An Amazing Philippine Seafood Experience

 Conference in Iloilo City, the Philippines

As you know, Pat and I were in Iloilo City, Panay Island, the Philippines, at a conference where over 80 scholars, including Pat, gave talks and slide presentations.  The map below (click to enlarge), shamelessly lifted from Google Maps, locates the beautiful city on the northern end of the Sulu Sea:

The conference venue was the old but well-equipped Grand Xing Imperial Hotel. Weddings, training seminars, and other unrelated events also took place at the numerous event rooms at the hotel during our conference.  Many conference participants (like Pat and me) stayed at the hotel, taking advantage of special rates for conference attendees.  The hotel provided lodgers with breakfast as part of the room rate while it fed a buffet lunch to all conference attendees.  Truthfully, the institutional food could have been better, but it made life easier.

We spent most of a week listening to presentations by 80+ scholars, both grad students and professors, about their current research into various aspects of performing arts in Southeast Asia.  Pat's presentation featured Fusion Wayang Kulit, a group that incorporates Star Wars, Japanese anime, and DC and Marvel Comics heroes in traditional Malaysian shadow play puppets to tell new stories:

 Onward to the Fish Port!

Beset with exhaustive talks and mediocre institutional food,  Prof. Matthew Santamaria, also an attendee of the conference, came to our rescue one evening!  Matthew is a professor at the main campus of the University of the Philippines near Manila and holds a doctorate in law from Kyoto University in Japan.  He's also a dance ethnologist and an expert on the ethnic dances of the various peoples around the Sulu Sea between the Philippines and East Malaysia.  We've known Matthew for many years.  He suggested dinner at the Fish Port in Iloilo!  That's Matthew sitting next to Pat at the Fish Port below.

Five of us hopped onto a Grab car (the SE Asian version of Uber) that took us from the conference venue to the Fish Port. For outdoor seafood dining at the port, we first went through a big fish market, where we bought fish, shellfish, and veggies from vendors.  Feast your eyes on the amazing fish booths (again, click to enlarge):

At their booths, vendors displayed a stupendous variety of fish, crustaceans, shellfish, squid, cuttlefish, and many unidentifiable creatures.  There was also the occasional veggie stall to supply greens for seafood dishes.  Matthew and two scholars from the extreme southern Philippine island of Tawi-Tawi ordered the seafood and veggies from the stalls for all of us.

Then, carrying our "catch" of raw seafood and veggies, we walked over to the cooking and dining area, where numerous restaurants would cook our catch to our specifications (for a price, of course).   The fish market emptied into the dining area, already filling up with seafood enthusiasts for the evening.  The tents to the left are the covered portion of each restaurant stall, useful in times of rain.  From the clouds above, it could very well have rained!  (Luckily, it didn't!)

Matthew led us to Stall No. 14, "Princess and Raver," where he'd already eaten earlier in the conference. (Pat, myself, and the two scholars from Tawi-Tawi were the excuses he needed to come here again!)  We entrusted our "catch" to the proprietress of the stall and waited for the goodies to arrive:

Oh boy, did the food arrive!  Local dishes of ceviche, tiger prawns, seafood stew, mussels, scallops, roasted red snappers, and mounds of rice comprised the extensive menu for the evening.  (Click to enlarge.)

There was way too much food for the five of us! Luckily, as we were wondering what to do with all the uneaten food, a large group of ravenous University of the Philippines scholars from the conference showed up to eat at our booth. We just donated all the leftover goodies to that batch to whet their appetites while their food was being prepared!

With our bellies full, we called another Grab cab and returned to our lodgings.  On the way out of the fish port, I took another look at the fish vendor stalls.  At 9 pm, the stalls were still going strong, and more hungry seafood fans were pouring in:

And so concluded a most memorable Iloilo dining experience!  Thanks, Matthew!  Thanks, Iloilo!

US Cuisine in Our Neighborhood

Matt's Question

After seeing the Port Klang seafood dishes, Matt wondered if our Malaysian neighbors ever asked about American food like BBQ wings and specialty pizzas.

Well, yes and no.  US fast food chains started penetrating Asian countries in the 1970s.  For good or bad, fast food burgers from Mac and fried chicken from KFC have defined "US food" to the masses.  An online article (link below) states that A&W was the first US chain to land in Malaysia in the early 1970s, followed by KFC.  Many more have since arrived, and many have thrived.  (1971 was when McDonald's landed in Japan, FYI.)

So no, the locals don't wonder about pizzas, burgers, and chicken wings;  they know all about whatever the fast food chains choose to sell them.  Occasionally a local entrepreneur will start a "real" pizza restaurant featuring wood-fired ovens or a grilled hamburger restaurant featuring hand-shaped patties that are more than a tiny fraction of an inch thick.  But they tend to be relatively expensive and clustered in the more expensive neighborhoods.

