Woke up in my old bedroom. I’ve spent countless minutes, hours and years in this room. This room saw me through my primary and secondary school years. It saw me through my O level exams. Now my children are sleeping with me in my old den.
For lunch today, my mum decided she would indulge me with my favourite lunch and buy real Johor laksa for me. I know it’s a controversial opinion, especially to my East Malaysia husband who thinks Sarawakian laksa is the best, but I personally think Johor laksa IS the best. It’s very creamy and rich with spices and coconut milk, and has my favourite spongy tofu and fried fish balls in it, along with silky yellow noodles.
Luscious JB laksa. I could eat this all week. I have not been able to find one that comes close in Brisbane.
We got some otak-otak too, which is essentially spiced fish paste barbecued wrapped in banana leaf. Sadly we discovered they weren’t fully cooked when we got home, so we had to discard them which hurts my heart.
Otak-otak = BBQ spiced fish paste wrapped in banana leaf
Then of course, I trailed my mum and old househelp as they went about their supermarket errands. We are a massive household of about 15 people right now, so the amount of food required to fuel all these humans is enormous. We ended up with 2 FULL trolley carts of ingredients. Of course, we had to pay a visit to the snack shops.
Southeast-Asian folk are great snackers. You can find countless types of pickled dried fruit, cookies in every shape and colour imaginable, usual cakes, sticky asian cakes made of rice flour
It’s a good time of the year to visit Malaysia as it is Hari Raya Aidilfitri, which is a festive occasion after the traditional Ramadan month. Lots of shops and little pop-up stores offering up festive clothing, household furnishings etc, and all at special discounted prices, of course. And aside from departmental stores, you can still haggle with the smaller stall holders.
