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Indian Food Crawl in Kuala Lumpur

The principle of food crawl is to have a few friends discover together a neighbourhood where good things to eat can be found, to eat… and to look at, to ask, to taste many things!

The Indian community is about 10% of the population in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has Little India as well as its famous Chinatown. One can find in Little India the same as in Bombay. However, the best Indian food is in another place, slightly further out from the city centre, in a place that attracts many clients to eat, indians, malays, and rarely tourists.

The principle is simple and strongly inspired from the culinary traditions of southern India, from where most indian immigrants to Malaysia come from…. There are no plates, but a very clean banana tree leaf. There are no forks or knives, but very clean fingers. Once seated, employees in the MacDonald style come to put on your leaf various vegetables (cucumbers, spinach fried leaves (I believe), potatoes) then much rice, on which two or three different sauces are spread ( fish curry sauce, chicken curry sauce, Dal), then papadums fried pancakes are given, fish balls, chicken curry, and mango chutney and hot sauce.

Are you still hungry? You get seconds.

Eating with the hands needs some habit. There are two rules:

1.- Keep your fingers together, and use the four fingers without the thumb as a small spoon which brings together the rice and all that goes with it. Try to keep as much as possible the food at the end of your fingers.

2.- Use the thumb to push the food in your mouth. This sounds difficult, but it is not so hard. Or it does look simple, but it is not. I do not know anymore, but one gets used to it.

Once the leaves are emptied, if you enjoyed the meal you fold the end of the leaf to the inside, with the food. On the contrary, if you did not like it, you fold towards the outside. Our experience was great, we all loved it, starting with me.

The next stop is Little India, around one street in Kuala Lumpur, where we find dealers in flower garlands, small sugar balls, and other gifts for the Hindu Gods during the Pooja prayer.

The main attraction is the spice merchant where hundreds of bags and pots greet the client in a comfortable Ali Baba treasure cave. There are many kinds of lentils, chick peas, dried peppers, tamarin, curcuma, curry.

After some spicy purchases, it is time to refresh ourselves with a cool drink and a small dessert. The place that welcomes us has no air conditioning, but it is well ventilated. It brings to our nose the delicious aromas of Indian pastries. We avoided the cold shock typical of travelling in tropical countries, where you go from 35ºC to 15ºC constantly.

But here there are no chocolate cream pastries, or mango tarts. There are delicious sweets with dry fruits, with bright colours and delicious existing flavours. They have high calories content, but they are so small, you get tempted once, twice…. And we end with a delicious ripe mangoe.

Photos Caption

1.- The food crawls are organized by fried chillies, a non profit association, created by Malaysians and foreign expatriates, to help foreigners discover Malaysia through its food. With Kaz, from South Africa, Lisa, Australian, and Hunty and Adly from Malaysia, we discover the local delicacies.

2.- Exoress service… It may look like a MacDonald, but it is really something else!

3.- Difficult to finish this leaf…

4.- Notice the way the leaves are folded

5.- At Rajus, the company culture is important.

6.- Spices festival