Cafe Ibrahim Bistro

Malaysia cuisine is a rich mixture of cooking traditions of the Malay, Indian and Chinese people who make up its population.

Malay food is a culmination of a rich ethnic ethnic heritage of the Malay people who are descendants of an ancient Malay people mixed with Indian, Thai, Arab and Chinese Ancestry. Rice is a staple and it can be taken for breakfast, lunch and supper cooked in a amazingly different number of ways (in Southern Africa we only know one way - to boil).

One type of rice on the menu at Cafe Ibrahim Bistro (dont know if its China Fried Rice, Kampung Fried Rice, Kerabu Fried Rice, Thai Fried, Salted Fish Fried, Padrik Fried, or 10 other rices!!!)

Malay food uses a lot of fresh herbs in its various dishes such as garlic, ginger, lemon grass, shallots and fresh chillies which of course we are all familiar with, and a number of other local herbs and roots which are key components of Malaysian cuisine. These include daun kemangi (a basil), daun kesum (a leaf you've never heard of), bunga kantan (a wild ginger's flower), kunyit basah (tumeric root)...and many others only Jamie Oliver would be interested in knowing (I am interested in the tasting only)!

Two different types of chicken you can have at Cafe Ibrahim Bistro

The food is generally very hott... one day I had rice and chicken in deep red sauce thinking it was a sweet tomato soup that would go down well with the meal and aha...guess what.. if a tongue can turn red that day it did. I have never eaten something so hot in my life, I could not taste the chicken when chewing it honestly...it could have been edible rubber and I would not have noticed :) But for those who have a taste for hot food, having this would be a good challenge to your claim of loving hot food. I think this chicken is called CHICKEN RED (Ayam Masak Merah) on the menu of Cafe Ibrahim Bistro, a campus cafe that serves Malaysian and International dishes for a multinational campus...

Are you a fan of hot food? Are you sure?

Go have chicken in deep red sauce, you love it :D

But there is also food which is not hot. I had chicken (called Ayam in Bahasa Malaysia Language) which was sweet, like it was honied.. It was ok. Look out for it, it will be in a chocolate brown sauce which has chunks of herbs in it... You can also have deep fried chicken, which is 'Fried Chicken on the menu above'. Back home chicken is described either simply stewed or grilled (in the oven), here the identification is more of how it tastes, looks, or the ingredients used. There isn't much beef steak...its not as popular as it is back home though I had ox liver (I certainly thought it was ox liver chunks? Ahh...was it ox liver???). Like we have sadza (suggie) and beef almost everyday as the staple they have rice and chicken.

I think I have found a photo with CHICKEN RED, it must be the one to the left

the liver is on the right



The last note on Malay food is Lemak food. This is food which uses coconut milk as a key ingredient and it has a prime taste which is sour and an underlying note which is sweet like apricot, or dried prunes (as one competitor blog I will not cite describes!) One admin staff I met having breakfast this morning told me to try some time Nasi Lemak, a traditional breakfast of rice and coconut milk, which he was having. It looked good, though it appeared a bit too rich for my morning meal. Wouldn't hurt having it for lunch eh..

You can also have rape (or something similar) and green beans (called long beans here I think)

and cabbage to the far left...

Now whilst I was watching a English Premier League (of which I am not a fan!) game between Arsenal and Tottenham that started at 1 am (thats the time you get to watch live games here, you have to be a devoted supporter!) at the 'sports bar' somewhere else on campus I ordered an apple smoothie (called apple shake). It wasn't the sweet but slightly acid apple taste I expected, but rather a bland sugar taste with just a whiff of apple on smell on the nose. There seems to be a shortage of malic acid in the apples here uncle google (as one lecturer describes it) says... ;-/ But today had a banana smoothie, sweet, not as much banana taste as I would have expected but ok.. at least they are edible and ok! Someone in the Netherlands told me I would not be able to eat a banana there!

So will talk some other time about Malaysian Indian, and Chinese food which are also a significant part Malaysian cuisine....