Malaysia has always been a bit of a blind spot for me. I’ve known Malaysians, taught Malaysians and was teaching tourism related marketing and advertising classes during the whole Malaysia Truly Asia marketing push. Yet, I’ve never really had a desire to go there. It looks fascinating, though I have heard living there is not so easy from dear friends of mine now living in Paris and South Africa respectively.
Genuine Malaysian food is surprisingly hard to find here, it is either “rendang because I say it is” or so Taiwanesed up for local tastes it resembles nothing that would be eaten over there. In my quest to find something a bit off the beaten track, and the fact that Mr. Du went there and mentioned it on Facebook, We headed over to Wonderful Baba next to Xinpu MRT station in New Taipei City. Quite what Mr. Du was doing over there I have no idea, as his usual stomping ground is in the east side. As with the residents of most cities if you are from said city, you generally stick to where you live, and rarely (if ever) will you venture far from your district.
The food in question this time was bak kut teh (肉骨茶) or literally “meat bone tea” which is akin to a Taiwanese spicy hotpot but in this case with pork ribs. This dish, according to Wikipedia, is eaten generally by the Hokkien speaking people of Malaysia, which is to say people who speak the Taiwanese dialect (it is complicated – and I’m not educated enough in that stuff to pontificate on the who’s and the wherefores) so there is some crossover here. It counts because EYE make the rules around here sunshine!
Walking down the street you can’t really miss it, as you can see from the photo there is a massive Malaysian flag as part of the shop front, there are lots of photos outside from TV appearances and/or local celebrities who have visited. The owner, who I couldn’t be sure if he was there or not, proudly displays on the wall that he is in the top 50 restaurateurs of bak kut teh in the world. So, we were surely in good hands.
I went with the signature dish for 350NT (wine flavored, pork ribs) had a very sweet almost Chinese medicine type flavor, though the wine was ever present. It was huge and was probably enough for two people. Mrs. Bao went for pepper stomach “something” soup at 220NT. The pepper taste was a bit too much for both of us, though we thought that maybe it was the wrong time of year. As it has a spicy hotpot thing going on, Taiwanese people are more accustomed to eating this kind of thing in the depths of winter, not the blazing hot Taiwanese summertime. Again, this is cultural difference as the Malaysians don’t have a winter as we see it, and use this kind of food to help aid sweating. As a side dish for the young ‘un we had simple noodles (which in four year old style didn’t want) and we had minced pork and shrimp rice for 80NT. All in all, 780NT for three people without a drink, which we went out for later.
We have already made plans to return because we did enjoy it a lot, and it is relatively easy for us to travel to now that the first phase of the Circle line from Dapinglin is open.
But never again in summer, I’ll need it in winter to warm my cold, cold heart.
Address:
No. 18-1, Juguang Road, Banqiao District, New Taipei City
Best MRT: Xinpu Exit 1
52 Cuisines? 