We wrapped up our stay in Malaysia yesterday after 3 years of stay here.

Towards the end things became crazy busy with some unplanned hospital visits, sales of cars, farewell visits from friends etc. We were wrapped up in a warm feeling of care and affection from friends who made sure we were fed after our kitchen was packed, made the effort to travel from afar to meet us one last time and stood with us till we left in the van to the airport. We felt blessed to have them all in our lives.

So long Malaysia! I am really hoping of coming back here and checking off the list of pending things to do.

Before hopping on to the flight, we had our one last fix of Kopi along with a butter toast and egg custard tart at the Oriental Kopi at KLIA2. You can see #OhBoy give his sign of approval. We left KL with a smile on our lips!

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With our stay in KL is getting to an end soon, we are starting to have goodbye meals with friends. A few weeks ago, we hosted our Chinese neighbour for a lunch at an Indian restaurant here. During that lunch, their son was reminiscing about the Vadai he had in our place, so we followed it up by a breakfast of Vadai, Idly and Dosai another day.

As conversations flowed in different directions that morning, we talked about Mala cuisine and about a lovely chilli chicken we had in one of the places here in KL. They quickly said that we have to try this place in Pudu, where the lady who cooks is from China and makes some fantastic food. So we went there this weekend. What a wonderful meal it turned out to be.

The highlight was the sour and spicy fish. The fish was fried and later a flavourful broth was added. That broth was just divine. We drank bowls of it.

The Pork was also good — so soft, garlicky and spicy as well

There were other dishes like Prawns, Cabbage Sautee, Potato fry, spiced cucumber and the Chilli Chicken we came for. But the chicken was fried too dry and tough for our taste. The sichuan peppers though on it, were fun to eat ;)

We followed it up with some desserts. There were all made from paste of different nuts or seeds. We had one cup each of Black Sesame, Peanut, Almond and Walnut. I loved the Peanut and Black Sesame one.

#OhBoy was playing well with them all through and was a jester making up jokes and silly games. As our time here in KL is coming to end, I am slowly realising the so many things and people I will miss about this place. But I am glad to be leaving with so many wonderful memories!

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This morning The Missus had to participate at a Yoga event a part of her official duties. We joined in as well. We stayed after the event to watch few of the games in the Sports Day of the school. One of them was an racing event for children with special needs and those in the autistic spectrum. Each child had a teacher or a volunteer helping them and it was nice to see these kids included as part of the Sports Day.

We were told that the school has a couple of teachers for children with special needs and when such events happen, teachers from other schools pitch in to help them. And we were told it was a Malaysian government initiative. It is good to see some thought gone in for the needs of these children, rather than them being just an after thought. Can more be done? Sure. But kudos for the steps already taken!

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🥾Hiking at Sri Bintang 📍

A month ago when we were trying out Bak Kut The at Sri Bintang, I got to know about the trail nearby. Last week I got a chance to hike it as part of my Thursday hikes. I liked it so much that I went again with my wife on the weekend.

This is a very good beginner trail and traverses through two hills. If you are an absolute beginner, you can stop at the 1st hill and then head back. It would probably take you less than an hour. And if you want to make it hard then you can multiple loops of the 2nd hill.
 
There are two options to go up the 2nd hill, and one of them does not have any tree cover. So if you are planning to do it late in the morning, I would suggest some full sleeves and sunscreen.

The view from the 2nd hill is great.

On the 2nd hike here over the weekend, there was a hiking group who were there with some of their pet dogs. There was a lady who was lovingly carrying her dog!

Just aside the hill top of the 2nd hill there is a beautiful spot where you can picnic. Someone has setup some tables and even left some books for you to read.

And since we were there, how could we not have our Bak Kut Teh 😋

Finally tasted Bak kut teh

When we got to know that we will be moving to Kuala Lumpur, I went on a spree of watching YouTube videos about places to eat and dishes to explore. That is when I first heard about Bak kut teh in Mickey Chen’s video.

Bak kut teh is a pork dish cooked in broth. It is very popular in Malaysia and Singapore. I has its origins among the Hokkien and Teochew community. The name translates as “meat bone tea”.

And when I landed here and told people that I wanted to try it out, almost everyone warned me about the “herbal taste” of it. I really wanted to try it, but with someone who knew a good place to go, how to order. I never found that guide.

Last week, our wonderful Chinese neighbour came by with some fruits for our son and when asked to partake a snack, she said she was heavy with the Bak kut teh breakfast. So natually I enquired about the place and told her, I would like to join her next time.

