Fruit – Lychee

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The fruit in Malaysia is interesting, and though a lot of it can be obtained in the USA, it’s usually not as good as it should be or costs quite a bit.  This is the first in probably a good number of posts describing some of the fruits (and possibly vegetables) we’ve tried.

A number of fruits here are relatives of or most easily compared to lychee, so it seems prudent to start with a description of lychee fruits.

Lychee fruits have a bumpy exterior skin which is removed to get to the tender white flesh.  Inside the white flesh is a single large seed (not generally eaten).  The lychee pulp is soft and wet with just a bit of springiness, quite similar to a medium-firm peeled grape.  It smells flowery, and the taste is kind of like a flowery sweet grape.  You can get these fresh (the best way) or canned (the canning process removes quite a bit of the smell and flavor but they’re still pretty good), and they’re served in many desserts and drinks.

There’s a wikipedia article if you want more information on lychee at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee

More Foods

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More fun food stuff.

First, some very iconic must-try dishes from Malaysia and Singapore:

Chili crab.  Crab(s) cooked in a sweet chili sauce (generally anywhere from no spiciness up to maybe a medium spicy, depending on who is making it).  There aren’t really words to describe how delicious this is, but it is often served with fried buns to help soak up some of the amazing sauce (and let’s be honest, when the buns ran out, we resorted to spoons).  This dish is messy, but incredibly worth it.

 

Black pepper crab.  Every bit as delicious as the chili crab (I did not think this was possible), but in a different way.  The black pepper sauce isn’t extremely hot, and just balances so incredibly well with the naturally sweet crab meat.  Not QUITE as messy as the chili crab, but almost.

Fish head curry.  In particular, this one is made with red snapper.  We both liked it quite a bit, though I doubt we’ll be trying to replicate the recipe at home (finding fish heads there may be more involved than just stopping at the grocery store).

 

Some Thai food:

Drinks: young coconut, lychee drink, and starfruit juice

Food set: mango salad, tom yum soup, rice, and grilled chicken

Desserts: Steamed tapioca with coconut cream, and water chestnut “rubies” in coconut milk with ice

 

Some assorted Chinese foods:

Lemongrass drink

La mian noodles in szechwan soup

Wild boar curry

Tioman Island Food

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So the first fish Josh ate on Tioman he kind of… inhaled.  About the time he was finished with it, he declared that we needed to have another one, so he could have a picture of it.  So we ate fish (well, seafood) for dinner every evening, and remembered to take pictures of it BEFORE digging in.

More Foods

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Food

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More Food Pictures!

Cool Food

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There’s all kinds of cool new foods here!