US Food in Our Neighborhood

I thought I'd show you how extensively US chains have penetrated our neighborhood of Taman Tun Dr. Ismail (TTDI).  Take a look (click on the image to enlarge):

There are at least 10 US chains near our building!

Our 28-story condo building (Sinaran TTDI Condo) sits smack dab in the middle of a commercial area surrounded by single-unit residences and terraced houses.  (Pat and I are on the 10th Floor.)  About 300 meters away, there's a KFC and a Subway in the same building (I think the same company operates the two franchises).  Attached to our facility, more or less, is a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  Elsewhere (clockwise) are an A&W and a Burger King.  There's a Startbucks and a McDonald's, the 800-pound gorillas of the US chain eateries.  When Pat and I returned in December, we found a brand-new Taco Bell!  Rounding out the menagerie are two pizza chains, Donino's and Pizza Hut.

These US fast food stores all fit into pre-existing "shop lots," so they might look different from what you're used to seeing in the US.  Scroll down and take a quick tour of the fast-food storefronts in TTDI!  (Again, click on each image to enlarge it on your screen.)

KFC and Subway

There's an interesting building about 1,000 feet away from our condo.  The ground floor contains our local post office.  The first floor has a KFC and a convenience store attached to a gas station, and the second floor is a Subway.  (I'm counting the floors the British way.)

The Colonel says his store's open 24 hours!

The Subway is behind KFC and above the convenience store deli.

Burger King

Burger King landed in Malaysia in the mid to late 1990s.  This one showed up in our TTDI neighborhood a year or two before the Pandemic, and it managed to snag a premium corner lot.  Pat and I enjoy eating whoppers there once in a while!

Burger King, the home of flame-broiled goodness!

Starbucks

This Starbucks was already here when Pat and I moved to TTDI in 2012.  Starbucks' being in Malaysia forced traditional local coffee shops to adapt and fight back with interesting improvements and presentations.  This is SE Asian coffee culture at its best!  (Note the 7-Eleven across the alley from the Starbucks!)

The sticker shock at a Malaysian Starbucks is as nasty as in the US!

McDonald's

In our part of the TTDI neighborhood, each shop lot is a three-story building, and each story typically contains a different tenant.  Burger King, for example, occupies only the ground floor, and the Starbucks above uses two floors for customer seating.  However, our 800-pound gorilla, McDonald's, uses all three floors of a corner shop lot for seating.  The menu is the familiar McD menu, but some seasonal, local items like the "Prosperity Burger"  are offered during the Chinese New Year season.

McDonald's wants you to use their phone app or in-store electronic ordering system.

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Taco Bell

This is the new kid on the block.  This opened sometime between May and November last year while Pat and I were back in Michigan.  We have yet to try it!

There isn't much seating available on the ground floor.

A & W

The A&W was already here in our neighborhood when we arrived in 2012.  Since there are so few A&W's in the US, it may be easier in SE Asia to get your root beer float fix!  Singapore and Indonesia have many A&W outlets as well.  Root beer, fried chicken, waffles, and sandwiches dominate their menu, along with a local menu item or two.  When I first arrived in Malaysia as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1975, there were already KFCs and A&Ws in the country!

A&W's presence in Malaysia is modest but is half a century old!

Coffee Bean

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL) is a Southern California-based coffee shop franchise relatively unknown in the US Midwest.  There are a couple of outlets at Detroit Metro airport and nowhere else in Michigan (for now).  Pat and I prefer this chain over Starbucks; the stores are cleaner and quieter, and the staff is usually less harried and more mellow!  They have an interesting Asian expansion strategy:  they're in cahoots with Aeon Mall Co., a Japanese suburban supermarket-cum-department store chain expanding aggressively in East and SE Asia.  New Aeon malls in Malaysia have CBTLs, and I assume that's how CBTL will expand in Japanese suburbs.  (There are over 1,600 Starbucks outlets in Japan.)

This outlet is part of a commercial building in our condo complex.

Domino's and Pizza Hut

Yes, Matt, Malaysians love pizza!  In the TTDI neighborhood, we have two representatives of US pizza chains:  Domino's and Pizza Hut.  They are so confident of their popularity and survivability that they're located right across the street from each other!  Their menu is similar to the US menus, but they also have Asian items like mochi and squid as toppings.  

Domino's occupies only one shop lot in our neighborhood ...

..

... but Pizza Hut occupies a corner of a large commercial building.