That conversation led to me finally I tasted my first Bak kut teh today and loved it. We went to a place in Seri Bintang. It was a collection of stalls referred to as Kopitiam 818 Restaurant. I was told this is Klang style Bak kut teh. Just a luscious and flavourful broth that I loved having multiple cups of. The meat was tender from hours of simmering and all the collagen 🤩

It is a very hearty breakfast meal, so maybe next time I will combine with hike at the nearby Seri Bintang trail!

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Anak Baba, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur 📍

Earlier this week, a friend was stopping over in KL and was available for lunch. Since he was open to tasting some local fare, took him out to Anak Baba in Brickfields.

It is a quaint little place, with simple seating arrangement of table and stools and a lot of natural sunlight through the translucent roof. I had been there earlier once and loved their food.

This time around I tried their Nasi Lemak with fried chicken. Everything was spot on, but that fried chicken marinated in turmeric was just so rightly done—a light layer of fried coating on the outside and juicy on the inside!

The friend has Nyonya Laksa, which I had tried previously here. He loved it too.

We also had their Popiah (Peranakan Spring Roll), Pai Tee (picture below) and Cendol to round it all off.

Overall the food and the interesting conversation, made it a memorable afternoon! Hope to bring the family here soon!

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Lunch at Chowkit area of Kuala Lumpur

A cancelled meeting of The Missus resulted in we getting to do a quick lunch date on a weekday. We met at El Cero📍 first and had a bunch of of tapas. While Tapas were good, the mains did not interest us, so we went out looking for another place.

This part of Chow Kit is peppered with restaurants and we landed at Gavel📍 just that was a couple of doors away from El Cero. Gavel is a quaint little place. We wanted something quick and hence picked Fish & Chips, which was the dish of the day. It did not disappoint. I really want to come there on Sunday for their Sunday Roast!

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🥾Hiking Gunung Datuk, Negeri Sembilan

Yesterday I went hiking up Gunung Datuk with a friend and his hiking group. This was my first long hike in KL and in a while too.

We started climbing about 7.15am and summited around 1h 45m later. The initial part, with the rocky trail and the jutting out roots was the hardest part.

The strong winds at the summit gave us a welcome break from all the exhaustion. After a quick round of snacks, we went up to the viewing point and clicked a few pictures.

We came back down in 1h 15m. While climbing down was less exhausting, it was strenuous on the knees. The hiking poles were put to good use to transfer some of the weight on to them!

Overall it was great hike. Looking forward to do many more in the coming months!

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The school was closed for #OhBoy, so we took a bus ride and stopped by at Bukit Damansara for a coffee. Our usual coffee shop was closed, but there were huge cheers from the pubs around. It is Super Bowl night, so we are here watching a game neither understand. 🤣

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Copper Grillhouse, TTDI, Kuala Lumpur

A few weeks ago, we were invited to the inauguration of the newest restaurant in TTDI — Copper Grillhouse. It is the international avatar of the famous Copper Chimney chain of restaurants in India. They specialise in North Indian and North West Frontier cuisine.

Overall we enjoyed the 5 course meal and the celebration. Here are notes on some of the dishes we really enjoyed.

For starters we had Kadak Roomali Roti and Chandni Chowk Chaat. I’ve always relished the soft, chewy and cloth like thin Roomali Rotis, but this was the first time we had them crisp, in the shape of a wok. Also it was topped with a generous amount of Butter and spice powders, making it a tempting eat.

From the Tandoor Grills we limited ourselves to just had Paneer Tikka and Chicken Tikka, as we didn’t want to fill ourselves before the main course. The Chicken Tikka was really tender and the dry mango powder (aamchur) in its marinade gave it a nice tang!

Between the courses, there was a nice performance by traditional Malay dance artists!

For the mains, we had the Lasooni Corn Palak. Lamb Rogan Josh and Gosht Dum Biryani. The gravies came with a bread basket. While the palak (spinach) was tasty with the kick of fried garlic, it had something grainy in it like sand, so we just let it be. The Lamb Rogan Josh was just perfect in every way. The gravy was deep red, silky smooth, tangy and spicy. And the meat was soft to the touch. We lapped it up.

By the time we came to the biryani, we were stuffed. We decided to taste just a spoon of it, but ended up having way more! 🙈
It was one of the highlights of the evening for us.

We finished it all with one of the excellent Jabeli’s I have had in the recent times — crisp, not too sweet and mildly tangy.

We were invited to the event, so we have no idea of the prices of these dishes. But we really enjoyed the food and would highly recommend it!

