The Famous Malaysian Food

Here comes to Malaysia! Everyone should know Malaysia is a rain forest country. There are a lot of famous tourist attractions, buildings, resort and of course FOOD! Now let’s take a look what famous local food they have. Of course there are too many delicious food, I can’t list all out. So the top 10 is only for reference. Everyone is welcomed to leave comment for extra information. Let’s check it out!

1 ) Kolo Mee

Egg noodles, flash-boiled, then classically served with crushed garlic and shallot, minced pork or beef, white vinegar, either vegetable oil, pork oil or peanut oil, and sliced barbecue pork known as char siu  or beef. Kuching Kolo mee originated from the Cantonese “Gon Lou” Mee – these you can get all over in West Malaysia – all darken with soya sauce and not quite the same. The Teochews too have their own version and you can find them in Thailand and Singapore. It is from these two communities that the Kuching Kolo mee was derived.

2 ) Ais Batu Campur (ABC)

Ais batu campur or ice kacang (literally “red bean ice”), is a dessert  served in Malaysia and Singapore. It is also popularly known as air batu campur in Malay or ABC  for short. The word “air batu,” literally translated as “stone water,” means ice and “campur” means mixed. It is sweet-tasting and is primarily ice served with sweet flavored syrup and jelly. The word kacang  is a Malay word for bean, and the word “ais” is a transliteration of the English term “ice.”  Traditionally a special ice machine is used to churn out the shaved ice used in the dessert.

3 ) Ayam Penyet

Ayam Penyet is a traditional Indonesian cuisine which originates from Surabaya. It is a popular chicken dish where the fresh chicken is specially marinated with various spices and herbs . The meat is then smashed with a wooden headed hammer and deep fried until golden light brown. One of the unique feature in preparing this funny name dish is the art of frying where it is crispy from outside and juicy inside. The other dishes served here are traditional Indonesian food which are also popular in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

4 ) Bak Kut Teh

Bak kut teh is a Chinese soup popularly served in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan and Indonesia and also, cities of neighboring countries like Batam of Indonesia  and Hat Yai of Thailand. The name literally translates as “meat bone tea”, and, at its simplest, consists of meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds  and garlic) for hours. Bak kut teh is usually eaten with rice or noodles (sometimes as a noodle soup), and often served with youtiao (strips of fried dough) for dipping into the soup. Soy sauce is preferred as a condiment, with which chopped chilli padi and minced garlic is taken together. Chinese tea of various kinds is also usually served in the belief that it dilutes or dissolves the copious amount of fat consumed in this pork-laden dish.

5 ) Banana Leaf Rice

Banana leaf rice is a typical dish in South Indian cuisine. In banana leaf rice, white rice (or parboiled rice in authentic South Indian restaurants) is served on a banana leaf with an assortment of vegetables, curried meat or fish, pickles, and/or papadum. Most of the time, however, only the gravy of the curry will be served and no meat is served as it is meant to be a traditional Indian vegetarian dish. It is traditionally eaten with the hand. In Malaysia, to show your appreciation after a satisfying meal, fold the banana leaf towards you (inwards) to signify that the meal was good. Folding the opposite direction (upwards/away from you) signifies that the meal was not satisfying.

6 ) Belacan Bee Hoon

Belacan Bee Hoon is considered as one popular dish, though not as commonly found everywhere as Kolok Mee and Sarawak Laksa. Since people who has very little experience with the taste and “interesting” aroma of belacan (a type of prawn taste, used for cooking or sauce) may find the belacan bee hoon rather unattractive from the first glance, this dish would usually serve to be a last resort. Usually Belacan Bee Hoon is primarily plain bee hoon served with Belacan Sauce, Cuttlefish and Cucumber. You have an option to add extra chilli, or even extra belacan into the bee hoon itself, should the taste be insufficient for your liking.

7 ) Char Kuey Teow

Char kway teow, literally “stir-fried ricecake strips”, is a popular noodle dish in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei  and Singapore. The dish was typically prepared at a hawker stall.  It is made from flat rice noodles of approximately 1 cm or (in the north of Malaysia) about 0.5 cm in width, stir-fried over very high heat with light and dark soy sauce, chilli, a small quantity of belachan, tamarind juice, whole prawns, deshelled cockles, bean sprouts and chopped Chinese chives. The dish may commonly be stir-fried with egg, slices of Chinese sausage and fishcake, and less commonly with other ingredients. Char koay teow is traditionally stir-fried in pork fat, with crisp croutons of pork lard.

8 ) Hainanese Chicken Rice

Hainanese chicken rice is a dish created by the people of Hainan. Hainan is an island located south of China. It is a plate of chicken  served with rice cooked in chicken oil. The chicken  is prepared in traditional Hainanese methods which involve the boiling of the entire chicken in a pork and chicken bone stock, reusing the broth over and over and only topping it up with water when needed, in accordance with the Chinese preferences for creating master stocks. This stock is not used for rice preparation, which instead involves chicken stock created specifically for that purpose, producing an oily, flavorful rice sometimes known as “oily rice” with Southeast Asian pandan leaves added sometimes. Some cooks may add coconut milk to the rice, reminiscent of the Malay dish nasi lemak.

9 ) Kueh Chap

Kueh chap is essentially sheets made of rice flour served in some brownish soup, accompanied by a plate of braised pork and pig organs (usually intestines).

10 ) Laksa

Laksa is a popular spicy noodle soup from the Peranakan culture, which is a merger of Chinese and Malay elements found in Malaysia  and Singapore, and to a lesser extent Indonesia. The ingredients of laksa included spicy coconut prawn paste-based broth served with rice vermicelli, omelette and chicken strips, prawns, sliced deep fried tofu, and occasionally clams. There are two basic types of laksa: curry laksa and asam laksa. Curry laksa is a coconut curry soup with noodles, while asam laksa is a sour fish soup with noodles. Thick rice noodles also known as laksa noodles are most commonly used, although thin rice vermicelli (bee hoon or mee hoon) is also common and some variants use other types.

11 ) Lok Lok

Lok Lok is similar to a steamboat where fresh food is skewered on bamboo sticks and cooked in a pot of boiling water, dip into the special sauce and you are in for a great time trying 30 over different varieties. For example fresh clam, cuttlefish, fish ball, sea snail, jelly fish.  Besides, the stall also offer a choice of five different dipping sources in sour, sweet and spicy flavours. You are billed according to the used bamboo sticks on that table.

12 ) Nasi Lemak

Nasi lemak is a dish sold in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and Southern Thailand. In Kuala Lumpur, it is called the national dish, a national heritage of Malaysia. It is not to be confused with Nasi Dagang sold on the east coast of Malaysia or Terengganu and Kelantan  although both dishes can usually be found sold side by side for breakfast. However, because of the Nasi Lemak’s versatility in being able to be served in a variety of manners, it is now served and eaten any time of the day. With roots in Malay culture, its name is a Malay word that literally means ‘rice in cream’. The name is derived from the cooking process whereby rice is soaked in coconut cream and then the mixture steamed.

13 ) Roti Canai

Roti canai is a type of flatbread found in Malaysia, often sold in Mamak stalls. It is known as roti prata in Southern Malaysia and Singapore, and is similar to the Indian Kerala porotta. Roti canai is circular and flat. There are two ways to make roti canai that is either to twirl it until the dough becomes a very thin sheet and then folded into a circular shape or to spread out the dough as thinly as possible before being folded. Then the folded dough is grilled with oil. The first method is more popular and faster than the second. The term ‘roti paratha’ in Malay means ‘plate bread’.