Trifter

Malaysia is a multi-racial country located in the South East Asia region. In this country, people from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures live together peacefully. And that is also one of the reasons why Malaysia is fast becoming one of the world’s most popular places for food enthusiasts. In this article, I will bring you for a short tour on some of the more popular food in Malaysia.

Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak is a very popular delicacy in Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand and Brunei. It is also regarded as the national dish of Malaysia due to its popularity among the local people and also among tourists. If you translate this to English word, Nasi Lemak literally means Rice Cream. It is actually made by mixing the rice with coconut cream and steam the mixture together to produce the cooked rice. The traditional Nasi Lemak comes with the rice, cucumber slices, deep fried anchovies (known as ikan bilis), roasted peanuts and hot spicy chilli sauce (sambal). There are other variations which add fried egg or hard-boiled egg, vegetables, spicy cuttlefish, chicken or beef curry. The possibilities are limitless!

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Satay & Ketupat

Satay or sate is another famous Malay delicacy in Malaysia. It consists of slices of dice-sized meat on skewers made of bamboo or coconut leaf spine. These dices of meat are then barbecued over wood or charcoal fire and served with spicy peanut gravy which the local people called as kuah. As for the type of meat used, the most commonly found versions are the chicken, goat and beef. There are also pork, fish, rabbit and deer meat but those are quite rare. The taste depends on the type of meat used but most of them have a kind of turmeric taste which is used to marinate the meat dices. Other side dishes which can be found with satay are onions, cucumbers and ketupat which are rice dumplings wrapped in woven pouches made of palm leaf. If you are interested in this delicacy, you just need to go to any local open-air food outlets, and you will most likely be able to find it due to its overwhelming popularity.

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Kuih

Kuih is the general term used to name the large variety of small food items in Malaysia. They normally consist of food such as cakes, cookies, pastries and puddings. Most of them are either steamed or fried, unlike the Western versions which are mostly baked. If you are familiar with Spanish and Chinese food, you might notice that some of the kuih here look a little like the Spanish’s tapas or the Chinese’s dim sum. People here can take kuih any time in the day due to its small sizes and affordable price. The ingredients used depend on the type of kuih. It can range from coconut cream, pandan (or screwpines), palm sugar, rice flour to tapioca. Examples of popular kuih are karipap (or curry puffs), kuih koci, kuih lapis, pisang goreng (fried banana), pulut tekan, lemang, dodol, onde-onde, etc. How to find them? They are available throughout the country. One can easily spot them in shopping complexes, road side stalls or any local food outlets.

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Banana Leaf Rice

Banana leaf rice is actually a South Indian cuisine which consists of white rice, vegetables, curry (can be fish, chicken or mutton curry), pickles and my personal favourite deep fried papadom (a kind of cracker with very unique and salty taste). The rice and the side dishes are then served on a piece of banana leaf which is said to improve the digestion and also adds a certain fragrance to the rice. You can also add other side dishes such as fried fish cakes, fish head curry, etc. It depends on the restaurant selling since the type of side dishes differ from one restaurant to the other. However, do be careful when ordering the side dishes as some of them might be quite expensive. The standard banana leaf rice does not cost much. It is the side dishes which normally cost a bomb. Although the price is quite expensive, banana leaf rice is still undoubtedly one of the most popular South Indian cuisines in Malaysia.

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Biryani Rice

The name Biryani actually means fried or roasted in Persian word. This delicacy is very popular not only in Malaysia but also in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Singapore. It is said to be made of basmati rice cooked with spices (cumin, beans, peas, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, onion, garlic, etc) and served with a wide range of vegetables and meats. The end result is orange and brownish coloured rice with a very unique and distinctive (very delicious) taste. Add it with some sweet and sour vegetables, chicken or mutton curry, and you will have one of the tastiest rice delicacy ever!

