What to eat Malaysia? culinary specialties and gastronomy

As in many Asian countries, the distinction between amuse-bouche, starter and main course is not as strong as in Europe. In Malaysia, savory dishes are generally served at the same time. Nevertheless, if we were to start with snacks and other appetizers, we could mention the very popular rempeyek, a kind of cracker with peanuts and anchovies. Otherwise, it's impossible to miss popiah basah, crispy spring rolls filled with turnips, grated carrots, fried onions and bean sprouts. The origin of satay is disputed: some say it's Thai, others Indonesian. What is certain is that these finely spiced beef or chicken skewers are a must when visiting Malaysia. They are usually served with a creamy peanut sauce.Otak-otak is a spicy fish paste grilled in a banana leaf, giving it the appearance of an elongated croquette when cooked. Finally, rojak (" mix " in Malay) is a sweet-and-sour salad of fruit, vegetables and fried dough cubes, sprinkled with peanuts.

Many Malay dishes are accompanied or seasoned with sambal. There are several hundred varieties of this fierce chili-based condiment, whose texture can range from a thick paste to a liquid sauce. Many ingredients are added, including garlic, shrimp paste, soy sauce, lime juice and dried anchovies. They also accompany bread, found in Malaysia in the form of patties called " roti ", such as roti canai, reminiscent of Indian naan, generally used for dipping in curry. Or the lovely roti jala (" net bread " in Malay), which resembles a delicate lace of dough.

Rice is absolutely essential to the Malay diet. Although often served as a side dish, it is also prepared in more elaborate ways. Nasi lemak - rice cooked by evaporation in coconut milk - is the national dish. Then there's the surprising nasi kerabu, whose blue color is due to the flowers of telang or Clitoria ternatea. It is garnished with bean sprouts, fried shallots and often an assortment of meats. Rice is sometimes cooked in rather unusual ways, as with lemang - stewed with coconut milk in a bamboo - or ketupat, where the rice is simmered in a kind of cooking bag woven from palm leaves. There are also many noodle dishes - originally from China - such as mee goreng, stir-fried wheat noodles with shrimp, chicken, omelette, shallot, soy sauce and peanuts. Mee rebus is quite similar in terms of filling, except that the noodles are bathed in a rich, curry-like soup. Finally, laksa is one of the hallmarks of Malaysian cuisine. This creamy soup made with coconut milk, lemongrass, tamarind and chili is garnished with noodles, fried tofu, bean sprouts, shrimp - or chicken - and coriander. Laksa from Borneo's Sarawak province is said to be the best in Malaysia.

While pork is moderately consumed in this predominantly Muslim country - although it is much appreciated by the Chinese community - other meats such as chicken and beef are also very popular.Ayam percik is a recipe for chicken marinated in a rich coconut milk seasoning, then barbecued. The very popular ayam goreng is Malay for "fried chicken". As simple as the recipe is, it's found all over the country. Gulai ayam kampung is a deliciously creamy chicken and potato curry flavored with turmeric, kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass and a little palm sugar for sweetness. Although originally from Sumatra, Indonesia, rendang is extremely popular in Malaysia. This beef stew is made with a very thick sauce containing around twenty different spices, and is often served with nasi lemak.

Stretching between the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, Malaysia is no slouch when it comes to seafood. In fact, many dishes are seasoned with a fermented shrimp paste called belacan, which - unsurprisingly - has a very persistent aroma.Asam pedas is a fish and vegetable curry, whileikan bakar is a whole fish marinated in chilli sauce and grilled. Sambal udang is a shrimp dish, cooked in a chili sauce with tamarind and shrimp paste. A similar variant is sambal tumis sotong, made with squid.

While it was the Chinese who introduced the Malays to tea, the English were the first to cultivate this plant on the Malay Peninsula in the late ^19th century. Indeed, the climate of certain mountainous regions - around the Cameron Highlands at altitudes of between 1,000 and 1,500 metres - is a perfect copy of the temperatures in southern China, where tea originated. Malaysia produces mostly black tea, which is used to make teh tarik, an extremely popular drink - hot or cold - with tea and sweetened, whipped, frothy condensed milk. Pak kopi, a coffee with sweetened condensed milk, is also popular, although tea remains the country's most popular hot beverage. Other drinks include freshly extractedair tebu, or sugarcane juice, and a wide variety of fruit juices. The Malays are quite fond of them, all the more so as access to and consumption of alcoholic beverages such as beer - although common for tourists - are highly regulated for Muslim Malaysians.

Once again, the concept of dessert at the end of a meal is not necessarily self-evident in Southeast Asia. In fact, sweets can be enjoyed all day long. For example,apam balik, huge pancakes - often bought from street stalls - topped with creamed sweetcorn and crushed peanuts. The kaya toast, a kind of sweet sandwich, is filled with coconut jam and beaten eggs and toasted before serving, with a cup of tea, of course. Another symbol of Malaysian street food is the goreng pisang, a banana fritter made all the more delicious by the fact that fruit ripened in the tropics obviously doesn't taste the same as its pale, green copies sold in European supermarkets. In fact, discovering Malaysia is an opportunity to indulge in the sweetest mangoes, pineapples and papayas. Not forgetting other more unusual varieties such as the rambutan, a hairy cousin of the lychee, the mangosteen, which reveals its delicate sweet white pulp beneath its thick purplish skin, or for the brave, the durian covered in spikes, like a medieval club, and whose creamy yellow flesh sows doubt among gourmets: some say it's one of the most delicate fruits around, while others compare its taste to a cross between macerated onions and an overdone Camembert. All you have to do is taste it to make up your mind.

