Ramli Burger - $0.94

Outside Most 7-11s in Malaysian Cities

This… now THIS… yes this.. this is t3h bomb. Ramli burger. No Malaysian doesn’t know it. It’s the unofficial Malaysian dish. In fact maybe by the next generation it will be the official Malaysian dish, overtaking nasi lemak.

What I got this time is a “Burger Daging Special”. Daging = meat = usually means beef, special = means they will add an egg in. I wonder why I didn’t get the Burger Daging Double Special, which means 2 meat patties.

This here… cheap bread, REALLY cheap meat of questionable sources, cooked in butter, cucumber slices and sauce. Sound normal? Yes. However, the secret here is the sauce. Maggi brand soy sauce and ANY cheap-branded chilli sauce and mayonnaise (probably Lady’s Choice, a local brand). It’s essential. Try making a Ramli burger without these and it will fail MISERABLY.

What they do is take the burger buns/bread and put it on the giant wok/grill, that’s usually completely layered in butter. Then they take a piece of Ramli brand meat patty, slice it in the middle and slap it onto the grill. If you asked for a Special, which I did, they will crack an egg on too, and drop that piece of meat patty on top of it. Then right before the egg completely solidifies, they fold the egg over and around the meat, enveloping it.

The rest is standard fare; lettuce (sometimes) and cucumber on the now-hot-and-buttery bread/bun, put the meat on, squeeze your sauces and you’re good to go.

The pics show exactly how bad the “quality” of the burger is. However, its taste cannot, CANNOT, be rivaled. I mean I like my Mushroom Swiss from Chilli’s, or my occasional McD’s too, but this is a whooollleeee different story.

This is orgasm in every bite. This makes it into my list of top 5 stuff you HAVE to try in Malaysia.

If this is all a little incoherent, it’s cos I’ve had quite a bit to drink. And no that’s not what makes these so ridiculously awesome. I think.

Haw Flakes – $0.03/roll

All Over Malaysia and I Suppose China Too

We interrupt the regular Taiwanese broadcast to bring you a lil snack I’m binging on right now.

Haw Flakes! I think they come from China, as the company responsible for this is Qingzhou Jiahe Food Co Ltd. I’ve never found these in other countries, I suppose Malaysia is the only importer of these very badly packaged yet ridiculously satisfying snacks. But I’m sure other countries have it hidden somewhere in a dark corner of a dingy Chinese grocer in Chinatown, you just gotta look for it. Granted, if I never grew up on these I’d probably be quite wary of its contents, China and all. But no, I’ll risk a 3rd nipple (if that is all that will happen) for the sugary goodness.

These lil wonders come in a pack of 10, costing a whopping 1 ringgit. That’s 30 cents in USD. So a roll is only 3 cents. Granted, they are small and you could probably pop a few rolls into your mouth at one go, but somehow each flake has enough flavour, so don’t want to pop in more than a couple per time. I go with 1. Attached is also a picture of how small a roll is, each flake no more than 1mm thick.

So what exactly is haw?  No clue? Me neither. But wikipedia mentions (there’s a wikipedia entry on Haw Flakes!) that it’s the chinese  hawthorn fruit. Interesting, the only Hawthorn I know is the location of my uni campus in Australia, and an old side-scrolling platform game, never knew it was a fruit.

Anyways, the taste is tangy but primarily sweet. You should give it a try if you find it.

Haw Flakes!

A Taipei Morning

Soya Bean King & Mr. Brown Coffee, Taipei, Taiwan

We walked around that morning and found "Soya Bean King”, so soya bean (or soy bean as it is known in the US) milk it was for breakfast, accompanied by vegetarian bun, glutinous rice and peanut paste soup and yau char kuey / yu tiao, which literally translates to “oil stick” and there couldn’t be a more accurate name for it. I’m guessing it to be about $1.50 per person, keyword is guess.

Soy bean was nice and smooth, not too sweet. Pretty good. But then we have that here in Malaysia so it’s nothing to write home about.

Amazingly enough the vegetarian bun was also oily as all hell.  So in Taiwan it’s deep fried everything including breakfast. It think they first stir fry the vegetables in a few cups of oil before they wrap it in dough and make it, yet the skin is so oily it feels like they dunked the bun in a bowl of oil before baking. Maybe that IS what they do…. /shrug.