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Rojak

Rojak is the Malay word for mixture and the dish is actually a mixture of fruits and vegetables, mixed with spicy and thick sauce. The ingredients and type of sauce used will depend on the type of rojak. There are few types of rojak in Malaysia such as the Indian rojak (uses hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, bean sprouts, bean curds, potatoes and fritters), fruit rojak (consists mainly of tropical fruits such as guava, pineapple, turnip, deep fried tofu, mangoes, green apples, etc) and Penang rojak (quite similar to fruit rojak except for the usage of squid and water apple). As for the dressing or sauce, it can be a mixture of shrimp paste, chilli, lime juice, etc.

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Roti Canai

Roti Canai is a very popular bread delicacy in Malaysia. The word “roti” actually means bread in Malay while the word “canai” means spreading out which is the way the delicacy is being prepared. It is actually a kind of dough made using fat, egg, flour and water. This mixture is then kneaded, oiled and folded repeatedly before being left for a certain amount of time. Next, the dough will be fried with bit of oil on a flat frying pan. The finished product is bread which is flat and fluffy on the inside but crispy on the outside. It will then be served with spicy gravy such as dal or curry. Besides the traditional roti canai, there are also other types of roti which uses additional ingredients on top of those used for preparing roti canai such as roti telur (egg), roti tisu (tissue bread, which is very thin and normally filled with a thin layer of sugar and condensed milk), roti bawang (onion bread), roti cheese, roti pisang (banana bread), roti planta (contains margarine), etc. You can easily find these roti delicacies in most mamak stalls, Indian and Malay food outlets.

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Nasi Kandar

Nasi Kandar is very popular in Malaysia especially in the Northern part of the country. It actually consists of steamed white rice and served with a wide variety of side dishes of your choice. It is actually quite similar to mixed rice since you get to choose the type of side dishes to go with the rice. The only difference here is that a typical plate of Nasi Kandar is normally served with few types of curries. Each curry has its own spices and tastes, and a mixture of all the different curries really make the entire Nasi Kandar very delicious. Don’t worry about mixing the wrong curries because the shopkeepers will know which to mix without you telling them. Just be careful of the price especially when taking seafood side dishes such as squid, crab, fish or prawn.

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Bak Kut Teh

This is my all time favourite dish in Malaysia. It’s actually a Chinese delicacy and is widely popular in Malaysia (especially Klang), Singapore and China. Bak Kut The actually means “meat bone tea” which is a soup-based delicacy cooked with a complex mixture of herbs, spices and pork bones for long hours. The soup is then added with pork ribs, mushrooms, lettuce, dried tofu and pork intestines (if you like. I normally don’t include them since I don’t really like the taste). This delicacy is usually eaten with rice (salty rice or yam rice) and strips of fried dough (which is to mix with the soup). I personally will request minced garlic, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce which I will use for the pork ribs. There are 2 different types of variations which use chicken or vegetable instead of pork. However, I personally feel that the taste is not that good without the pork. Just beware of the high cholesterol content of this delicacy. That is also why I am trying to minimize the consumption even though it is my favourite food. Where to find? Unfortunately, you can only find this delicacy in specialty shop and not in shopping complexes. If you are in Malaysia, you might need to refer to a local guide to find or you can travel to Klang city.

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Dim Sum

Dim sum is another famous Chinese delicacy in Malaysia which consists of different kinds of light dishes, normally served in the morning or before lunch. All the dishes come in very small portion and most of them are made of meat, flour, seafood, vegetables, etc. If you are familiar with Spanish tapas, you will find some similarities in dim sum. As a matter of fact, dim sum is quite a general term since other Chinese dishes such as Bau (bun with meat or vegetable fillings), Chee Cheong Fun (rice noodle roll) and carrot cakes are also being served in most dim sum restaurants. Famous dim sum dishes include shrimp dumpling, siu mai, char siu bau (bun with barbecued pork filling), lotus leaf rice, steamed fishballs, taro cake, egg tart, congee, etc. You can normally find dim sum in most Chinese restaurants including those in hotels, and also in dim sum specialty shops.