There are also other pastries such as kuih, a generic term for a large number of small rice flour cakes that oscillate between muffin and flan. Often adorned with intense - artificial - colors, these cakes are generally flavored with coconut milk, vanilla and so on. But the term is vast and sometimes also includes doughnuts or even a kind of filled pancake. Pandan chiffon cake is an airy sponge cake flavored with pandan leaf, a palm-like tree with aromatic foliage widely used in Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine to flavor rice, cakes, curries and more. Another little-known plant in Europe, sago produces a starch used to make small tapioca-like beads. It is used to make sago gula melaka, a pudding generally topped with palm sugar syrup before serving. There are also many cold desserts, in the form of sweet soups such as bubur cha-cha, made from coconut milk and garnished with fruit cubes and tapioca beads. In the same vein,ais kachang is a dessert of crushed ice, molded into the shape of a small mountain, topped with syrups, condensed milk and red bean cream.

A predominantly Chinese territory in an Indo-Malaysian world, Singapore offers a unique face, making this prosperous city-state one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities. And this melting pot has given rise to a very special culinary art known as Peranakan or Nyonya cuisine. A fusion of Chinese ingredients with various Malay spices and techniques, it is also found in other Chinese-dominated regions of western Malaysia, such as Malacca and Penang Island. Coconut milk, galanga, pandan leaves, belacan (shrimp paste), tamarind juice, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves(combawa), red chillies and shallots, traditionally used in Malaysia, are combined with soy sauce, wheat or rice noodles, oyster sauce, five-spice and other leafy vegetables brought over by Chinese immigrants. The term baba-nyonya refers to couples between Chinese traders and Malay or Indonesian women. The Chinese in this community have partly adopted Malay customs in order to integrate with the local population, and of course gastronomy is one of them.

Singaporean cuisine has therefore inherited this particularity, and many dishes can be found in the region mixing Chinese, Malay and Indian influences - the city has a sizeable Tamil community, originally from southern India - as well as other contributions from Europe or the Arab world. Among Singapore's most emblematic dishes is the dreaded crab chili, bathed in a sauce of tomato, garlic and rice vinegar, generously seasoned with chili pepper. Another very spicy dish is fish head curry, usually prepared from a large grouper head, accompanied by a sweet-and-sour vegetable broth flavoured with tamarind. The lips are said to be the most tender part. Chicken kapitan is a rich coconut milk curry containing tamarind juice and shrimp paste, and owes its creaminess to a powder of Moluccan walnuts, usually called candlenuts in Singapore.

Some dishes are even more Chinese-sounding, such as char kuey teow, which consists of flat rice noodles fried with pork fat, soy sauce, chili, bean sprouts and sometimes shrimp and egg. A similar dish is xing chow bee hoon, made with rice vermicelli. Loh bak is a recipe for braised pork marinated in five-spice powder before being wrapped in tofu skin and deep-fried. It is served with a variety of sauces. Finally, itek sio is roast duck marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, tamarind and shallots.

Most Chinese immigrants to Singapore came from southern China, notably from the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong or the island of Hainan, bringing with them dishes that have changed little but have become emblematic specialties of the city, such as Hokkien mee, egg noodles sautéed with shrimp, or Hainan chicken rice prepared with chicken poached in a highly aromatic broth and served with rice itself cooked in the same broth. All served with sweet soy sauce(kecap manis), sambal and a rich sweet-and-sour sauce with ginger and rice vinegar. But there are also more distinctly Chinese dishes such as the classic Peking duck, char siu pork or mooncakes(yuèbing) filled with lotus paste, red beans or salted duck egg yolk, eaten for the Moon Festival in autumn.

Singaporeans are more relaxed about alcohol than their Malaysian neighbors. Alcoholic beverages are readily available in bars and restaurants, including cocktails and beers such as the local Tiger Beer, created in 1932. Nevertheless, to limit the problem of alcoholism, the government applies high taxes that drive up the price of alcoholic beverages in bars. But if you're going to pay exorbitant prices for a drink, you might as well do it in style. To do so, head for the Long Bar at the famous Raffles Hotel, founded in 1887. Here, you can sip a Singapore Sling, made with pineapple juice, gin, grenadine and cherry liqueur. Created in 1915, this cocktail has become the signature cocktail of this hotel, Singapore's most emblematic.

At the opposite extreme, for those who want to discover all that the city-state has to offer in terms of flavors, but on a budget, nothing beats an immersion in the city's many hawker centers. These Southeast Asian-style food courts allow you to choose from a gigantic selection of dishes from numerous stalls, often for less than €5, before devouring them in a joyously noisy atmosphere. There are dozens of these in Singapore, and they are so much a part of the city's culture that in 2016, 57-year-old chef Chan Hon Meng's Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle was awarded a Michelin star. This establishment, located in the Chinatown Complex in the south of the city, may be the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant, but it's a testament to the excellence of Singapore's street food.