Nasi Warung – meaning ‘stall rice’, is a very popular lunch dish in Malaysia and consists of a huge variety of curries, meat, fish and vegetables. It’s like a buffet, but isn’t an ‘all-you-can-eat’ setting. You get a plate of hot rice, and your choice of side dishes. Each side dish is priced differently depending on how much you pile onto your plate! Nasi Warung can be found in street corners, coffee shops and even in shopping malls.

The term ‘stall rice’ means food that is usually sold from a street food vendor at their food stall. In the above picture I can pick out beef liver curry, deep fried fish heads, tuna curry, prawn sambal, eggplant sambal and stir-fried water spinach in garlic.

The Centrepoint Shopping Mall in Kota Kinabalu has a food basement level with a few Nasi Warung eateries. All dishes are prepared in the morning and kept hot throughout lunchtime. It’s one of my favourite meals to have because of the variety and flavours you can get just on one plate. Sometimes when dining with friends or family, it becomes a competition on who can pile the most food on their plate (and finish it).

More choices at a neighbouring stall – Pumpkin curry, spicy fish cakes and crispy skin prawns are amongst the food on display here.

There are literally HUNDREDS of different dishes to choose from, and one can never get tired of eating Nasi Warung on a daily basis. It will probably take many years to actually try ALL the Nasi Warung dishes in Malaysia. Many of these dishes are traditionally Malay, but there are also alot of Indonesian-inspired cooking styles as well. Chillies and curry spices make up the majority of flavours in most dishes as well as an abundant use of coconut milk in the curries.

Stir-fried beansprouts, fried cucumbers, grilled fish and vegetable curries cooked in aromatic spices and coconut milk.

Nasi Warung is a smorgasbord of bizarre and rare ingredients – Animal parts and strange plants aren’t spared either, everything from chicken hearts, chicken feet, beef liver, giblets, squid ink, fish roe, banana heart, ferns and pumpkin shoots are used to create an array of sensational dishes. One is always spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting food that will only fit on one plate! Sometimes I linger too long around the food deciding what to eat, much to the annoyance of other patrons in line.

Help! Where does one even begin? Check out the large dish of steamed Okra and Angle Beans.

There are around 5-6 different Nasi Warung restaurants in the basement of Centrepoint Shopping Mall. Picking one to eat in is a task in itself, let alone deciding what food to have. If you want to experience good Malay cuisine, paying one of these eateries a visit is a must. You’ll be blown away by the array of food and cooking styles – Also, you’ll get to savour many types of dishes providing you bring a few people along so you can share your meals.

A closer inspection at my lunch above: Clockwise from left: Beef Rendang, stir-fried cakur manis with garlic, spicy green beans, a piece of grilled stingray, ferns in sambal and spicy bamboo shoot cooked in coconut milk. The greyish-looking plant matter in the picture below is banana heart.

My plate of Nasi Warung which had 6 different servings of food cost a measly RM6, which comes up to around $2. For that amount of food for so little money, it’s definitely a bang for your buck especially if you’re travelling on a shoe-string budget. This really is a satisfying meal plus you get your daily intake of meat, carbs and vegetables all at once!

One morning during a stroll through a convenience store in Kyoto in search of a hearty breakfast, I bypassed the rice balls, bento boxes and sandwiches and decided to get a bit creative with my meal. Japanese convenience stores never cease to amaze me when it comes to variety!

Four easy steps on how to create the ultimate D.I.Y. convenience store meal:

1. A packet of cooked rice – readily available from the cold food isle.

2. One serving of pickled cucumbers, seaweed and white bait.

3. A can of smoked sweet Mackerel.

4. Bring purchased items to a nearby park, combine ingredients and serve.

Kedai Kopi is a Malay word that translates to Coffee Shop. In Malaysia, these Kedai Kopi do not necessarily specialise in the sale of coffee – most of them actually serve full meals, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. The name Chuan Hin belongs to the Chinese owners of the establishment – so it basically means Chuan Hin’s Coffee Shop. Kedai Kopi is a loose term and can be anything from cafe to restaurant.

When you arrive at this restaurant, you have to go out the back to pick out your own slice(s) of stingray! The stingray here is always fresh and is caught locally around the shores of coastal Sabah.

Kedai Kopi Chuan Hin is situated at a shop lot on the corner of Jalan Lintas and Luyang, in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (a mouthful, no pun intended) and is a popular dining destination amongst the locals. My parents and I have been dining at this restaurant for nearly two decades, and their food never dissapoints. Chuan Hin usually only serves food during dinner time and they rarely open during the day.

The stingray is priced by weight – These two chunks cost around RM25 (approximately $12)

Chuan Hin has two main specialties: grilled stringray in banana leaf, and dumplings. These are two dishes that we always order when we eat there. They also serve a wide range of vegetable stir fries, noodles and grilled beef. The stingray is wrapped in a banana leaf and topped with a mild sambal, then grilled on an open fire to crispy perfection. To top it off, the stingray is drizzled with kasturi lime juice to maximise the flavour.

