Eat My Globe

Chapter 8

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"Aye, you"ve no done bad", said Gavin casting an appraisij glance at a floor cleaned of even the smallest grain.

I looked at them with new-found respect for having to three times a week a task that had resulted in blistered hand clothes wringing with sweat, and which had pushed John, and myself as close to blows as we were ever likely to cor "That"s why", Gavin began with a gleam in his eye, "we us yon machine over there. It makes it a lot easier." He pointe to a shiny-looking mechanical beast in the corner. It was on the intervention of John and Nick that prevented me from creating Bannockburn on the malting floor with a large malt.i.t shovel and Gavin"s head as props.

Over the period of the week we turned up diligently every morning to be given our tasks, but we were pleased to find out that the afternoons were going to be free, giving us time to explore the rest of Islay. One afternoon Nick suggested we visit the Islay Oyster Company, a farm whose bivalves are sought after throughout Europe as being some of the very best on offer. Which brings me back to the opening of the chapter.

Oysters and I have had a troubled relationship. We used to he madly in love, and I could and would devour dozens of the things at a sitting. Then we had a falling out, a major row caused hy a dodgy one at a meal with a client during a trade fair. I did not heed the lesson and have occasionally tried to sneak oysters back into my diet, with the inevitable results. On one occasion, dining with TGS at J. Sheekey, London"s most famous seafood restaurant, I gave in to a request to share the a.s.siette de Fruits de Mer and ate oysters primarily because he made loud chicken noises. A barb that no brother can leave unchallenged, even if you are both well into your forties. The result was inevitable, and I had two days off work to reconsider my position vis a vis the oyster. Nick used an altogether more subtle approach: yummy noises, and lots of them. As he downed half a dozen in less than five minutes, he made noises that suggested he was close to either death or o.r.g.a.s.m.

"Go on," he cajoled, "you are never going to find one as fresh as this. Ever."

He was right. These were as good as oysters are going to get. Just looking at them made me forget all that had gone before. Lady Oyster sucked me back in one more time, and it was lovely: a beautifully plump specimen that was taken from the water in front of me, cut open and sliced free from its sh.e.l.l. It was meaty and delicious, tasting slightly of the sea. It went down with a single pleasing gulp. d.a.m.n me, I had forgotten how good they were and, to top it off, I felt fine. Hallelujah, I was cured. A new, oyster-filled world opened up in front of me. Raw oysters, deep-fried oysters, oyster po-boys, oysters Rockerfeller. It was a miracle.

Cue mad rush, in the wee small hours of the next morning, to the little building the Islay folk like to call their local hospital and my less than friendly response to John"s genuine expression of concern. After listening to the doctor tell me to drink lots of liquid and follow that up with the redundant suggestion that "I probably would keep away from oysters from now on", I was driven home and sheepishly headed back to bed to spend the d

sleeping fitfully and dreaming of salty vomit. ^

While I slept, John and Nick had spent the afternoon visif some of the other famous distilleries on the island: Laphroai Lagavulin and Ardbeg. Because of John"s reputation in tj^g industry, they were treated royally and sampled tastes from some exceptional barrels, which they drank in as heartily as they did the astonishing scenery amid which the distilleries sit.

Being good sorts, however, the next day, our last, when I was feeling a little better and had managed to have a light breakfast of cereal, eggs (two), bacon, sausages, black pudding, tomatoes mushrooms and toast, they suggested we go and revisit them so I could see them too. First, we had to head back and say our farewells to the good people of Kilchoman and to take a small multiple-choice test to see if we had taken in any of the information we had been given during the week. It ill behoves me to say who came out with top marks, particularly as John, in an act of incredible but unsurprising generosity, picked up the tab for the whole trip. So, all I will say is that the industry professionals did not fare well and I, well, I rock.

We moved from the still-room to the warehouse and tasted the new spirit. It is an odd experience, like looking at the photograph of someone you know well when a child. All the elements that make up their character are there, but in undeveloped form. The new spirit is clear for a start, the colour coming from time spent in the barrel and, in many cases, from the legal addition of spirit caramel. The hint of flavours to come are present too, but overpowered by the alcohol, which will reduce over the period of ageing.