Others 

There are many other US fast food and dining chains that you can see in shopping malls but not in TTDI.  These include the Malaysian franchises of Carl's Jr., Chili's, Tony Roma's, Dunkin' Donuts, and Krispy Kreme.  Baskin-Robbins of 31 Flavors fame has stores in shopping malls all over the country.  Another fried chicken franchise is Texas Chicken, the international name of Church's Fried Chicken.  The name "Church's" doesn't quite make it in Muslim communities, so "Texas Chicken" it is!  There are probably many others I don't know!

Those That Didn't Make It

Finally, here's an interesting article on the US fast food franchises that came and went in Malaysia.  Wendy's was one of the failures, unfortunately.

Matt, if you want to cash in on the fast food market here and spend even more of your life on your feet, then by all means, check out this article <grin>.  (April, please restrain him.)

Local Innovations

On the other hand, Matt, you have a wealth of innovative food ideas, such as the many, many burger ideas you showed me once.  (I still have the list somewhere.)  If you'd like to try your luck, there's always the food truck route.  They're everywhere now, and here's an example just outside our condo building:

Start your own franchise and bring the kitchen to the people!

OK, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed creating it!  Ciao!

Ayesyah's Birthday Dinner

Hey, Matt and April!  Hello, fellow food fans!

Two days before Chinese New Year, our friends Anis and Ana invited Pat and me to accompany their family and some friends to the Port Village Seafood Restaurant in Port Klang, Malaysia.  Klang is the seaport for Kuala Lumpur, where we live.  The occasion was the 28th birthday of their daughter Ayesyah, and she asked for the restaurant in Klang.  Pat and I were delighted!  We hadn't been there in years (thanks, Covid!), and the food is always excellent!  Ayesyah is in the center of the photo below.  Ayenaa (left) is her younger sister and a newly minted lawyer, and Farah (right) is their younger brother's girlfriend.

L-R: Ayenaa, Ayesyah, and Farah

But this blog is about food, not pretty girls.  On to the dishes we ate!  (You should be able to click on the photos to view an enlargement, especially if you're using a PC to read this blog.)

Butter Prawns

Butter prawns remaining after the initial onslaught

These are deep-fried prawns (so crunchy you can eat most of their shells and legs).  This dish is a Malaysian favorite and is available at most seafood restaurants locally.  Here's a blogger's take on a recipe for the concoction.

Marmite Crab

Malaysian ingenuity has rendered marmite edible and actually delectable in this dish!

I don't care for the British Commonwealth dietary peculiarities like Marmite, Vegemite, and Bovril.  However, Malaysian seafood chefs have neutralized marmite's original taste (thank God) and have concocted a delicious, sweet sauce to cook soft-shelled crabs.  This dish is a little messy to eat (you use your fingers), but it's well worth the effort.  The restaurant provided several small hammers to help crack open the shells.  Care to cook your own?  Here's a recipe.

Fried Calamari

A familiar dish everywhere!

This dish is a global favorite.  We don't have to elaborate on this dish, so I'll just include a photo to show you they all look the same everywhere!

Fried Gailan

Fried Gailan (Chinese broccoli, Chinese kale)

Gailan is one of the family-style dinner favorites in any Malaysian gathering.  The vegetable is commonly translated as "Chinese broccoli" or "Chinese kale," but I believe it's neither broccoli nor kale!  The fried dish usually contains lots of garlic and often uses oyster sauce.  See one of many possible recipes here.

Kangkong Belacan

Kangkong belacan:  you'll have to get used to the belacan flavor first!

Another favorite dish in insular SE Asia, from the Philippines to Indonesia and everywhere in between, is Kangkong Belacan.  (In Malay, you pronounce Belacan as "b'-la-chan.")  Feel free read an overly technical description of kangkong from its entry in Wikipedia.  It's a hollow-stemmed water reed ("water spinach") that can grow in ponds, drains, and other waterways and is a match made in heaven when paired with a wok and belacan!  Belacan is an aromatic (heh, heh) shrimp paste.  Read about the horrified reactions of early European colonialists encountering belacan for the first time (Wikipedia entry).  It's delicious once you get used to the idea and aroma!  You can order it from Amazon.  Matt, give it a try following this recipe and stink up your house (but it's worth it)!

Sambal Razor Clams

Sambal Razor Clams: the razor clams here are the long, tubular type

These tubular clams are sometimes called "bamboo clams," better describing their shape.  In many parts of the world, "razor clam" shells are more oval.  They're clams fried with sambal or Malaysian-Singaporean chili paste (recipe).  You slide the clams out of the shell and eat them with rice.  I looked for a recipe featuring razor clams but couldn't find a good one.  I give you instead a recipe for fried sambal clams.  You can substitute your favorite shellfish or prawns instead.

Sizzling Fried Egg Tofu

The tenderness of tofu provides a nice contrast to the texture of the other items.

