Food Fling in Malaysia: Day 5

This is part five of my multi-day food binge in Kuala Lumpur.  You can read part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here. 

I've now entered day five of my stuff my face party food fling here in KL.  I've settled into a nice routine, ordering the same breakfast each day (I like it and I don't feel I should fix it if isn't broken).  If you're not familiar, the hotel breakfast that I'm taking consists of a chicken patty served on an English muffin with a side of scrambled eggs, hash browns, baked beans and a salad.  There is also a small buffet of vegetables, fruits, pastries and beverages.   

Normally, I'm eating  three square meals a day, with coffee/tea/fruit juice thrown into the mix for good measure.  However, after spending most of my time in the Philippines only eating two meals a day (big breakfast and big dinner), my body is having to adjust to eating an extra meal each day.  Yesterday, I got the message that I needed to slowdown on the food intake and decided to skip lunch and go straight for dinner.  

Having been inspired by our Lebanese lunch from day four, we chose to stay in the middle east and went to an Iranian/Persian restaurant for dinner.  Back in Brussels I had the pleasure to go to a couple of different Iranian restaurants with a group of friends and both times I dined on the cuisine, I was pleasantly surprised at how appetizing it was.  If you've never eaten Persian food before, you owe it to yourself to give it go.

Iranian food, at least the dishes I've had the pleasure of eating, focused on grilled cuts of meats and vegetables, tabbouleh, hummus and saffron-perfumed mixed rice.  Throw in a helping of pickles on the side, and you have one complete meal. 

If there's possibly one activity so equally partaken in by all of humanity that doesn't involve killing or reproducing, it's grilling food.  Everywhere I've been so far, there's always been at least one 'famous' local dish that has been grilled.  Humans on all corners of the globe love a good BBQ, and maybe because eating is so essential to performing the above-mentioned acts of killing and reproducing,  that it's all somehow interconnected.  

We went to Naab Persian Fine Cuisine located on the renowned Jalan Bukit Bintang street.  We started off with our appetizer of tabbouleh and hummus.   We were served within a few minutes of ordering and immediately got to work on the two plates.   

The tabbouleh was pretty much what you would come to expect from this middle eastern take on the side salad: lots of lettuce, parsley, semoule, red onions, and tomato.  There was only a touch of coriander, which worked out well because Nathalie isn't a big fan of this herb.  The hummus had a distinct smoky taste to it, suggesting that one ingredient was fired-roasted at one point.  It came with a loaf(?) of flat bread for dipping. 

The appetizers

Before we had time to finish the starter, our entree arrived on the table.  Nathalie and I both took a plate off the grill.  She got the small chicken skewer and I ordered the mixed chicken and lamb skewer plate.  It came with grilled vegetables and mixed rice. 

I started with the chicken and one bite in, a smile again shot across my face.  The skewer appeared to have been marinated throughout the day (I'm not quite sure in what though) and had been grilled at the perfect temperature; the meat was cooked, but was still tender and succulent.   Moving over to the lamb, I experienced the same, mouthwatering tastes.  I realized I don't eat enough lamb.  I rarely cooked it when I was living back in Brussels as it's a tricky meat to work with (from my experience, there's a very short window between 'just cooked enough to be edible' and 'dried out to the point the dog won't even eat it').    After getting reacquainted with this old flavor-chum, I promised myself that I will learn how to work with this wonderful type of meat.  

The main course

As we sat there in silence, enjoying this delectable, if largely overlooked cuisine (at least in the west), my mind drifted to one of my favorite stores in the world.  FreshMed, an independent grocery store down the street from our apartment in Brussels.  

Run by Syrian immigrants, this supermarket focuses on not only quotidianly buying quality meats and fresh produce from the city's main farmers market, but also selling foods from around the world.  The cornerstone to this endeavor is their middle-eastern deli.  Every week, at least one of our meals would come from there and we were exposed to a delicious world of foods we had yet to experience.  

Full of flavor and fully wholesome, the meal we ate at Naab brought my mind back home and for me, great cooking is about not only serving excellent food, but also about transporting the diner to a zenful state of  enjoyment, be it through a delightful stimulation of the palate or through invoking a sense of nostalgia through each bite.  Yesterday's dinner did just that.