After saying our "goodbyes", we headed back out to visit the other distilleries. They were solid white structures stunningly situated between the rolling hills and the edges of the roaring sea. That night we sat in front of the flickering fire in our guesthouse and cracked open a few bottles from the distilleries we visited. As I sipped, Nick and John talked shop about the subtle differences between the distilleries we had visited and the scotches we were trying voice, For once, instead of being desperate to hear my own I took the rare opportunity to listen to two of the most ^espected men in the industry sharing their knowledge. I learned a lot-In fact, I learned a lot that whole week. I learned how my favourite whisky is made, and, because of that, it will never taste the same again. But, most of all, I learned I should probably keep away from oysters.

Immer Essen in Miinchen Over the last few years TGS and I had begun a new tradition of January road trips to Germany, a country I had come to very well over the years and had grown to love - both for i people and, perhaps more surprisingly, for the food. This time we chose Munich, and the first week of the new year we arrived at the city"s impressive airport ready to hit a few beer halls.

Going on a short break is never an easy task for TGS. He is the organizer supreme and extreme. Even the shortest trip takes months of planning, and it was no great surprise, one day, to return to the apartment and to see him seated at the dining-room table surrounded by maps and guidebooks. His computer was already buzzing, and it was clear that he had begun seriou investigation into the best Miinchen had to offer. That did alarm me; nor did the fact that that he had already begun fashion his own rudimentary guidebook by slicing appropriate pages from all the others and sticking them together with pages" he had printed from the internet.

I was used to that level of dedication and, to be honest, qui^ grateful. I had plenty to organize of my own, so to leave Munich in the hands of an expert was more than a pleasure. What didj alarm me this time was the fact that he was also gleefully loc ing at a clip on YouTube, which showed the plane in which would be flying to Germany. At this point I had to leave room.

There is a method to his madness, however, and the momenta arrived at Munich airport TGS"s notes pointed us straight in the fon of its own dedicated beer hall and our first impressive-d brew, served with a local speciality of Grammelschmalz, "^delicious dish of fat laced with chunks of ham and fried ^nions Cardiologist-unfriendly it may have been, but it worked ncredibly well with our first beer of the day.

The people of Munich - Bavarians, not Germans, as they are keen to remind you - do things with considerable gusto, and it is not hard to see why. Munich has the highest standard of living in the whole of Germany, and there are opportunities to enjoy oneself everywhere, from the cafes, bars and restaurants to the galleries, museums and parks. It is a truly lovely city, thanks mainly to its forefathers, who had the good sense to preserve the original plans for every building, which meant it could be rebuilt exactly as before after the destruction of the Second World War.

We were not there just to sightsee, however. TGS had drawn up a schedule and a map with, in big letters "BEER" and "MEAT" written at the top. He had drawn lines from these words to various places on a map of the city. I began to shiver, and not just from the cold. In Bavaria they take meat very seriously. The sausage is a religion, from the WeiBwurst, on which the light of the noonday sun must never be allowed to shine, to the Schweinswurst, which slips down all to well with a dark Dunkelbier.

They take their beer just as seriously. It is strong stuff, but because of the Reinheitsgebot, a series of ancient purity laws governing the brewing of beer, it is not as p.r.o.ne to give you a hangover. That is, of course, not unless you drink a tin bathtub full of it, as we planned to do.

In Munich the joys of beer and meat come together in perfect harmony in that greatest of all Bavarian inst.i.tutions, the beer hall. Perhaps the most famous is the Hofbrauhaus, where drinkers from many nations flock to be served tall gla.s.ses of dark brew alongside frightening portions of food served by women dressed in dirndls, all the while being serenaded by scary-looking men in leather shorts pumping out oompah music on battered bra.s.s instruments.

As ever when we arrive in a new town on our travels became a bit over-excited and managed to work our way arouQ^ about five of the best halls before early evening and found oi selves walking through the streets of Munich swaying e" slightly in the rapidly chilling evening air. But our evening not ended. If the daytime had been about beer, the evening was about spirits as a local friend, Stefan Berg, took us to bar after bar until everything became a blur. Being a good German boy, Stefan made sure that we stopped off at the Ratskeller for some food to soak it all up and deftly ordered plates of bread topped with thick spicy pates, mounds of mashed potatoes and, of course, lots more wurst. Despite that very necessary break between drinks, by two in the morning both TGS and I werC: reeling, and we said our goodbyes, heading off on uncertain feet towards our hotel.

