The Food Site

Guten Morgan! (Good morning)

Although the Malaysian-German Society (MGS) here has been celebrating Octoberfest for years now, I had never actually made a point to go to it. Somehow I’d either miss it, forget about it or simply did not have the time to go for it.

So, this year, it is my first time I finally managed to go for the German celebration last night which is complete with loads of beer, naturally. Though I have really stopped drinking beer for years (and move on to wines occasionally), I remember loving the smoothness of German beer way back when I used to work at a German pub and restaurant. Coincidentally, the current MGS president is my former boss!

Anyway, here’s a look at the food and beer over at Octoberfest 2008 here:

The first to greet us after entering are of course these lovelies in bottles

These are the more common beer that we can have during normal days. In Octoberfest, we must of course, head for the GOOD stuff!

Now, this is what I call German beer!

As expected, food and drinks at the Octoberfest is hardly cheap eventhough we need to pay entrance fee (masked as donation) of RM25 per person (for non-members of MGS). But I think it is quite okay to pay more for German beer as it is not easy to find some of the brands available here in local pubs..

Someone getting a mug of German bitter from the giant beer can

This beer is particularly smooth, so much so that I almost drank more than I should…what with a toddler in tow, it is not advisable to imbibe in too much alcohol (and let’s not even talk about how my diet is shot with all these extra calories…heheheh).

Now on to the foods…

Gaily decorated gingerbread hearts

Gingerbread hearts is a very German thing, or so I heard and so they have two stalls selling these. I am not a gingerbread fan, as I just can’t stand the strong taste and smell of ginger in a bread, so I merely took pictures of these lovely looking pastry.

The prerequisite German sausage, meatloaf, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad

They have two main stalls selling the almost-compulsory German foot-long sausages, meatloaf, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad. No German event is complete without a meal of these food! We all know about the Germans, their beer and their meat! The set meal consisting of one meat of your choice, sauerkraut and potatoes costs RM15. An additional meat is RM8. So, the plate below costs RM23 which is pretty reasonable considering the huge portion.

German vienna sausage, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad

What can I say? Germans have a taste for the salty so the sausage and ham are quite salty. Not many people likes sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) due to its sourish flavour but I would have to say that combined with the sausage and ham and the potato salad, it makes a good side dish.

Here's a closer look...the portion is more than I could stomach, also due to the saltiness, so I shared this with my husband

Then I scout around and found two other stalls with non-German food…

Grilled Indian-style food - skewered chicken meat with onions

Braised lamb shank

I couldn’t resist the lamb shank so I bought one to-go…

Braised lamb shank with mashed potatoes

The juicy lamb shank served with mashed potatoes

The lamb shank is RM28 per set and I find that it is quite okay too considering it is cooked perfectly. It is tender, juicy and covered in a great brown sauce. Yummy! The mashed potatoes are a bit plain, though. It is merely mashed up boiled potatoes with no additional flavour. I think I could make better ones where I’d add cheese and milk to it to give it a richer taste.

So, that concludes my review of the foods and drinks in Octoberfest.

Auf Wiedersehen! (farewell in German)

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Being typical Penangites foodie, naturally we’d go looking for some good and interesting food when we went to Koh Samui, Thailand for a short trip. So, what did we eat?

First, we stop at the local market…

The local market near Chaweng

There they sell quite a variety of local Thai food, most of which are grilled or deep fried.

A stall selling grilled bananas on sticks

Grilled bananas on sticks

It may seem a bit weird but it actually tasted quite good. After grilling it till it turned brown, they squash it (but did not really flatten it) and then serve it with thick coconut milk. We bought a couple of sticks to try, the bananas were grilled to perfection. It has a crispy ’skin’ and sweet, soft, mushy fillings. I didn’t even try it with the coconut milk. It is good as it is! It’s only 10Baht per stick.

Then there is this stall…

Grilled chicken and catfish

I love catfish so naturally I could not resist this stall which sells grilled catfish at only 30Baht each. And yes, the catfish is grilled to perfection…nice crispy skin and soft, almost buttery flesh. Yummmm….Good thing that it was not over-seasoned with salt as we found that Thai food tend to be quite salty at certain places.

