Update on trip to KL: Friends and Food

It has actually been more than a week since we got back from Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a good friend's wedding and I've been dying to update the blog. But I've since been struck by a week-long bout of sinus-migraine (most likely aggravated by pregnancy) and the only thing I was able to do was lay in bed and groan in pain. Thankfully, the headache has eased a little the last 2 days and I've been able to keep the pain at bay with some caffeine-laced paracetamol.

Anyhow, we flew up to KL late Thursday (the one before the last) and were there till Monday evening. It was a good chance to catch up with our many friends there as we hardly get to stay longer than a day when we are there enroute to Ipoh. We stayed with good friends, Faith and Philip - haven't seen them in 2 years! Their dog, Twinkle, has grown so much we could hardly recognize her:Other than catching up with friends, we also (well, I, mostly!) caught up on all the Malaysian food I've been missing. Our hosts also took us out a couple of times for dinner and fed us to the brim!

First, they took us to this road-side hawker stall that cooks up really good fried noodles Hokkien-style (we call it, "Fook Kin Min," literally Hokkien noodles). This particular style of noodle and its preparation is rare outside of KL. The secret to its yummyness is the lard!

(1st image credit: hungerhunger.blogspot.com)

Then, we walked half a block down to another restaurant that sells Malay satay (yeah - from completely non-kosher food i.e. lard; to Muslim food!) for the second part of the dinner. It was the famous Kajang Satay ("Kajang" is the name of a suburb here in KL). I was so full from the noodles, I could only stomach two skewers of the succulent chicken satay before us. Brian ate so much that night that his stomach was as "pregnant" as my 4-month baby-belly!
The next time our hosts took us to dinner, we had more noodles but this time cooked in a claypot and a kind of rice noodle we call, "rat noodles" (as they look like a rat's tail). Brian also sampled for the first time the "stinky pea/bean" ("petai," in Malay). It's called that not because it stinks - in fact, it's reputed to have beneficial properties for one's kidneys; but because it causes your urine to stink! Brian claims that he couldn't remember having any stinky pee afterwards, though.

The small, round green things are the stinky beans:Look out for the next post on the wedding!