Sometimes I wonder why in our hot weather here, we eat equally hot and heat inducing foods like steamboats and barbeques. Often, its a bunch of people sitting or standing around a hot soup pot, or around a grill, wiping away sweat and popping morsels of scalding hot food into our mouths. Yet we do, because its delicious and its fun.

Recently, I’d come across a little nondescript Japanese BBQ yakiniku stall in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur. Its located in a little courtyard in an alleyway between some old shops and is very rustic. If you are the sort to prefer somewhere cool, clean and air-conditioned, this is not the place for you. Here, be prepared to sit in the open air or in what might be called a shack on rickety chairs around a flimsy table, let your hair down (or better yet, tie it up), relax, ignore the rather glum surroundings for a moment and grill your own food on the charcoal brazier located just a few feet from your face. Yes ladies, we get a lovely facial at the same time 😛

Whilst I personally find portions small and the whole experience can turn out rather pricey if you have a large appetite, its an interesting place, and concept simply because I haven’t come across another quite like it in KL!

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I was scrolling on Twitter to see what people liked about being Malaysian in view of our National Day yesterday, and the two items that popped up were “good food” and “public holidays”. Ah, you can’t deny there’s a lot of truth there LOL! But speaking of Malaysian food, here’s something quite quintessentially Malaysian and very popular among the Chinese community – Bak Kut Teh or lit. Pork Rib Tea.

Tea? Well, soup rather 🙂

Being a multi-cultural country, this also comes in a more easily accepted chicken version where chicken is substituted for pork.

What this “bak kut teh” is, is a herbal soup base with meat added for flavour. Afficionados will scorn the claypot version you see here, preferring to have their individual bowls of meat and flavoursome soup unadulterated by other flavours.

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