I woke up five or so hours later to the sound of TGS drinking a bottle of water and having a quiet moan to himself It took mc. a good fifteen minutes before I could persuade myself to op( my eyes and, when I did, I regretted it immediately as shards sunlight pierced my brain like needles. I squealed like a si child and dived back under the covers, making my all too regular-pledge never to drink again.

And we didn"t - well, not that day anyway. Instead we spei our time walking around one of the most beautiful cities ii Europe and watching the people of Munich enjoy their weekend. Like so much the Bavarians do, the weekend"s activity centre around food, and much of that activity involves bustling Viktualienmarkt, where the locals come to buy the weekly groceries and to enjoy a plate of WeiBwurst.

The WeiBwurst is sacred to the people of Munich and oi meant as a snack between breakfast and lunchtime because, fresh rather than a smoked sausage, it should not be kept m( than a day. It is a glorious thing, made from veal, bacon and sonings of lemon, mace and parsley in a clear porkskin casii The locals like to eat their special sausage in a special way, deftl splitting the skin and sucking out the insides, which they eat vith another of their other pa.s.sions, Breze, a pretzel-like bread, jt is not as easy as it sounds, and our attempts to prise the flesh delicately from the skins, accompanied by loud slurping noises, received cold looks from the neighbouring tables in one of the small market cafes.

We hurried through our meal and headed out to explore some more. TGS had a route figured out which took us around half the city and back to the hotel in time for a short, restorative nap to be fully rested for that evening"s meal. He had also selected another beer hall, the legendary Altes Hackerhaus. Here, as in all beer houses, the menu is predicated on one thing, pork. There are other items on the menu, but you come here for pig in many forms: in my case, a plate of Spanferkel, suckling pig with creamy, slow-cooked flesh hiding its light under a bushel of crackly skin. For TGS it was perhaps the most challenging dish of all, the Schweinshaxen, pork knuckle with the same crackly skin but tougher meat, coming, as it does, from an older animal.

As though hunks of meat the size of a basketball were not alarming enough, alongside them sat both potatoes, which Germans eat by the sackload, and, more worryingly, a baseball-sized dumpling made - oh, what a surprise! - from potatoes as well. It was an impossible task. We both polished off" our meat down to the bones, but the dumplings remained untouched, sitting there wobbling and viewing us with contempt for having such paltry appet.i.tes. They were right: we didn"t even have room for strudel, when every other man, woman and child in the place was tucking into pudding and ladling extra cream on top. What kind of girly men were we? Shamefacedly, we paid our bill and slunk back to the hotel, where we spent the night comparing stomach gurgles and mainlining Zantac until the early hours.

For at least ten years my friend Isabelle Fuchs had had the considerable misfortune to sit opposite me at trade fairs as I tried to sell her gift books. She was surprisingly affable about the whole thing and over the years even bought a few from me. When she heard about Eat My Globe and about my trip to Mur offered to spend an afternoon showing us her home town^ Although originally from across the border in Austria, Isabella loved Munich, and it showed as she strolled with us througj the Englischer Garten, the beautiful green lung of the city one of the biggest parks in Europe. It showed as she took us her favourite beer hall and introduced us to a Schnitt, a double, strength shot of beer served in small measures with an enormous head of foam. It showed as she sat across from us at supper and ladled spoonfuls of Saures Liingerl, a stew made from calf"s lung, onto our plates and smiled as we nodded in delicious agreement that the addition of vinegar to the sauce cut through the fatty meat perfectly. And it showed when she looked at us with an equal measure of disappointment as we pushed our plates away at the end of the meal and said, "But you have not touched your bread dumplings".

Rotten Shark, Rotten Weather If possible, Iceland has an even worse reputation for food than Britain, and it would not have been in my plans but for an intervention by my friend Magaret "Magga" Kristiansdottir. Magga managed of one of my favourite bars, which she ran with ruthless Nordic efficiency. At the end of an evening I often found myself chatting to her over a well-made c.o.c.ktail. The day I handed in my notice, I dropped in to tell her my news. She turned and gave me one of her ice-blue stares and said, "Come to Iceland. You can eat sheep"s head."

