No trip home would be remotely complete without at least a plate of Maggi goreng. Curly wurly pre-boiled instant noodles fried with an assortment of shredded veg, tofu,egg and flavoured with that powdered magic that comes with the noodles in a little sachet - usually curry flavour. Drenched in limau kasturi. Just the way I love it.
To be honest, the brunch meeting with NH and WMF wasn't supposed to be about Maggi goreng. It was supposed to be about rotis from Nirwana but predictably tardy Justine was .. well, late. NH and WMF had already polished off their rotis by the time I arrived and Nirwana had switched over to their lunch menu - no rotis but everything else got la ... Hoping to track down a couple of rotis, we headed to Pelita up the road but no such luck. All the Mamak-isq places had stopped serving rotis for the daylight hours for that day. Not that I minded, I was quite happy with my noodles (they even topped it with shredded lettuce! :) Bangsar, eh?)
NH and WMF decided to share a cheese naan served with dhal, some sort of curry sauce and an ultra green mint sauce. I have no idea why naan is still served out of roti hours. Maybe because there's tandoori chicken on the menu? Naan and tandoori chicken seem to always go hand in hand. I wonder if this is always the case ... something to do with cooking naan bread in the tandoor, maybe?
A little poke around the cooked food counter and I returned armed with a deep fried chicken drumstick. I love the batter they use at these places - I think it's the fresh turmeric they add. The best deep fried chicken used to be from a run down stall by an outdoor parking lot on Jalan Perak in downtown KL. It's gone now - it made way for some building or other. I still miss that chicken. More often than not the pieces of chicken came fresh out of the hot oil. Crisp and juicy - utterly beautiful. My piece from Pelita was a little cold and the batter had gone a bit hard but will have to do for now.
I also chose a gigantic deep fried squid but unlike the chicken, the man didn't hand it to me straight away. He shoo-ed me away and told me he'll deliver it to my table. Ten minutes later and I was beginning t wonder where my squid had gone off to when it finally arrived - utterly transformed. It had obviously been sent back to the kitchen where it was re-battered and re-fried with curry leaves and shallots. Oh, it was so much better than I had dared hoped. Yes, the squid was slightly rubbery but the batter was so good that we promptly forgot about the rubbery-ness. It was hot,crunchy and fragrant - very nicely done.
A few days later and it was a breakfast date with VO and TL at Devi's Corner. I'm not quite sure I like this "new" location at the corner of Jalan Telawi 2 and Jalan Telawi 4. It's a little claustrophobic and I'm never quite comfortable when I'm there. VO ordered a roti pisang - normal roti stuffed with sliced/mashed (?) banana and served as usual with dhal and some sort of curry.
I had a hankering for roti stuffed with aloo marsala but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called so I ended with with rawa thosai. This was definitely not what I wanted but it was good and I love coconut chutney but I was still wanted my roti stuffed with potatoes!
By a simple process of elimination, we finally worked out what I was looking for - marsala thosai! I got more of my favourite coconut chutney, a spiced version, dhal and a curry of sorts. Happiness!
Nasi Kandar Pelita
2 Jalan Telawi 5, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur
Devi's Corner
14 Jalan Telawi 4, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur
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