Of towers and coffee shops

This time round, there are more changes since my last visit to Kuala Lumpur. Near where my daughter lives, an abandoned condominium tower has resumed work and the structure is rapidly towering into the sky, adding yet another change to the skyline. It's certainly getting more crowded in KL as new towers sprout up like mushrooms.

There are too many of these towers and the high density of people, not to say the number of cars, make such housing developments unattractive in terms of space and traffic. One can say the traffic jam begins in these housing areas as cars crawl out from respective feeder roads onto the main ones.

However the more people there are, the more economic opportunities there will be for the people in the service and food industries. The coffee shops proliferate everywhere offering all kinds of food and drinks at any hour of day.  It is not uncommon to find different stalls operating in the mornings and afternoons. Last night we scouted out a new place (new to us) and the food a la homestyle cooking was good. We plan to go there once more to try out the German pork knuckle which is one of my hubby's favorite dishes. I enjoyed the sambal prawn petai ( spicy prawn and smelly beans ) though I wished there were more petai rather than onions.

Tonight my niece and her husband are hosting a dinner for the family and we have been invited. It's to a place we've not been before so I'm looking forward to this.

This morning we had a different type of noodles for breakfast, what is known as pan mee but tweaked to make it different from the usual stuff. Instead of the flat noodle, this was like the stringy noodles and it was served dry with the usual ikan bilis ( fried anchovies) and vegetable ( tow kei) eggdrop soup. We had to add special roasted chili to the mee and therein lies the difference. The taste was unusual and had a "kick" to it. I forgot my camera so I don't have a picture of it.

All kinds of  food can be found easily but to "sniff" out the special ones, you need the locals to tell you where to find them. My son who lives in Singapore insisted that we try this one so my daughter took us there. She had been introduced to it by her cousins and my son found it very special when his sister took him there to try it out as pan mee is his favorite breakfast whenever he is back in KL.

Every trip home to KL is a gastronomic trip! Eating all the food that I miss in the Land below the Wind (Borneo Island) and drinking the thick black coffee is a taste of paradise! I look forward to each trip with gusto and with a gleam in my eyes when I think of the treat in store for my palate. Besides, it's durian season again!! (those 'smelly apples' as my nephew used to call them but now he's a great fan!!) Oh, how not to put on weight???? More on the benefits of the durian in my next post.