First dish- char kway teow. When ordering it, Molly turned to me and asked if I wanted cockles in it. "Cockles? Whats a cockle?" She laughed shook her head and told the lady in her local Malay language to throw some cockles in. Later I would find out these were small clams masquerading as giant boogers. Mmm mmm good.
This dish itself was pretty good, save for the cockles and it's appearance. It looked like a pile of earthworms. In reality it was fried noodles in a spicy sauce with some veggies and other mysterious proteins. I've mastered the local way of eating- chopsticks in right hand, spoon in left. Even a lady at the hawker stand next to me came up and said she was going to get me a fork but saw I could use the chopsticks and then asked if I grew up in Asia. Yep, I'm practically a local now.
Molly doesn't drink anything while eating, but I needed something to wash those slippery cockles down. I got a local drink- sugar cane juice. The lady literally took two foot-long sugar canes and ground them through a juicer, strained the liquid and served it with ice. Not bad, very sweet, went ok with the char kway teow. Not a drink I will be regularly enjoying however, just too much sugar (I should have seen that coming).
Final dish- dessert- ice kachang. A local favorite. Now before I further describe it, look closely at the link below.
Did you see it? CORN! On a dessert? What the heck!! The best way to describe it is like a snow cone but fluffier, like real snow, covered in bright sugary syrups, with sugar coated corn on top and jello and beans hidden inside. Weird right? Who puts CORN on a dessert? It was quite a sugar rush and I barely made a dent in it, but now I can say I've mastered 2 more types of local food!
A few weeks ago during lunch I was taken out for a badung drink (rose flavored milk) with nasi padang (still a mystery). My coworkers ordered for me and I just dumbly stood there answering questions they asked. "Shark?" "No." "Potato?" "Yes."...The nasi padang dish ended up having chicken, potatoes, string beans, rice, lots of chili spice and a whole lot of 'I'm not sure what this is' moments. Some parts I really enjoyed!
I appreciate they ordering for me, and some of it is actually quite good. They're happy since they know I can handle spices and like to see my reaction when I'm drinking fruity bright pink milk drinks. Win-win for everyone.
Thursday night I went out shopping since that is what everyone does here. A bit depressing. Some stores include UK and USA sizes in addition to the local sizes. In case you are ever here, if you're a size 6 in the USA-you're a XXL.
Friday night was my work Christmas party. I went with the SBT. It was very nice! I won a wine gift basket playing categories. There were about 20 of us selected and we had to stand on stage and say a unique fruit each time. I could have gone on forever! They were all saying Asian fruits. I said persimmon and pomegranate. Always good to end the night a winner :)
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| From left to right- Jon, Chris (in stripes), Ed, Ken, Zack me! |
12 days left!!!
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