This dish uses the soft Japanese "silken" tofu cooked with minced meat of some kind, served over a layer of beaten eggs on a sizzling hot plate.  It's a great veggie dish accompaniment to meat and fish dishes!  I know you're dying to try this, so here's the YouTube video!

Nonya Steamed Fish

There is a splayed and flattened fish underneath all the curry and garnishes!

An eagerly anticipated dish in any Malaysian seafood banquet is steamed fish.  This evening Anis ordered the Nonya variety for us.  This version is spicier and has more uniquely SE Asian flavors built in than the purely Chinese recipes.  Americans may not care as much for steamed fish dishes as Asians because the fish flavor and taste are preserved much better than in typical US fish dishes.  Steamed fish is a spectacular way to share a big fish family-style around any table!  Here's a video on how to prepare Nonya steamed fish.

So that was the dinner at Port Village Seafood Restaurant!  As you may have noticed, I favor the YouTube Cooking Ah Pa channel for recipes and instructions on preparing typical Malaysian dishes.  Matt, you should check out Ah Pa's channel.  If you teach yourself to speak like Ah Pa, you'll have learned Malaysian English and have no trouble finding your way around Kuala Lumpur 😁!

At the Hadramawt Yemeni Restaurant

For the inaugural post of Eat Your Heart Out, let's look at the food some of us had at the Hadramawt Yemeni Restaurant located at The Curve mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Hadramawt is a successful chain of restaurants featuring the cuisine of Yemen.  According to its website, they operate two stores in Kuala Lumpur, one of which is fairly close to our place.

Source: Wikipedia Commons

If you're wondering where Yemen is, check out this Wikipedia article.

At first glance, the menu items are similar to what you might get at a typical Lebanese restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan.   But our friend Prof. Mohd Anis of the University of Malaya (a colleague of Pat for the last, oh, 35 or so years), tells us that's not so!

Yemen's position facing the maritime trade routes to India and the Spice Islands in SE Asia makes their cuisine a lot spicier (and tastier) than what you might get in the  Levant. Check out this installment on Yemen from a spice blog,

The occasion was the birthday of Ana, Anis' wife who's also our attorney here in Kuala Lumpur. Anis and Ana introduced us to Hadramawt recently, and Pat and I loved the food there, so we jumped at the chance to go there again!

We ordered some Arab mint tea for me, Arab coffee for Pat and Anis, and Turkish coffee for Ana.  I had to get up early the next morning, so no strong coffee for me!  And we ordered some Greek salad to share.

We're at a Middle Eastern restaurant, so naturally we ordered two hummus dishes (one spicy, one spiced) to start off the major part of the meal with a humongous, and tasty bread with which to swab the hummus!  The spicy (as in burning hot) hummus is the orange one on the left, and the one on the right is the spiced (as in lots of unusual spices) dish.








And THIS is the Moulawa bread, which we all shared.  It's a delicious baked bread, both like and unlike the various baked or fried versions we get at Indian restaurants in Malaysia.  It's certainly a lot bigger!  We break off pieces and dip them into the hummus dishes (and later with the meat dishes).

I ordered one of the lamb-and-rice dishes at which this restaurant excels.  The chefs cook the lamb chunks (big ones!) in this Lamb Madghout dish with the rice and spices.  I barely finished half (what with the bread and hummus and other goodies already in me), and took the rest home.  It was great!







Pat and Anis ordered the Halabi Kebab dish. The kebab chunks are pretty much what you'd expect from a Middle Eastern restaurant, albeit spiced subtly and well.  The red sauce in which the kebabs sat were particularly interesting.  The sauce is one of the spicier concoctions that the Yemenis seem to make.  Ana thought that the sauce was reminiscent of a Mexican salsa of the fresh Pico de Gallo variety.










Ana ordered the Lamb Mendy dish.  I've had this dish before.  The chefs bake the lamb, together with the rice, until it's incredibly tender.  It is another great concoction.  I was never a big mutton eater, but this restaurant may change me!






Anis and Ana's three kids (two teenagers and one 21 years old) were sitting with their grandmother, a boyfriend, and a maid at the other end of the table, munching away at similarly excellent dishes.  I was too far away to get any good photos.  But here the kids are posing as Ana cuts the birthday cake after the meal.  They are Ayenah and Ayezat, standing, and Ayesyah, seated, next to Ana, who's cutting the cake. We've known the kids since they were toddlers.




The food shots are less than stellar (hey, it's a phone camera, whaddya expect?), so check out the menu on their website.  Be sure to click the "full screen" button (the arrows pointing diagonally up and down):  click here for menu

So there you are, Matt!  Reading this in blog format is a lot better than just getting photos on the phone, no?  Stay tuned for the next instalment!