Don’t yuck my yum

They can’t all be winners. Not every bite we’ve taken here has been a good one. 

There was a terrible attempt at a vegetarian restaurant in Melacca. Everything tasted the same, or mostly had no taste at all – although the crunchy parts were crunchy highlights.  We left our money on the table while no one was looking and fled. The “meal” was followed by dinner number 2 at another restaurant nearby.  

And nutmeg juice will also never be consumed again. We both love nutmeg, but the fact that there’s no juice in them should have been out first clue. Gross. 

On these unfortunate eats, Jay and I have agreed. But on countless others, our taste buds are divided and we now stop in multiple eateries trying to get our individual fixes. 

In Indian restaurants, we are equally committed to salt lassies (me) and sweet ones (him). 

And on dim sum for breakfast, we debate at home to, because Jay doesn’t believe it’s breakfast… here, an entire nation disagrees!. In our Penang Dim Sum experience, we disagreed again on which tiny, delicious dumplings were the best. My taste buds told me the pillowy white ones that tastes like ginger and melted in my mouth were the best. Jay’s pallet took us down the street for BBQ pork. 

Here was some of the amazing assortment of dim sum we had to pick from:

And yet, curiosities like this are ones Jay chooses to put in his mouth instead… This hundred year ‘Century’ egg didn’t taste as gross as it looks, but then could it? 

And here’s another area where we just can’t agree, soup. It’s messy, hot and generally unappealing, says Jay. I couldn’t disagree more!  There are few things I like better than noodle soup here, or at home. And here, there are so many more delicious kinds to choose from! 

Here’s one version of Laksa I’ve tried. This was in Kuala Lumpur and the flavours of laksa change regionally. It was much fishier than I expected, and the version sold in Melaka was creamier and curried, and closer to what I knew laksa to be.  

And here’s Curry Mee which ranks among my top Malaysian eats. Bought it for $1 just to try when I was already moderately stuffed from dinner #1, but it was so good I ate the whole thing! 2 kinds of noodles, bean curd, delicious chilli paste… Want more! 

But perhaps the most obvious and ongoing issue in our food divide is around dessert … Or at least what jay (and millions of southeast asians,) believe to be dessert.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Cendol. Does this look like dessert to you? 

It looks like a bowl of dirt and worms. Or a steaming pile of vomit. But jay loves it enough to brave torrential downpours for it, and even wait in line for the ‘Penang famous’ version ( that tastes just like the less famous versions he’s eaten elsewhere in Penang).

The icy ‘dessert’ is made up of Coconut milk, rice flour jelly with green food coloring, shaved ice,palm sugar. All sugar based stuff that it makes perfect sense for Jay to love. But I just can’t get past the textures and mix of things happening in my mouth – none of it makes sense! There’s just no accounting for taste, I suppose. So we’re off to a Malaysian cooking class where we will no doubt disagree on deliciousness and end the day with another Cendol. 
Luckily, there’s enough eating here for us to both have our way since Penang is like a giant food court where everything costs a buck or two. So we have agreed to disagree, and not ‘yuck each others Yums’. Much. 🙂