Now, if anyone else had made that suggestion, I would have made it very clear that I would rather put my John Thomas in a vice. But as it came from Magga and after a Martini, I found myself thinking it might just be a good idea. Which is how I found myself at Reykjavik airport in January wondering whether my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es would descend from my torso ever again.

The cold obviously did not bother Magga; nor indeed did it bother her best friend, Erla GuSriin, who was busy rummaging around for cigarettes in the glove compartment of her battered old Nissan as 1 sat there hoping my nose would be the first thing to fall off. When we finally got going, they pointed the car not towards Reykjavik but in the opposite direction, towards a supper that I was told was going to be in the tiny town of Stokkseyri. Magga promised me the restaurant there was one of her favourites in Iceland.

The ride proved to be a hair-raising slalom up hills and down slopes in increasingly thick snow until we finally pulled up in front of a picturebook-pretty restaurant called Pjorul^lHRR Magga explained that it was famous for serving one thing- bo of crayfish called "village lobster", dressed only in melted but^ and served with sweet new potatoes.

If the cold had nearly caused me to have a heart attack, then >!- igOugH prices of the drinks almost finished me off. I realized the snd^l beer I had ordered was going to cost ^lo and a bottle of wij^^ that I would turn my nose up at the local supermarket was to come in at ^40. I would have snorted beer through my in disgust, but it was too expensive to waste.

Magga explained to me that the high prices of alcohol in Iceland came about for two reasons. The first is obvious. It is a tiny country, with a population of only about 300,000, so ju: about everything has to be imported. The other reason was prohibitive policies of successive Icelandic governments, had only allowed the overturn of prohibition laws within ti last twenty years. Whatever the reasons, I stopped chugging carefully nursed the remaining precious liquid until our arrived. When it came, the smell on its own was enough to us fall on our plates, and we were soon ripping the sh.e.l.ls of si incredibly sweet seafood and giggling happily as the b.u.t.ter the dressing ran down our chins. When Erla declared that si could not possibly finish her bowl, I dived in before anyone could say "locals hold back".

Erla had decided to decamp for three days to her boyfriend"s place and leave her entire flat back in Reykjavik to me. OH; arrival, I fell asleep almost immediately, and I awoke the next morning to find a thick layer of snow across the city. Pleased that I had brought a thick hat to cover my wing-nut ears and non-slip walking shoes with me, I ducked out to meet Ma Reykjavik is a small but buzzing town. Prosperous and as hospital corners, the people too seemed very smart and o tent with their lot as they wandered around designer shops the myriad coffee bars on a Sat.u.r.day morning. Magga, however, wanted to take me for "a taste of real Iceland", which, she ested intriguingly, could be found at the bus station. I fol-ed along behind her, trudging through the ever thicker snow drifts until we came, as promised, to the local bus stop, where the corner was a brightly lit cafe with a larger than life-size cture on the outside wall of the owner proudly holding a plate of food. Inside, as we shook the snow from our boots, I was instructed to sit down as Magga went off to order.

She came back beaming broadly, as she placed a tray on the table containing a bottle of lurid orange drink, a can of malt tonic and half a sheep"s head on a plate. "It"s called a swidd", she announced matter-of-factly, blissfully unaware that I was engaged in a staring contest with the one remaining eye in the sheep"s head and that I was losing.

"You drink Christmas ale with it", she added as she opened the botde of orange pop, mixed it with half of the can of malt drink and handed me a gla.s.s of the murky result.

I took one sip and pushed it to one side, turning my attention to the sheep"s head in front of me. With an encouraging nod from Magga, I tore a chunk off from the jowl. It was nowhere near as bad as I expected: fatty and with a slightly charred taste from where, I was told, the fur is singed off before boiling. I didn"t even balk when Magga suggested that I eat the eye, which popped pleasingly in my mouth like meaty s.p.a.ce Dust. Magga was in her element. After we had removed most of the flesh from the skull, she picked the whole thing up, prised open the jaw-bone and began to chomp on the tongue.