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Chinese New Year decorations in our condo

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Der Backmeister, TTDI, Kuala Lumpur

After a good hike at the the Bukit Kiara trails at TTDI, we went to the Der Backmeister @ TTDI for a well earned breakfast. The place was full of folks digging into their food and that was a good sign!

We ordered their The Big Backmeister which was a mix platter of Ham, Salami, Breads, Buns and choice of eggs. When ordering the kind lady at the counter was attentive enough to ask how many folks were in our group. It was a big platter enough for 2 adults and a child.

We also ordered an Avocado and Egg Sandwich on Ciabatta, which was a huge. We asked them to pack the left over and they kindly obliged.

Their Caraibe Dark Chocolate deserves a special mention. It was just yum!

The staff were polite, chatty, accommodative and attentive. 😍

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The nativity setup at our condo for the holiday season

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A neighbour who makes excellent Caramel Custard, dropped by last evening to give us a large one. We were so impatient, that we realised no photos were clicked only after we had sliced it up 🙈

Everything was perfect—firm but soft to slice, not too sweet, just the right amount of bitterness. Easily the best caramel custard I’ve had.

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The Koi fish pond at our condominium’s lobby is such a peaceful thing to watch!

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Went on a hike yesterday to Bukit Kiara at TTDI (again!)

I absolutely love this area. It has a paved hike for beginners, casual hikers and for the elderly! But it also has trails that branch out for additional explorations. Took one such trail “Snakes & Ladders” yesterday.

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I can finally say I swim

One of my achievements of recent times would be learning to do the breaststroke. Today was the day I did 6 laps across the 50m pool in a calm non-panicky manner. I am quite proud of that!

Swimming has been elusive for me till now. There were many failed attempts to learn it. I was never comfortable with water for me to begin with. Also I was always learning with the help of friends, who while being kind were not the best to teach me the skill. There was a swimming coach in our campus in Delhi, but I think he was more of a lifeguard than a coach.

However it was in Delhi that I learnt to do the freestyle by sheer brute force. I would kick the wall to gather a good momentum and then I couldn’t have anything stop me mid-way, nor could I miss the rhythm. Else I would just fluster and sink! But it was something better than nothing, and I could get some form of swimming done.

Finally in Kuala Lumpur, thanks to getting a swimming coach for #OhBoy, I got a chance to learn. The coach had to be hired by the hour and since #OhBoy was too young to continuously swim for an hour, we could use the rest of his time to learn ourselves. I chose to learn the breaststroke as I wanted to have a clean start. And it worked out.

Next would be to unlearn my way of doing brute force freestyle and learning to do it the proper way!

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With a week off at school for Deepavali, #OhBoy and I are using each morning to a different activity. Yesterday we went off for a short hike at Kiara Hill Walk.

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#OhBoy is drinking his Yuzu Mandarin Gelato, since he wanted to bring it home and share it with his grandmother! 😍

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A long awaited writing desk came home and was assembled yesterday! #OhBoy said it was a wonderful Deepavali for him!! 😍

This is a Flisat Desk and Bench from IKEA.

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Tasty Porridge, Bukit Jalil

While we we left home hoping to dine at Shin Zushi in Bukit Jalil, the line was long. That’s when I saw “Tasty Porridge” and I remembered @liztai@hachyderm.io recommending it.

We ended up having dinner there and quite enjoyed it. We tried the following— Golden Pumpkin Porridge

Porky Mushroomic Porridge

Mala Crispy Fish Skin

Lemongrass Chicken Wing

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Our condo is getting decorated for Deepavali!

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After the back injury last year, I’ve been slowly building up the strength. Finally after ages, got to do 5K yesterday.

From where I was last year, this is a huge win. Hoping to slowly build up the strength for a 10K by next year! Poco a poco, paso a paso!

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(I am the 3rd from the left!)

Ethnochestra Senandung Nusantara

Thursday night we got an opportunity to attend the National Day reception organised by the Embassy of Indonesia here in Kuala Lumpur. As part of the evening, there was an concert titled Senandung Nusantara

It was one of a kind, of the concerts I have been to so far. It was an excellent blend of traditional folk and modern sounds. And the lighting and projection of visuals (they do it off stage as well!) envelope you and transport you.

For me the highlight of the evening was Woro Mustiko! What a talent—both with the singing and dancing!

(The photo is bad, I know! But this is the only shot I got of her performance!)

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We attended the Bathukamma Festival organised by the Malaysia Telangana Association.

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