Cavalock and The Kit-Kat Flavour Appropriation

The highlight of every trip across the border has always been the street food. This latest venture to Kuala Lumpur saw us hunting for Peter's Pork Noodles in Brickfields. It's regarded as one of the best pork noodles in the city. Kinda funny that some of the yummiest pork dishes in the region are found in a country like Malaysia. Anyway the Baker-at-Home did her research and we found ourselves having lunch that Friday afternoon in an old school hawker centre.

Every slurp, every bite. Generous servings of pork and greens. Worth the air ticket to KL for sure. Safe to say, best pork noodles both of us ever had, back home and in Malaysia. I wish there were more innards in my bowl. We just ordered 'the usual'. Wasn't sure there was an option for more innards. And of cos, my fav three-layered tea to wash it all down.

Now this has become kinda like the Tokyo Banana of Malaysia. I'm of cos referring to the Malaysian Kit-Kat flavours folks here are buying back in bulk. The cheap must-buy snack out of Malaysia kinda like Tokyo Banana if you are a first time visitor to Tokyo. Yes, we bought some Malaysian Kit-Kat too, just for the novelty of it all. I ain't no Kit-Kat connoisseur and if it was a blind taste test, I couldn't tell if it was Ice Kacang or not. I mean it tasted alright like all Kit-Kats but if you asked the flavour, I just couldn't say that it was Ice Kacang.

Cavalock and The Kuala Lumpur Quickie

Hah! Slipped across the border for the shortest of short vacations last month in Kuala Lumpur. The Baker-at-Home and I wanted a change in scenery so its been like a year since we crossed the border. As always, one can never be disappointed with the food in Malaysia. First night saw us having dinner at the popular Tiffin's Thai at Mid Valley Mall.

Don't know much bout where the good Thai joints are in Kuala Lumpur but Tiffin's Thai is pretty damn good. That grilled pork neck was pure oink heaven. No geek would head to Mid Valley and not drop by their Comic Mart shop. The last time I was there, I picked up a couple of Warhammer miniatures for a decent price. Nothing really caught my eye this time and I also told myself I already have a ton of unpainted miniatures back home waiting for me. Really enjoyed ogling at their beautifully painted display miniatures.

Cavalock and The Instant Noodle Perplexity

The Baker-at-Home called ahead to make dinner reservations at Oversea Restaurant, an old school Cantonese joint that's just a short stroll from our hotel. So they used to have an outlet in Singapore years ago but had to close that. Their specialty char siu was excellent and it's easy to understand you gotta call ahead just to reserve this dish. And yah, this was the dinner we had after our joint food coma earlier in the day.

Here's something interesting we spotted at the food court in Kuala Lumpur. Unlike our local yong tau fu stalls where we get to decide on the kinda noodles or rice to have, well, apparently in KL there is a whole selection of different instant noodles to choose from. Pretty weird huh?

What I did not expect to do in KL? Buy painting supplies from Art Friend. Was definitely not planning that but we happened to see they had a store at the mall and whoa! things are cheaper here. And I also grabbed a novel from KLCC Kinokuniya, not cos it was cheaper there but becos I have never seen the book sold here. I could be wrong but I believe the book is out-of-print. It's an old horror anthology. Few folks understand the joy of finding an out-of-print book in a bookstore.

Cavalock and The Food Coma Trepidation

So we got a wee bit greedy on our first morning in Kuala Lumpur and went on an early breakfast eating spree. We hit the popular kopi tiam at the junction along Jalan Barat and ordered ... and ordered ... and ordered.

We had us some pork porridge, pork noodles and char kway teow, and I washed it all down with a sweeter than sweet tall glass of 3 layer tea. The food was all good although the porridge and wanton noodles were way tastier than pork noodles. But the above pork blood sausage from the pork noodles was my breakfast champ. I don't think I can find anything similar at hawker stalls in Singapore. Well, about three hours after that meal, the Baker-at-Home and I were unceremoniously struck by a case of severe food coma. It was not a pleasant feeling. It slowly crept up as I suddenly found that I could not move my limbs another inch and all we could do was look for a place to rest our bodies ... at the mall. Really. All that carbo overload and sugar overdose were like a lethal double KO blow for us.

Lesson learnt. I think since we started changing our diets and working out. We can't do them big carbo breakfasts no more. :P

Oh yah, if you are at the Jalan Barat kopi tiam, don't forget to try them little custard tarts, damn, they are good and insanely cheap.

Cavalock and The Rainbow Tim Sum Bemusement

Back to Jalan Alor and it's still every bit as bustling as the last time I was there several years ago. Couple things we noticed that seemed new to me. First up, you'll noticed a lot of Burmese migrant workers manning the stalls, kinda like how we got the China workforce here I guess. Other thing worth mentioning is the below rainbow tim sum trend that I'm seeing for the first time. More than a few stalls selling them although I didn't try any. Methinks a wee bit gimmicky perhaps? It was the first time at Jalan Alor for the Baker-at-Home and we both kinda agreed that as attractive as the food is, we could give the street a pass if we visit the city again. Not a repeat-visit for us as we would much rather explore the area for other venues.