"It"s the best bit", she mumbled, globs of fatty lamb splattering her face. All this and she could mix a Martini too. She munched happily for half an hour until the bones were picked clean and then wiped her chin on a napkin, before telling me she had something more important to do and heading off into the snow, leaving me alone with the fleshless grinning skull of our lunch.

Even with one of the highest standards of living in the world, the weather makes Iceland a hard place to be in the twenty-first century. G.o.d only knows what it was like in times past, when.

Of for huge chunks of the year, it was isolated from the rest humanity. It is for this reason that Icelanders developed a food culture that is considered to be one of the most challengin anywhere.

I learned all about this on my last evening as Erla took over the reins, showing me around on a short driving tour around the cit - including a visit to the presidential residence. Erla announced proudly that in Iceland everyone has the const.i.tutional right to make an appointment to see the president if they have something they wish to discuss. I was delighted to see that the only security was a small sign saying "Please Don"t Pa.s.s This Point If You Don"t Have An Appointment". Just try that at Downing Street.

Erla"s main task, however, was to explain to me all about the Thorrablot, which she translated as "Thor"s Feast". She explained that, during the harsh winters, fresh food was almost impossible to fmd and people lived off the fish and meat they had caught during the warmer months and preserved by smoking and pickling. At the end of January, in the depths of midwinter, a sacrificial feast was held in honour of Thor, and people came together to eat, drink and sing. When the Vikings were converted to Christianity, the festival was banned, but it had experienced a revival during the last couple of centuries as Iceland struggled for independence and clung to emblems of its past.

Now it is a regular part of the calendar, and shops are filled with traditional foods for the feast. I wanted to take some back for TGS, so Erla pulled into the lot of a large market and took me inside, where a section had been set aside for Thorrablot goodies. It"s challenging stuff all right. Sour ram"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, roast puffin and seal flipper obviously caught my attention, as did blodmor, the local version of blood sausage. But there was one item in particular I was looking for: hakarl, rotten shark meat.

With its strong ammonia stench I can understand now why many tourists, including me, believed the folk tale that the curing process involved people peeing over it. Quite how the Icelanders came up with the notion of burying shark meat for

three.

months to extract from the flesh the poisonous uremic acid, "sed for flotation, I am not sure. But the end-result is chunks of dried horribly pungent white flesh, to be downed in one go with shot of brenivin, the local sesame-based hooch. It was undoubtedly the single most unpleasant thing I have ever put in my mouth, worse than rat or dog and much worse than cod sperm sushi. I bought a small tub to take home, along with a bottle of the brenivin and some blood sausage, and presented them proudly to TGS. Six months later they all remain untouched and unopened, sitting threateningly at the back of the fridge. Come back in a few years time, and they will still be there.

Sawadee Ka Three days after my return from Iceland I was off again, th time on one of the longest legs of the journey: three mont in South-East Asia and India on a trip that would take in siji countries and nearly twenty cities. But after a few weeks back it Europe, I was itching to be off again and ready to discover mc amazing food.

My first meal in Thailand could not have been more simple! and delicious: a plate of fried rice and vegetables cooked in fror of me at a stall in a small street market in Bangkok and serve for less than the price of a daily paper back in London. I kne immediately that I was going to fall under the spell of this beau-1 tiful country. My favourable impression stayed with me until Ij left a short few days later. It was a feeling that is hard to expla unless you have been to Thailand and experienced the genuir warmth of its biggest resource, the Thai people. Energetic an pa.s.sionate, they were also one of the most genuine and gent nationalities I met on the whole trip. I never lost the impressic that they were being utterly sincere when they greeted me in th traditional way: "Sawadee ka!

Thailand has its difficulties too, of course, particularly in th capital, with similar problems to every developing nation: pol-lution to rival that being spewed into the air by China; a chaot transport system, even with the relatively new Sky Train; ar worst of all, the huge level of poverty and with it the attendantj vices of drugs and prost.i.tution. Despite this, you can"t help thinking that many of Thailand"s problems are caused by foreigner the expats who still treat the country, and particularly the capital, as a playground where just about anything goes, and the visitors who flood in to take advantage of loopholes in the laws against s.e.xual tourism.

