AWE '13 - Pre-conference outing with Food Tour Malaysia

In my latest post about AWE '13, I mentioned that we started off with a food tour. Our host was Charles of Food Tour Malaysia, who has an absolute wealth of knowledge about not just Malaysian food but also history and culture. Sharing food experiences was a great opportunity for many of us AWE speakers and attendees to get to know each other.

We started off with banana leaf rice, eaten with the right hand. This is available all over Kuala Lumpur, and I would eat it again in a second. In fact, I think this was my favourite dish of the day!

They were giving us one banana leaf each, but it was so much food that most of us decided to share, knowing we had a lot more food to come!

We were a big crew!

We then wandered through the streets of KL, stopping here and there to look at things and try all kinds of random things, from crunchy, spicy snacks to fried savoury doughnuts, to a dessert made with shaved ice, coconut milk and palm sugar.

Some of the snacks we tried along the way. So colourful!

Fried savoury spiced doughnuty treats.

Cendol - ice with coconut milk, palm sugar, and jelly noodles.

Just as we stopped for the cendol it started to rain, which didn't quite suit the refreshing icy dessert, but it was delicious nonethless! Thankfully we were quite close to the MTR station where we hopped on the train and made our way to Chinatown. This is where we ended the tour, stuffing the last empty space in our stomachs with two different noodle dishes.

Some kind of noodle dish that I can't remember the name of.

 

Another Chinese noodle dish that I can't remember the name of!

I love a good food tour, because it's one of the best ways to sample a large number of a country's specialties in a short time, and then you know which ones to go back for! The only thing is, Malaysia has SO much more food than just these few dishes. I'll definitely have to go back for longer sometime so I can try some more!