has two parts: Penisular Malaysia and the overgrown, jungle-filled Malaysian Borneo (land of the infamous defunct headhunters). Malaysian food reflects the diversity of the county itself. There were some unfamiliar flavors and textures. Many foods, like the people,  seemed to be a combination of Indian, Chinese, and Indonesian. 

Restaurant etiquette in Borneo has been a bit confusing.  Some places seem to be one restaurant but there are a number of “stalls” inside. I have just been ordering what I want, then sitting down. I think the people who serve drinks are sole proprietors and operate a separate soda/juice business. Luckily all the menus are in Chinese, bahasa Malaysia and English so navigation isn’t much of a problem.

And now for the food!!!

Breakfast: instant coffee and Bak Pau --- a Chinese pork bun.

Lunch: chicken curry--- again. It was a buffet style place. I took a large serving of what I thought was stir fried veggies but turned out to be a slimy jungle fern of  some sort. It tasted extremely bitter so I abandoned it on my plate. The best part of lunch was the refreshing fresh cucumber juice. I’m a sucker for these southeast asian blender “juices.” I feel like I could subsist on those alone.

cucumber juice

the green stuff tasted like gasoline

Dinner: Roasted Chicken with Rice. It sounds so simple but was the best meal I’ve had in Malaysia so far.

The chicken was rubbed with some spices then roasted. Some sort of sweet and sour sauce that looked like oil and vinegar was spooned on top. The chicken was served next to a bed of short grain rice that tasted as if it had been simmered for hours in chicken broth. Oh, the flavors! The chicken was served with possibly the best dipping sauce I’ve had. It was made of ground up chilis and orange rind/juice. The savory chicken paired with citrus and chili blew my mind.

To top it all off, a weak gingery soup came with our meal.

sweet soy sauce on the left, chili-citrus sauce on the right

I aslo had Liang Teh, a sickeningly sweet iced herbal tea

We picked this restaurant because it was so crowded with locals. Turned out they only served one thing:  chicken with rice.

The food was great but the service was the most interesting. The restaurant was run by tribesmen. All of them had traditional tribal tattoos and mostly—shaved heads with a tiny topknot of pony-tailed hair. They were covered in tons of tradional body piercings and looked pretty tough. Will said he could tell they had a heart of gold because a cold-hearted man couldn’t make such delicious food. This place was so good we went back again for even more chicken and rice.