My guesthouse was in Sukhumvit, close to smart shops, bars and restaurants. The opportunities for eating were endless. Unfortunately, Sukhumvit was also the area where Bangkok"s dark side reared its ugly head, as I found out the night of my arrival.

I had made a reservation for an introduction to royal Thai cuisine at Ban Kanitha, a well-recommended restaurant close to my guesthouse. I sat outside in their small garden and was presented with a fiery salad of bean sprouts and basil in which raw shrimp had been "cooked" in a mixture of lime juice, chil-Hes and fish sauce. As I gulped on a cold beer to take the sting from my mouth, my next dish arrived - a plate of small soft-sh.e.l.l crab, each of which had been deep-fried in a light batter so that it could be eaten in one pleasing, crunchy bite. Next to it, the waiter placed a pad thai, perhaps the most famous of all Thai dishes, comprising rice noodles stir-fried with eggs, chilli, vegetables and chicken. Every taste of each dish was a revelation to me and reminded me why I was on this journey.

On the walk home I took a detour through one on Bangkok"s more infamous streets. Soi Cowboy was lined with girly bars, apparently all filled with fat, ugly European men draping girls young enough to be their daughters on their knees as they negotiated the cost of their evening"s entertainment. A few of the girls called out to me, "Come, buy me lady drink" or "You want ma.s.sage?"

Their lips formed thin smiles, but their eyes were blank behind the bars of this most vile profession. It was my first experience of Thailand"s seedier side, and it made me as angry as it did nauseous. I went to sleep with the sounds of Sukhumvit filtering through my window and those small, sad smiles of the small, sad girls filtering through my jet-lagged dreams.

I had marked a number of Bangkok landmarks on my map places with good eating potential. Chatachuk market was aire < p="">

Crunchy food is a bit of an obsession for the male members of the clan Majumdar. As a child, when my mother roasted a chicken, she and my sister would help themselves to the plump b.r.e.a.s.t.s while the four men would fight over the bones and the crispy skin, which we would reduce to nothing but a pile of saw-j dust. My mother would have been proud of my efforts on thiJ day, as was the owner of the stall, who nodded approvingly as ] left nothing but a few shards of bone at the end of my meal.

The humidity by now was almost unbearable, and I made ] way to the air-conditioned comfort of one of Bangkok"s extraordinary shopping malls, Siam Paragon - one of the largest I had ever seen, with luxury car dealerships on the third floor. Eve better, it had an excellent food court. Quite unlike the versions back in the UK, this housed a selection of bars and self-1 service restaurants that would satisfy the needs of a small town.An army of chefs was preparing food freshly to order, and afte pre-paying I was able to return time and again to fill my trayl with bowls of tom yam soup, crab cakes and belly pork withl gla.s.s noodles.

Before I left Bangkok, I wanted to fit in some sightseeing. TheJ next morning I used Bangkok"s efficient boat service to criss-? cross the Bangkok river from Wat Pho to Wat Arun and back tothe Golden Temple, before ending up at the Royal Palace. It wasl thronged with people dressed in black, and much of the palacej was cordoned off.

I had not really kept up with news, so I made my way tol information booth to find out what was going on. Princess g^lyani Vadhani, the sister of the king of Thailand, had died fevv days earlier, and the whole country was in mourning. Xhe Thais treat their monarchy with great reverence. There are severe penalties for showing disrespect to the King, and simple customs such as standing for the national anthem in a cinema are universally adhered to. The dignified displays of mourning and affection for the deceased princess were genuinely moving. It did mean, however, that my plan to spend the afternoon in the Royal Palace had to be abandoned. I dug out my map and realized that I was only a short ride in a tuk-tuk, one of Bangkok"s frightening, but cheap auto rickshaws, from my chosen spot for lunch.

Chote Chitr is a small restaurant with a big reputation. Its walls were covered with reviews both national and international raving about the simplicity and freshness of the food. When I arrived, a handful of tables were already occupied by local office workers, but I was able to slot in to a table near the kitchen, where I could watch the food being prepared. After ordering a cold Tsinga beer, I asked the owner to make my choices for me, as I do often if, quite frankly, I don"t know what the h.e.l.l I am doing.

