Favourite Eats

By Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy

Instead of the usual post per restaurant, I thought something different...

So here's my experiment; one post about my favourite eats through the last couple of weeks. Including the ones that I cooked myself. This is most definitely NOT a halal post.

Hatyai Street

Honest to goodness trotters. Braised or deep fried. Sweet, succulent, juicy and decently priced. Won't break the bank. You can get away with around RM35 per person for dinner. And look at that rich braising liquid. It's like a mahogany nectar raining down on the braised trotters.


We happened to bump into the owner Vivian and she whisked out a whole passel of dishes for us to stuff down our already overstuffed gullets that night. The highlight of which were these deep fried prawn heads. Omigod. These crunchy, savoury, rich, little morsels were like peanuts. You could just keep on eating them. And on. And on. And on.


A Devil's food cake we taught in our class. Moist, chocolatey, and above all EASY!

Hatyai Street
No. 63E, Jalan Ara One Bangsar, Bangsar, 55900 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 03-2283 3116

El Cerdo Redux


Spring lamb. Little Kafka couldn't bring himself to eat it because he had visions of bouncing, cute little fluffy lambs in his head. I, on the other hand, believe there's a certain order to things. I believe that we should be respectful and not waste what we buy. AND we should know the provenance of our food. Also ask to ensure that all livestock is killed humanely, I also believe that this lamb did not give up its life for naught. It was tender, juicy, beautifully spiced, delicate, and all around just meltingly flavourful. I know the rest of us that night went almost reverentially silent when this little morsel passed our lips. Surprisingly, it was SO delicate it didn't even taste like lamb.

El Cerdo 43 & 45, Changkat Bukit Bintang 50200 Kuala Lumpur.

Mum's Pork Chops

AND, my fave thing...Mum's pork chops.

Mum used to make these pork chops quite often. It's SOOOOO EASY!

A few sprigs of english parsley. The cheap English bushy one. Not the flat leaf. One small onion. One egg. 2 decent sized pork chops bone in (about 2.5 to 3cm). Nice and thick.

Sprinkle salt (about a teaspoon each) on both sides of chops and leave for an hour.

Blend parsley, onion, and egg and add a pinch of salt. Pour on top of the marinated chops and leave for another 30 minutes.

Blend stale white bread in the blender and spread it on a large plate. Take the marinated pork chops and and make sure some of the parsley/onion/egg mix on the chop and put it on the bread crumbs.

Press in firmly so the crumbs sticks thickly to the chop with the parsley onion mix.

Heat a non stick pan over high heat till hot. Take the pan off for about 15 secs and allow it to cool a bit. Turn fire down to medium low. Chuck in a glug of oil and put back on the fire. Use a large enough pan so it doesn't crowd. Leave it on medium low for 8 mins per side. Check the chop at 4 mins to make sure that it isn't burning. If it it is nicely caramelised before the time, flip it and allow the 8 mins on the other side before flipping it back to cook for the requisite time again.


Allow to rest for 10 mins then eat with baked beans and your yummiest salad. That Golden Brown crust is what you're going for. A small, slice of juicy, tender chop, slathered with an oozing spoonful of a potato-ey tomato-ey beans. That's my perfect bite.

This recipe came out of Mum's 45 year old Kenwood Stand Mixer recipe cum instruction book. It's something she used to make for us ever since I was a little boy. And it brings back all sorts of memories of her.

Mum, I miss you but you're always with us. In our hearts and lives. Allan's keeping me in check and he misses you too. So does Dad. But we're all doing good and we live exactly as you taught us. You'll be pleased to know nothing much has changed. The fruit drawers are still full although really only 3 of us eat. The freezer is still full. And the veg drawer is still full. And we still have 3 fridges and 1 freezer for a household (including helpers) of 5. Except Dad now does the shopping and picks up RM15 organic sesame oil for our stir fries. I don't think we'll ever learn how to shop for just what we need. :-)

But he's learning as are we all. :-)

And we're all happy.

Food judgement

By Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy

Food is central to our lives.

But everyday we make choices to eat certain foods. We're fortunate to be in that position really.

Questions fill our day; "where shall we go tonight to eat?" "what shall we eat?" "ooo lets be healthy tonight and eat a salad?" "No lah, can't eat that tonight lah, trying to lose weight." "Aiyo, my cholesterol too high I'm eating soup/salad for the next 3 months." "Tonight is my cheat night so I can eat anything. Let's pig out."

Sound familiar?

We make judgements about our food based on our own experiences. And food means so many things to us. It's nourishment. It's comfort. It's community. It's love. It's enjoyment. It's soothing. It's guilt. It's upliftment. And the list goes on.

We celebrate with food. We commiserate with food. We sooth with food. We commune over food. And we fill unhappiness with food. We also punctuate happiness with food.

Is it surprising that food occupies such a ginormous portion of our psyche? And is it surprising that it's also one of the sensual pleasures that perhaps gives us the most joy or the most grief? We deny ourselves then binge. We feel bad for denying ourselves and reward USING food.



We look in trepidation at our expanding waistlines or lack of 6 packs (ya KL, you know who you are) and then foresee a period of desolation. Oh NO, we have to SACRIFICE food. Pull back on all that we hold dear and Good (as in yummy) and eat all that is GOOD (as in good for you). And never the twain between Good and GOOD shall meet.

For one thing, when we go down that path, we make judgements about "Good" and "Bad" food. "Good" food is usually associated with tasteless, sawdust-y, dry, and did I mention tasteless?

"Bad" food - 3 words; "deep," "fried," and "butter." Eat and be guilty.

In actual fact, it's the judgement that we put into the food that make it that way.

Can you imagine if you took that judgement and threw it away?

All food is actually possible for nourishment. It's just that on a daily basis, you wouldn't eat Foie Gras all the time. Or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Or Mcdonalds. Or keropok.

Mostly, we'd eat our 3 meals a day of vegetables, meat, and rice.

Instead of then looking at food as "evil" or "bad" what if we switched our perception to make food "EVERYDAY" food and "SOMETIMES" food? And we ask ourselves daily, "ooo, today is a day for "everyday" food. So you eat your everyday food without the side dish of judgement and your emotions stay out of it. And periodically during the week, you have your "sometimes" food. Perhaps 3 or 4 meals per week? Out of a total of 21 (7 days a week x 3 - assuming you eat 3 times a day - healthy eating should really be 5 to 6 small meals per day but that's the topic for another post)? Can you imagine?

Just that switch of perception might be sufficient to prevent the tiring emotions of guilt and everything else that accompanies emotional eating.

It's working for me.