Cavalock and The After Dinner Drinks Aspiration

Who knew this would happen to us? Never saw this coming but we became the kinda holiday couple who hangs out at bars after dinner. Hah! I think it's maybe a sign of old age or something, it definitely wasn't because we were bored. Perhaps it's an evolution of one's travel habits from squirrelling back cheap supermarket food to the hotel to dining at fancy restaurants to appreciating after dinner drinks at watering holes in exotic lands.

Well, that's what we did every night in Kuala Lumpur last week, at The Tokyo Restaurant's bar at KL's Isetan The Japan Store to be exact. We read about their famous cheesecake and knew we just had to have it for our dessert that night. It certainly deserved every praise. Extremely light and luxuriously delicious, making it very tempting for us to order a second slice.

Why the need to rush back to our room when we could be resting on bar stools and taking it easy in a foreign city? During the day, we walked to their Kinokuniya book store at KLCC and damn! that has got to be the biggest Kinokuniya I have ever been to, even larger than the ones I visited in Japan. Huge bookstore means lotsa books! Spent almost 2 hours there and noticed some nuggets in their fiction selection that were sorely missing at our local stores.

Cavalock and The Overseas Supermarket Inspection

I guess you could say it was the vacation over a decade in the making. The Baker-at-Home and I finally made our way to Kuala Lumpur for our long deserved vacation. One of those so near yet so far holiday destinations if you know what I mean. Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves silly on some glorious street food and almost slipped into a lethal food coma mere hours later. More on that in a later post.

We did what we always do whenever we are in another country, we visit their supermarkets! And we were pleasantly surprised to find some pretty cool items on sale. Check this out, Haggis and other porky canned food in the non-Halal section! The last time I had Haggis was back in Edinburgh in 2009. Anyway I sure don't remember any of our supermarkets having such a well-stocked porky aisle before. Who knew? I definitely wasn't expecting this in a country like Malaysia.

I suppose no spermarket or grocery store here is complete without some Kopi Luwak or Tongkat Ali item. Heh, and no, I didn't buy any.

Back in 2014, when me and the guys were in KL for our Magic: The Gathering/Makan road trip, this was how this block of abandoned building along Bukit Bintang looked like. Three years later, it's still exactly the same. For some strange reason, I just seemed drawn to it. ;)

Cavalock and The KL Express Mission

Dropped into Kuala Lumpur for a quick little gig and was out in less than 24 hours the next afternoon. Wish I had time like before to sample the local food but was only 'restricted' to mall food cos I didn't wanna miss my flight back. Spotted Church's Texas Chicken at Mid Valley mall and decided to have that for lunch as I really like their chicken back home. What surprised me was how similar to KFC. Now the Texas chicken in Singapore was more buttery and had its own distinct flavour while the one I had in KL just kinda tasted like KFC in KL. Strange and a wee bit disappointing.

Apart from that, the rest of the trip was pretty interesting. Found their popular Comics Mart at the same mall and managed to grab a couple of elusive Warhammer miniatures. I believe it's even cheaper than the official retail price. Oh, and if you are fan of Jo Malone, it's apparently cheaper there too.

Now it has been awhile since I posted anything from Meidi-Ya supermarket, well, that's probably because I haven't had time to visit the place. Fixed that yesterday and saw some new booze (sometimes I do wonder if it's all just new packaging instead) plus some rather pricy hot chocolate.

Cavalock and The Obligatory Cross-Border Food Collage

Well, I do this almost every other trip so here it is again, the patented food collage for this Kuala Lumpur road trip. Different experience from a couple years back when we hung out in the city but this year we headed out to the outskirts for some equally tasty and cheap local dishes.

Guess what, coming home after a weekend of cross-border eating and card gaming I found myself back on a two-day gaming spree again a few days later. I was invited to an overnight boardgame chalet session. Gotta stay, the government chalets these days are a far cry from my old school days. Pretty modern and whole lot cleaner too. No, I didn't stay overnight but I did managed to play several really cool games that I had my sights on for awhile.

Our ongoing game of Risk Legacy continued with my burning my very own Gotham City but I still lost. Busstop is a short and extremely fun Japanese game where each of us are trying to fill our buses with various kinds of passengers, the trick is each bus can only be occupied by one type of passengers.

The below Guilds of London was a hot seller back when I was in Gen Con in August but I didn't get a copy. Played it at the chalet and was pleasantly surprised by how easy and fun it was. I was initially afraid that it was gonna be a very heavy Euro game but it wasn't. Every turn you try to control as many different tiles or guilds as you can, scoring points in the process. Most points wins the game.

Also got to finally play the app-driven Mansions of Maddness 2nd edition. Wonderful Cthulhu-themed adventure co-operative boardgame where you and other players work as a group to explore a mystery mansion filled with monsters. Best part of this is the addition of the app that plays the role of the "dungeon keeper" that directs the players all over the cursed mansion.