I was presented with three beautiful-looking dishes: a salad of banana blossom served with seafood and chicken and spiked with the sharpness of tamarind; mee krop, a dish of fried, crispy vermicelli mixed again with chicken and soured with Thai citrus fruit; and finally a fiery red curry made with slices of duck. Thai basil and lime leaves.

That evening, my last, I wanted to try another of Thailand"s cla.s.sic dishes, the green curry. The versions I had tried in the UK had always left me thinking that there had to be more to this popular dish than a lurid green sauce and chunks of chicken. With the help of the receptionist at my guesthouse I found my way to another small street market and sat in front of an elderly Woman as she prepared my supper. Behind her another woman was grinding the ingredients for the sauce, the scent of chillies, shallots, garlic and galangal fdling the air as she pounded J^k in a mortar and pestle. The cook tossed chicken in a wok^^ a little oil before adding the sauce to spit away its rawness fo""" few moments. She poured in two ladles of coconut milk " allowed it to sit bubbling away for a few seconds before spoon" it into a large bowl, which she placed in front of me with a pl^^ of rice and some limes. The tastes were incredible. Sparky with lime, fiery with chilli and savoury with garlic and shrimp I cleaned the bowl to the last drop of sauce.

It was exactly the kind of meal I had hoped to eat in Thailai^^ exactly the sort of meal I had hoped for when I first set out on the journey. I had been looking for the chance to find out what these famous dishes, so often served in the West but neute bad ingredients and lack of soul, taste like when they are properly and with care. I could not have asked for a more perfect end to my short visit to this remarkable country.

27.

Call Me Ismail "Darling. It"s too spicy, too spicy."

Chef Ismail Ahmad picked up the plate offish heads from the table and handed it back to one of the chefs with a shake of his head.

"You see, darling," he said, turning back to me, "if it is too spicy, all you get is heat and none of the flavour."

I was standing in the kitchen of Restaurant Rebung in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had been invited to spend a day with Chef Ismail as he and his team prepared a buffet of over forty dishes taken from the nearly four hundred items in the chef"s traditional Malay repertoire. Standing next to me as we watched this force of nature at work was Lex Ster, an irrepressible nineteen-year-old blogger who had offered to show me around her home city.

She told me about Rebung and about Chef Ismail, one of Malaysia"s best-loved chefs and TV personalities. It took a while to figure out what she was on about, not because her English was bad - it was impeccable - but because, being nineteen, she spoke mainly in text-speak and had not yet developed the ability to breathe between words. We had already been on an eating tour through Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur"s impressive Chinatown, and now we were in PJ State, at one of her favourite places for chicken rice. I was eating on my own that night and had asked her for some suggestions.

"Rebungisawesome thechefisreallyfamoushere anditserves thebest traditionalMalayfood inthecity. LOL"

Or something hke that. She also decided at this point that sh^ should start calling me "Uncle".

"AnotherMalaytradition foranolderman. LOL", she smiled knowing that she had turned my self-image from vibrant inde pendent traveller to withered old man in one easy sentence.

I took her at her word about Rebung, however, and usej^ Kuala Lumpur"s shambolic public transport to fmd my way up to Bangsar for supper on my first evening in the city. I had arrived I just as they were opening and was shown to a table inside and" given a menu. I ordered a plate of kway teo bandung, a soupy i noodle dish, which, although pleasant, gave little reason to think j the journey from my hotel had been worthwhile.

"Darling, what are you eating?" a friendly voice boomed out.

1 looked up to see Chef Ismail smiling at me, his eyes shining] merrily through thick spectacles.

"Didn"t you want to try the buffet? Its famous darling. H famous."

He beckoned me to follow him to the outside terrace, where! by now a vast array of dishes had been laid just out of my view.] My heart sank. It all looked and smelled wonderful, but I already full.

"Don"t worry, darling," he said, pourirg me a bowl of clear chicken broth, "have this and come and talk to me."

As we chatted, I told him about my trip.

"Well, you must come back on Sat.u.r.day and you can spend the day with us in the kitchen", he waved his hand as thoug there was simply no other solution. It was too good an offel to turn down: the chance to watch a star chef in action and learn more about the traditional Malay food of which he was i proud. After giving me a bear hug, he rerurned to the kitche and I finished my broth to the last nutritious drop and set 06 back to the hotel.

