A Whiff of Lemongrass

When my friends, Gard and Olav were in KL, they were excited about trying some chettinad food. Their hometown, Stavanger, had one indian restaurant which served predominantly northern indian fare. When it comes to Indian food, I like to eat at Saravana Bhavan which is located a couple of doors away from Anjappar. But I chose not to go there this time as Saravana Bhavan serves only vegetarian meals, and I wasn’t sure how it would go down with my Norwegian friends.

We all chose to have the banana leaf set meal which consisted of a good portion of rice, and little stainless steel receptacles containing different kinds of curries, dhall, vegetables and yoghurt. Eight charming little containers per person. We also ordered side dishes of chicken and mutton and several different types of bread.

I generally don’t order tandoori chicken because I have had some nasty experiences with some really dry chicken that would put a sanitary napkin to shame, so I was pleasantly surprised that the tandoori chicken here was sufficiently moist and full of flavour.

After the meal, we ordered Bru coffee with fresh cow’s milk. The coffee is normally sweetened (translated: very sweet!) and is served in a stainless steel tumbler and davarah (saucer). There is an art to drinking coffee that is served in this manner. You can pour your steaming hot coffee into the davarah to cool it down (presumably due to the larger surface which allows the coffee to cool down faster), then drink the coffee either from the tumbler or the davarah.

Anjappar
No. 56, Jalan Maarof
Bangsar Baru, KL
Tel: 03-22881508

I Cried Because I Had No Shoes, Until I Met A Man Who Had No Feet

Joanne Choo from A Cut Above with her midas touch is the only person I allow to cut my hair.

This morning, I decided to blow dry my long curls by wrapping sections of my hair around a round brush. To my dismay, my attempt to unwrap one section failed. No amount of tugging and pulling did any good as I stared at my reflection, comical as it may appear, with a hairbrush hanging tightly to one section of my head. Panicking, I ran to the bathroom and applied a large amount of shampoo and conditioner to loosen its hold. That didn’t work either. I contemplated taking time off from work to run to Joanne Choo to have my problem rectified, but the idea of walking in Midvalley with a hairbrush in my head seemed too ridiculous.

There was only one thing that I could do. I picked up a gleaming pair of scissors, and with tears dripping down my face….

….I snipped off that entire section of hair.

That marked the beginning of the worst day of the month. I had encounters with bad drivers, traffic jams and made wrong judgements.

In a moment of self-pity, I let out my frustrations on a friend, only to find out that my friend was going through something 10 times worse. I felt like an idiot.

I guess I have to be thankful that I still have 90% of my hair on my head.

With Chinese New Year coming up, we were stuffing ourselves silly with cookies. What better excuse to eat like gluttons than during the festive season? Incidentally, and this is totally unrelated to the topic for today, is it just me or do you guys also feel like the CNY atmosphere isn’t the same as before? I was at Midvalley today and last Saturday, and it just felt like something was missing. None of my neighbours have put up any CNY decorations (heck, mine are still stored in boxes from last year!) and the malls don’t seem as packed as in previous years. The only thing that didn’t change was our appetites.

Anyway, after eating a healthy dose of rich chinese food that didn’t do anything for the waistline, we knew that it was time for a change. Something simple. Somewhere accessible. Easy parking, preferably. Ecstatic Eeyore suggested eating rojak, and we thought it was a brilliant idea.

Tucked away behind the Agung’s palace at Jalan Bellamy is a stall selling mamak rojak. To the uninitiated, rojak by definition is a mixed salad. Mamak rojak contains fried fritters, cucumbers, sengkuang (turnip), hard boiled eggs and sliced cuttlefish. A spicy peanut sauce is then poured over the rojak. This dish is crunchy, savoury and sweet and is a meal by itself.

The stall is called Rojak Bellamy and is situated near the Alice Smith school. It is about 100m away from the famous ikan bakar (grilled fish) place, so you can’t miss it. “Follow the yellow brick road” comes to mind, except that this road isn’t yellow or made of bricks, nor does it lead to Oz!

The rojak that is served here has a wonderful peanut sauce that is rich, creamy and smooth. My only complaint would be that it ought to be a little more spicy. Then again, perhaps it is my fault that I didn’t request for more chilli. I also loved the taste of the cuttlefish (a generous portion, I must add) which blended in so well with the rest of the flavours that I was literally slurping up every last drop of the sauce. Pretty Pui and Bouncing Barbie will add that that’s nothing new as I am always drinking up any kind of liquid given to me. Hmmm. That didn’t come out right. Banish those evil thoughts now, y’all!

This place also serves mamak mee and mee rojak which are both apparently quite good too.

A normal portion of the rojak costs RM3.50.