So I Heard You Like Crabs

Pasar Malam: Farmers' Markets From Before They Were Cool

The pasar malam (night market) is a pretty important part of the Malaysian experience, being more popular than its farmers' market cousin that we have in the US. At a typical pasar malam there'll be lots of fresh fresh, meat, fruits, vegetables, snacks, etc. I actually visited last time I was here in Malaysia, but I guess I didn't post anything about the experience (at least I couldn't find anything on the old blog). Here are some pics from my most recent visit to one:

Stingray!

Sting ray isn't as crazy exotic as it sounds and, actually, it's relatively friendly to eat because it doesn't have many bones. I still struggle to pick out bones when I eat fish (newb!).

Feelin' crabby?

They've got some big fish for sale

Rambutan is one of my favorite fruits; open one up and you'll see the ants like them too

I discovered rambutan during my last trip. It's also common in Latin America, so you may see it around if you look hard enough. It's kind of like a very large, very sweet grape with a big seed in the middle of the flesh. PheNOMenal!

We didn't eat all of this pile of greens

Something Exotic

Merry Christmas!

Some shots of our Christmas family BBQ:

It's a wonder everyone didn't get food poisoning with me behind the grill. I assure you all, though, that I stepped away before things got serious with the chicken wing skewers, grilled fish and mutton steaks.

I had no idea what I was doing

I prepared baked (jacket) potatoes. If you add a lot of butter, cheese and seasonings, you really can't mess them up. 

Baked potatoes: So easy, even Jake can make them

 Merry Christmas to my entire family on both sides of the Pacific:

Ho liao!

I Finally Get Some Satay

Oh yes I do:

It was good too:

Penang Food Hawkers By Moonlight (Street light?)

Some photos of Penang's famous hawker stalls at night:

Here's the raw version of the cockles I described in a previous post:

Cockles

Satay is skewered meat and it is amazing

Durians hanging

One interesting thing that happened on this night was that an older, mustachioed gentleman suddenly came upon us in the dark and asked if we knew where the good street food was. He was badly in need of some fried rice, apparently, and after we showed him the way he went from stall to stall until he got what he was looking for. Malaysian food: Sometimes you just gotta have it.

Eating Tang Yuan

One special kind of food I've had this trip was tang yuan. Tang yuan are basically little sticky balls made from rice flour (imagine tapioca, but softer). Normally tang yuan don't have any kind of filling, but these days they can be stuffed with all kinds of different things: Black sesame paste, lotus paste, red bean paste, green tea paste, crushed peanuts, etc. They're typically served in a sweet, gingery syrup.

This was a cool spot: They were blasting Christmas music

The gang's all here

The yuan in tang yuan has the meaning of "round" or "reunion". Thus, tang yuan often come to symbolize family togetherness and they are often eaten with family and at certain important holidays.

Close-up of the tang yuan: You can see they come in many colors