Raving about food

It's always difficult to pin point when my fascination with the various races and cultures of our world began. While I am interested to know more about every single race/culture, I am particularly interested in only few, particularly those of Asia and South East Asia.

As always, food is always a good introduction. It reveals a lot about the history and climate of the country because the people had to think of ways to produce dishes with whatever mother earth provided them with at that part of the globe where they reside.

Interestingly, I've never been able to shake off my seeming affinity with food, even though this January, I left the food magazine I was writing for.

This morning, my photographer and I found ourselves at the Indian eating-house at 221 Selegie Road, to do a food review for the newsletter that my company publishes. Many of you may have been to the other air-conditioned branches of Ananda Bhavan (in fact, a new branch opened yesterday at Syed Alwi Road) but the Selegie Road branch is the real deal!

It's walls are lined with really retro-looking tiles, ceiling fans provide slight respite from the heat emitted by the numerous fluorescent ceiling lamps and some of the staff there have been with the restaurant since day one.

What made the trip memorable was the fantastic meal we had. Whether it was the vegetarian murtabak, masla thosai or various chutneys that accompanied the dishes, everything was delicious! I could taste different layers of flavours and spices. Totally no MSG, no oyster or soy sauce, no artificial flavourings.

As this was for an article, the staff was naturally more helpful and totally curious about what we thought of the food. We took the opportunity to ask them about the different accompaniments and some other Indian dishes that the photographer had tasted in other countries.

I was jumping with joy when I discovered that they had idiyappam (puttu mayam in Malay). It was one of my favourite Indian foods when I was a little girl of five and in the past 10 years, it's become increasingly difficult to find idiyappam at hawker stalls. Even if you did find it at some obscure Malay stall, the result is often a tough, chewer and terribly disappointing rendering of the stringy rice flour treat.

In all, it was an enjoyable culinary and discovery journey. It isn't something that I'll engage in often on my own, which makes the entire experience memorable.