1 was only staying one night in Kuala Lumpur before flyit directly to Penang to visit some of the famous hawkers" marke there before they closed for Chinese new year. I would be backl Kuala Lumpur on Friday night, perfect for returning to take yp rny invitation at Rebung.

Malaysian food is a magnificent combination of its immigrant history- Authentic Chinese sits happily alongside a fusion with IVlalay cuisine and the same is true for Indian food, where excellent north Indian tandoor cooking can be found alongside a uniquely Malay take called nasi kandar, which I went searching for as soon as I arrived in Penang.

The name originates from the Malay word for "balance". Hawkers used to carry pots of curries balanced on poles on their shoulders, but now street stalls have taken their place, with trays of rice, curries, fried chicken and seafood in front of them, from which you choose, having them spooned over the rice, so the sauces combine to a rich amalgam - all to be mopped up, of course, with a freshly cooked roti. It is gloriously messy but deliciously good fun as you eat with the right hand, clearing the plate and licking your fingers as clean as possible.

That evening I headed to one of Penang"s famoiis food courts to make sure I sampled some of the local Chinese specialities before everything closed down. Already they were gearing up for the big day, with red banners everywhere and men in dragon suits frightening the kids. I selected a handful of stalls and came back to my seat with a mixture of Malay, Chinese and local nyonya dishes.

1 had chosen Chinese char kway teo - flat fried noodles stir-fried with vegetables and seafood, which were traditionally cooked in pork fat but now increasingly, because of an increasing Muslim population, cooked in oil; a bowl of asam laksa, noodle soup, topped with chunks offish and soured with tamarind; and finally popiah, a fresh spring roll, spread with hoisin sauce and filled with egg and been sprouts. All very different and representing some of the many cultures of Malaysia, but they sat together as happily in my stomach as they did on the plate.

I was shattered and antic.i.p.ated a good night"s sleep. Instead, I spent the night being bitten by bed bugs and had to change my room twice until I found a mattress that was not infested. In the morning I counted the bites: there were over 150 of them, and one, on the side of my head, had swelled up until I looked like a lollipop on a stick. To make matters worse, when I headed out covered in cream to stop the incessant itching of my spots, I realized that I had my dates wrong and most of the shops and restaurants were already shut for the new year. Things began to look bleak.

I found a Malay Indian mamak, which was open and had a breakfast of roti canai, a Malaysian staple brought over by immigrant workers from India: flat bread made with egg, flour and ghee (clarified b.u.t.ter), it is eaten only in the morning, with a bowl full of delicious thin lentil dahl, and is incredibly addictive. I ordered four of them before I had to push myself away from the table.

Although many of the shops and restaurants were shut, there were plenty of things to distract me during the next two days. During the evening, however, it was more difficult to pa.s.s the time and, after I had eaten in one of the few open places, I would head back to my hotel to write, hoping that I would not get eaten myself I was pleased when the time came to fly back to Kuala Lumpur.

I had invited Lex to join me on my visit to Rebung. When we arrived on Sat.u.r.day morning, things were already getting under way and Chef Ismail"s restaurant manager, Alfred, wa busy organizing the kitchen, which was laid out in traditioc Malay home style, with sides open to the air and large steel placed on ferocious burners. There is relatively little stir-fryi in traditional Malay food; slow cooking is used instead, to brit out the flavours of foods preserved by drying and salting.

There"s plenty of fresh stuff" too, and soon the buff"et being stocked with large bowls of raw vegetables to crunch salads made of banana flower hearts, aubergines covered in fie sambal, fresh fish grilled on banana leaf or rubbed with tu meric and fried in palm oil and beef and chicken cooked in fie sauces - more than forty dishes in all chosen from Chef Ismail"s repertoire.

People had begun to arrive, and Chef Ismail, happy with what was happening in the kitchen, moved to front of house to greet the guests. Seemingly everywhere at once, Ismail was greeting guests as they arrived, making sure to flirt shamelessly with all the elderly ladies, ladling out bowls of soup to take to each table and bringing plates of new dishes hot from the kitchen.

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