Ah…then we come to the Fear Factor type of fare:

Deepfried crickets and grasshoppers

Yep…these are real insects..err…real, dead, deepfried, crunchy insects. They also have:

Deepfried worms

I don’t know what type of worms these are but these are also deepfried to a crispiness. So, did I try some?

I simply can't pass up the opportunity to eat deepfried insects and worms!

Yep, I bought one scoop of crickets and one scoop each of two different types of worms. It’s only 10baht per scoop. And I polished everything. Save for my son, who’s game to try anything as long as his mummy is eating it, nobody else in our group dared try these unusual food. So, were these gross or nasty? Not at all! The crickets were merely crunchy, not much taste to it since it doesn’t have much flesh. As for the fat worms, it has a creamy, nutty flavour with a crunchy skin. Nope, it does not taste like chicken. I’d say it tastes much better. Heck, I would probably have bought more if it weren’t so salty! Yep, other than using basil leaves liberally in frying these critters, salt must have been damn cheap because it is literally covered in salt.

They have those large grasshoppers too but I don’t know why, it just looks a bit scary so I didn’t try those. Perhaps when we go to Bangkok (next year), I’d try it out. Maybe.  Now, on to other foods…

Ninja Crepes Restaurant along the Chaweng stretch

The funny thing is that this restaurant doesn’t really sell only crepes but all sorts of local and international food! So, don’t be deceived by its name. And no, they don’t serve dogmeat, that dog there is the resident professional floor cleaner and food begger. It goes around fixing its imploring, liquid brown eyes on unsuspecting patrons to get some scraps and anything that falls on the ground accidentally or intentionally, it promptly polishes off.

Okay, okay, on to the food here:

The kitchen where the 'chefs' whipped up wonders with the wok and pans

Crispy deepfried pork ribs

These are the best I’ve ever had before. The skin is so crispy and crunchy, you can even hear it crackling as you bite into it and amazingly, it is still moist inside and the flesh is still tender. A must-try! Of course, the dog enjoyed the bones from this dish so it can be said, we polished off everything on this plate with the help of the dog.

The rest of the dishes we ordered

We ordered tomyam soup, green curry and two types of stir-fried vegetables (asparagus and kailan). We also ordered the Thai dish, ‘paad thai’ (fried flat rice noodles). And the dishes are all eaten with fragrant steamed Thai white rice.

The green curry is exceedingly good too. It is creamy and with just the right amount of spices, tasted absolutely great. The reason it is green is because of the basil they put in it. As for the tomyam, order it only if you like it sour. Their tomyam is quite sour but it is also good.

Now for the paad thai, I wouldn’t say it is all that good but it is okay. Still edible and once mixed with the chili flakes, ahhh, heavenly. Spicy with the smooth, almost springy texture of the flat rice noodles.

Ninja Crepes is probably the cheapest restaurant along the whole Chaweng stretch where almost all of its restaurants charge sky-high for all types of food. Of course that is because Chaweng is the most lively, crowded and popular spot in whole of Koh Samui. Anyway, at Ninja Crepes, the dishes are priced at 50baht and above. Not bad for a restaurant along Chaweng. Other restaurants, prices start from 100baht per dish or more. Oh, by the way, it is located right opposite the Buri Rasa Resort.

We were not satisfied and wanted very local food, much like the ones in the local market we happened to stumble upon. So, we went to Lamai, the second popular stretch in Koh Samui and found this:

Roadside hawker stalls selling local Thai food

Now, this is what we are talking about! Who goes all the way to Koh Samui, Thailand and eat boring restaurant food when they have stalls like this offering infinitely more interesting, full-of-flavour food? And that’s not all, it is cheap too! Prices are 30Baht per plate onwards! It is located very near the Lamai Night market so it is pretty easy to find.

So, there. That concludes my food tour of Koh Samui. We only went for a very short trip so we did not really have an opportunity to try out more food in different places here.

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