E-gullet makan get-together

We were very fortunate to meet some foodies from the e-gullet forum on 31 August and had a huge makan get-together that day. It is so huge that I think I'll need to spread out my pictures or you guys/gals will get food overload! The get-together was organised by Shiewie as we had some visitors from New York namely Krista and James. Fantastic itinerary as it spread from early morning till the night with lots of food (of course!) and shopping for the visitors.

We kicked off with an early morning walkabout around the Overseas Union Garden (OUG) morning market which had lots of food that we packed back to eat at Tepee's house. Then, we did a quick stop at a Nyonya cake factory. Unfortunately we were too late to catch them making the cakes as we spent too much time at the morning market. After that it was back to eat all those goodies we picked up. Krista and James also managed to squeeze in some shopping in the afternoon and we gathered for dinner that night.

It was Hokkien Fried Noodles for dinner at Ah Wa in Petaling Jaya. Even before the main dishes came, we had lots of other food which we ordered from the various stalls located within the vicinity of the restaurant. First off, we had some beef and chicken satay nicely grilled. It comes with a peanut sauce and some sliced cucumbers. Usually the satay is marinated and then each stick is grilled over the fire when you order them.

I haven't had this for ages, this is sotong kangkung (brown calamari with spinach). The calamari and spinach is boiled, a black sweetish sauce is poured over it and crushed peanuts sprinkled over it.



We had the fried bali tong (a kind of clam) in chilli sauce. These little clams are extremely difficult to eat unless you know the right technique which we will demonstrate in later postings.



We also had oyster omelette (oh chien in Chinese) whereby a mixture of eggs and potato starch is cooked omelette style with small local oysters.



This is tauhu bakar (grilled tofu puffs) that is stuffed with bean sprouts and shredded cucumber tossed in a sweet peanut sauce. Yummy and must be eaten immediately as it's crunchy.



A popular dish at these places especially during dinner time is the ikan bakar (Malay for grilled fish). We ordered the ikan pari (Malay for sting ray) that was grilled. A good sauce is essential for this dish and it comes with a sambal belacan sauce with chopped shallots.



This is lor bak which is fried and has lots of variety. Usually they have stuffed meat in a bean curd skin called ngoh hiang. This variety shows fried bean curd skin and a cucur udang (Malay for prawn in batter) underneath it.



Here are the main stars of the show that night, the Hokkien noodles which is only available in Kuala Lumpur since this is the way KL-lites eat their fried noodles with lots of black soya sauce. This dish uses the thick yellow coloured mee (Tai Lok Mee in Chinese) which must be eaten with lots of sambal belacan (Ma Lai Chan in Chinese) on the side.



Another variety of hokkien noodles, this one has vermicelli. These noodles are fried over a very hot fire.



We ordered so much that night that it was hard to find space on the table to fit these dishes. It was great fun as the out of towners got to sample what Malaysian hawker food is all about. Thanks so much to Shiewie and Tepee for organising this wonderful get-together. We had so much fun that we both can't wait for the next get-together.

Restoran Ah Wa
66, Jalan 14/48, Petaling Jaya

(Directly behind the Shell station at Jalan 222)

* Updated: Tepee has posted her pictures on e-gullet's bulletin board, so head on there to have a look at the morning pictures which features lots more food.