Grilled to perfection – stingray is one of my favourite fishes because of its soft, tender flesh and crispy skin when grilled. The texture is quite similar to a very tender piece of chicken and doesn’t have an overly strong fishy taste.

A meal for three to four people at Chuan Hin would cost around RM50-60 ($30) and is quite reasonable given the great quality of the food. The ambience at Chuan Hin is not something to write home about but the food certainly makes up for it. Chuan Hin probably does the best stingray in Kota Kinabalu and I highly recommend it!

Kasturi lime goes well with this fish as it brings out the flavour and also adds a tangy hit to enhance the sambal flavours.

Chuan Hin’s other specialty dish – Dumplings. Pictured are the fried garlic-chive dumplings. They also serve a minced pork version. You can choose from steamed or fried dumplings. I personally like the fried ones because they’re crispy on the outside!

A meal at Chuan Hin is not complete with their famous fried vermicelli dish. It’s a combination of vermicelli, fish cake, prawns, chicken, egg, bok choy and bean sprouts. We never order rice when we dine here – it seems that the vermicelli has replaced it!

Last but not least, some greens – A plate of stir fried Cakur Manis (Sauropus Androgynus) with Garlic. Cakur Manis is a rich and sweet leafy vegetable with a crunchy stalk that tastes a bit like spinach.

*BURP*

Ever had the problem of a watermelon not fitting in your fridge due to its awkward round shape? I bet the tupperwares had many a discussion about the bulging mass of green taking up their precious refrigeration space. Sprigs of celery and coriander stuffed along the sides of the melon, much to their dismay. What about those times when you did your weekly grocery shopping and had a watermelon chucked in the back of the boot – only to find moments later as you accelerate and turn corners you get distracted by the rumbling, tumbling racket going on in the back of your car?

The crazy Japanese have come up with yet another brilliant – albeit expensive – solution. To solve all the above problems, the square watermelon was born. For watermelon farmers, this means easy packing for shipping purposes. How clever. These watermelons are grown in square glass containers from the vine, and as they grow they mould themselves into the square shape of the container. However, the square watermelon would probably only appeal to the hip and upmarket class of Japan as they aren’t cheap – starting from around $50 up to a whopping $160!

I was walking along a street in Hiroshima when I saw these watermelons displayed at a fruit shop. Over the years, I had heard stories about these watermelons but they always sounded like a silly but cute urban myth – until I saw them with my own eyes. What shocked me wasn’t the fact that I had actually seen square watermelons, but how much they cost!

Okonomiyaki is a savoury Japanese pizza or pancake – Unlike its western counterpart, the Okonomiyaki is made on a thin pancake-style base that almost resembles a crepe. This unique dish is very popular in Osaka and Hiroshima, and we were fortunate enough to get a chance to savour the Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki during our travels in Japan.

The chef-lady started by spreading the pancake mixture on the hot plate, creating the pancake. To be honest, it tasted more like crepe than pancake. Next came the shredded raw cabbage – lots of it.

We found an Okonomiyaki stall in a building in town. In fact, there were about 10 or more Okonomiyaki stalls in this one building, spread out between 2 floors and all right next to each other. We took a chance and randomly picked one. The stall we picked was run by a father-daughter team and they were more than happy to serve a bunch of gaijin - the father was so enthusiastic about having westeners in his restaurant, he even changed his TV channel to a Michael Jackson concert to apparently suit our western tastes…

She worked very quickly – in fact, she laid down all 7 pancakes in less than 4 minutes. Next on the topping list came the beansprouts, spring onions and bacon strips. Our daily intake requirements for lipids, proteins and vegetables were met by this stage.

The stall was set up in such a way that the seats wrapped around the cooking area, very similar to Teppanyaki so we could witness the creation of these magnificent pancakes right in front of us. Generally, the Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki already comes with the standard shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, spring onions, bonito flakes, bacon, Japanese sweet sauce, mayonnaise and Yakisoba noodles. On top of the ‘base toppings’, we get to choose a main topping: scallops, shredded beef, fish, prawns, squid, oysters, pork, chicken and so on. I opted for the oyster version.

The dried bonito flakes were next! Making Okonomiyaki is an art in itself.

The carbs were next on the list – enter Yakisoba noodles. As you can see, the servings were pretty hefty! and we had one each! The noodles were fried and seasoned with salt, pepper, and yes, Ajinomoto. Someone from the group had ordered the seafood topping which I believe were prawns and squid. Basically everything is cooked in front of you, very similar to Teppanyaki minus the egg-throwing. While the noodles were frying away, she flipped the Okonomiyaki over onto the topping side to get the bacon cooked. Watching her flip something with loose vegetable shreds and not have them fly into your eyes and lap was quite amazing!

The end result: A towering inferno of pancake, cabbage, sprouts, bacon, bonito flakes, yakisoba noodles, omellete, sweet sauce, spring onions and my main topping of succulent Japanese oysters. It was a large serving enough for 2, but yes I wolfed it down on my own in one sitting. I really enjoyed the combination of textures in this dish.