The glutinous rice and peanut soup thingy is actually a dessert and the version we have in Malaysia is without glutinous rice. It’s normally very buttery, so making it taste almost like peanut butter, but warm and thick like cream based soup. The glutinous rice in this version made it much less sweeter, which would work for some other people but I kinda prefer the stronger tasting no-rice version.

Around lunchtime we were gonna take a train to Hualien and with a 20kg bag each we had limited choices as to where to walk to, so the first (and only) place we could eat along the way to the train station was Mr. Brown, a coffee chain in Taiwan, so Taiwanese Starbucks. I’ll firstly get this out of the way, the Americano was only average. As for the food…

It was average too. I don’t remember the price but I do remember it was not cheap by any standards. Coming in sets, I had cheese baked fried rice and my friends had a mini pizza and roast chicken with rice. It all came with tomato soup each, which was probably canned. My cheese baked fried rice was not the greatest, I think I’ve had better in Malaysia. It’s apparently a Hongkee invention, baking fried rice topped with cheese and tomato or cream pasta sauce, sometimes with a piece of chicken, beef or fish fillet in between. My friend said the mini pizza was rubbish, and considering that it looks like oven baked vomit topped with egg, I’ll say he’s being kind. The roast chicken guy had nothing to say about his meal so that’s that. Then it was off to Hualien for better food, more about that in the next post.

Duck with Sherry & Ginger Sauce from Sally Lunn's - £9.98

4 N Parade Passage, Bath BA1 1NX - 01225 461634

www.sallylunns.co.uk

This is supposed to be one of the "must-see" places to go if you're in Bath, but it's more for its history (the restaurant is housed in the oldest building in all of Bath) than for its food. They offer tours of the building, but thanks to shotty railroad engineering, we arrived too late for that.

The meals here are served in the traditional "Trencher-style" which from what I understand is a fancy way of saying "on top of bread." Sally Lunn's claim to fame is its renowned "Lunn bun" which to me, was nothing more than light and crispy Texas toast, aka garlic bread. Although, I can imagine that if I had eaten this back in Medieval times, it would have been euphoric.

The duck itself was moderately sweet and was well-prepared, meaning that it wasn't too rare/burned. More than anything, I was relieved that it had taste at all after trying their vegetables that completely lacked flavor.

For the price I paid (~$16 USD), I would've like more quantity, especially considering that the birds I saw in the UK all looked like they were on steroids.

Also, the server seemed attentive, but he accidentally charged us with a bottle of wine instead of just a glass. Might want to be weary of that if you're ever there.

Apple Crumble from The Big Bang - £3.95

124 Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford OX2 6AH - (01865) 511441

thebigbangrestaurants.co.uk

I liked this dessert a lot. The custard wasn't too sweet and I'm a sucker for that crumbly texture. What's not to like? Oh, right, the price.

Bangers & Mash from The Big Bang - £8.99

124 Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford OX2 6AH - (01865) 511441

thebigbangrestaurants.co.uk

I can't find on the menu what I ordered. I remember one of the sausages was the Merguez (spicy Moroccan lamb), another one was pheasant, but I don't recall the last one. Doesn't really matter though because they all tasted pretty much the same. Not to say they were bad, but they didn't blow me away either - especially not at that price. The mashed potatoes were good and garlicly, but again, nothing to write home about. The peas and purple cabbage tasted like straight up steamed peas and purple cabbage so nothing special there.

Cannoli fom Tony's Cafe - $??

366 Possum Park Road, Newark, DE - (302) 737-2411

I'm not sure about the price on this one because it was given to us for free. We had a vendor visit us at work and they bought us lunch. Since the order was so large, Tony's decided to spoil us with a few freebies to "lock in our business relations." It worked - we went back there the very next day for some strombolis.

Anyway, regarding the cannoli itself, it's basically a lot of frosting inside of a flakey shell and dusted with powdered sugar. You'd think that this would be too rich or sweet with all that frosting. In fact, most of the coworkers didn't bother with it for that very reason, but for whatever reason, I was able to stomach it just fine. I don't think I'd pay much for one, but it's a pleasant treat on a rare occasion.