Us Malaysians are proud of our food culture, and rightly so. Where else can you find such an amazing variety of good eats, often under the same roof? Western or Asian, Halal or non, Fine dining or hawker, we’ve pretty much got it all.
And the concept of hybridizing food is nothing new to us. We’ve been doing it like, forever. The best example is Nonya cooking, which is an effortless blend of Malay and Chinese cuisine. Aiyo, I’m already drooling just writing this blog entry.
Since we’re so accustomed to hybrid cooking here, I wanted to see if our neighbours down south have got anything to match our culinary creativity. So one fine weekend, I jumped into the car with a couple of hungry brudders and we sped off to Singapore…
Tee-Jay, who’s from JB, is quite familiar with the foodie haunts there, so we headed straight for this joint that locals refer to as “The Prata Shop” (on Casuarina Road). They’re famous for coming up with all kinds of funny prata combos. We decided to try the Pizza Prata. As the name promises, it’s a prata with pizza toppings, including mushrooms, sausages and lots of cheese. Basically, after the first bite or so, you forget you’re eating a prata, cos it’s much more like a pizza but with a slightly different crust. Good stuff tho.
That was just a warm-up. Heh heh. Tee-Jay suggested we try something a bit more canggih. So we went to a café called “Tea Cosy” at Plaza Singapura to sample some Laksa Pasta. Apparently there are a few places in town that offer this dish, but the one here is closer to a real hybrid. Although you can’t tell from the picture, the laksa “gravy” is quite thick and creamy. Instead of your normal mee or meehoon, you get fusili pasta. An interesting mix, but not pedas enough for me.
The next few stops were kinda disappointing. We didn’t manage to find any food that qualified as “real” hybrids, or at least any new or interesting hybrid food ideas. So the next day, we decided to return to good ol’ Bolehland. Nik said he knew a mapley (makan place) in Shah Alam that offered the hard-to-find but ever-sought-after Roti Maggi. For me, that’s like the tai-kor of local hybrid food!
After a long day in the car, we were so hungry we could’ve wolfed down 2 lembus and a kambing, with enuf space for dessert. We settled down at “Rafi’s” to order our Roti Maggi and asked the waiter if it’s a popular item. He just shrugged and said they only make it occasionally cos most people don’t even know it’s on their menu. How could that be, I wondered. But I was too starved to care. Luckily, the roti was good. It’s basically a murtabak with Maggi goreng inside instead of the usual meat filling. The mee wasn’t too soggy (which I hate), and the roti was crispy enough. We asked the mamak dude to show us how he made it and he was happy to oblige.
When we got home, Nik observed that we’d gone thru an awful lot of effort to hunt for hybrid foodstuff. “Why can’t we just make it ourselves, then open our our mapley and get rich?” he asked. “Cos we’re lousy cooks and people would never pay to eat our cooking lah,” said Tee-Jay. “Whaddya mean WE?” came the annoyed reply.
And thus began THE CHALLENGE. The boys are gonna try making one of the hybrid food items themselves… and then sample their own cooking. Will they survive? Dum-dah-dum dum-dummmm!
Which hybrid food do you wanna see my buddies and me cook? Vote for it!