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Char Kway Teow

Char Kway Teow or fried flat noodles is a very popular dish in Malaysia and Singapore. It is fried with very high heat and mixed with a combination of dark and light soy sauce, prawns, fish cakes, chilli, eggs, bean sprouts and cockles. Some stalls also include pork fat or crisp of pork lard just to make it tastier. I don’t normally go for those since it is very unhealthy and have very high cholesterol content. For this delicacy, you can easily find it in Malaysia – food courts, hawker stalls, restaurants, etc. It has to be one of the most commonly found foods in Malaysia.

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Hokkien Mee

There are basically 2 types of Hokkien Mee in Malaysia. The first version is fried noodles in Hokkien style, which is a dish consisting of fat noodles fried with dark soy sauce, prawns, pork meat and pork lard. The other version is more unique and originated from Penang. Some people call it Penang Hokkien Mee which is a kind of delicacy consisting of egg noodles cooked with stocks made of shrimp and dried prawns, and served with small pieces of chicken or pork. For spicy food lovers, you can also opt to include sliced red chilli and sambal (spicy sauce). The main difference between the 2 versions is that the latter is a soup-based noodle dish and the former has gravy made of dark soy sauce. The normal Hokkien Mee (the first version) can normally be found in Chinese restaurants in Klang Valley and Singapore, whereas the Hokkien Prawn Mee or Penang Hokkien Mee can normally be found in Penang and in Klang Valley (known as Hokkien Prawn Mee). Again, beware of the high cholesterol content.

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Yong Tau Foo

This delicacy is a soup-based delicacy and is quite popular in Malaysia and Singapore. The word Yong Tau Foo is actually referring to the tofu (bean curd) which is stuffed with meat paste made from fish and pork (some include salted fish). Besides tofus, there are also other variations such as stuffed vegetables, stuffed fritters, etc. These stuffed foods are then cooked in a clear and tasty soup and are often accompanied by rice noodles or rice vermicelli. You can normally find this delicacy in food courts of major shopping complexes but the nice ones are harder to find and might require a local guide to bring you there.

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Hainanese Chicken Rice

This is another popular Chinese delicacy consisting of rice cooked with chicken stock and a selection of roasted chicken or steamed chicken (also known as “white chicken”). The chicken is normally mixed with a little bit of oyster sauce, garlic and dark soy sauce to make it tastier and not so dry. You can also find slices of cucumber, minced garlic and chilli sauce in a chicken rice stall. There are also few variations such as the famous Ipoh chicken rice which is normally served with special bean sprouts (originated from city of Ipoh in Peninsular Malaysia) and the Malacca chicken rice ball which is served with chicken rice balls instead of the normal chicken rice. One can easily find this delicacy in most food courts, hawker centres, shopping complexes and roadside stalls. It is really that common.

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Laksa

Laksa is another famous delicacy in Malaysia. It is actually a spicy noodle soup with an assortment of different contents depending on the type of laksa. In Malaysia, we have the normal curry laksa, assam laksa, Johor laksa, Sarawak laksa and others. The most popular versions have to be the curry laksa (made of coconut-based curry soup and contains bean curds, fish cakes, fish sticks, shrimps, cockles and your selection of noodles), and assam laksa which is also commonly known as Penang laksa (the taste is a mixture of spiciness and sourness and may content ingredients such as mackerel, onions, cucumbers, red chilli, pineapples, mints, etc). You can find the normal curry laksa in most food courts, hawker centres and restaurants selling local food. However, other more unique laksa dishes such as Johor laksa, Penang laksa and Sarawak laksa might require you to travel to the specialty shops in order to try them.

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There are other famous delicacies in Malaysia but it might take me too long to come out with a complete list (cendol, BBQ fish, spicy crab, lam mee, pork porridge, etc). I might come out with a second list in the future but for now, I think the list above is sufficient for all of you food lovers who are planning a trip to Malaysia. Just remember that most of the delicacies in Malaysia are pretty high in cholesterol. And that is why most Malaysians are high cholesterol problem. Hope you have enjoyed this article!

Now, I’m feeling really hungry.