Staten Island is known for its excellent take out restaurants. Specifically Italian food and Chinese food restaurants are a level of tasty one or two notches higher than the same take out in Manhattan. I'm sure the other boroughs do justice to these ethnic foods. My personal experience is with the Staten Island version and the Manhattan version. Luckily, after five weeks in Malaysia, I can officially say I'm intimately familiar with the Malaysian version! What shocked me during my first few days in Kuala Lumpur was how remarkably similar the Malaysian Chinese food was to the Staten Island flavors... more so than the Manhattan style! Let's explore!
The secret seems to lie in the darkness of the noodles. They are dark brown. They have a soy sauce flavor. They taste like home.
The roast pork is another category on its own. I've had roast pork in Manhattan Chinatown restaurants and it is usually blander and less sweet than the crispy barbecued roast pork of Staten Island Chinese takeout joints. In Kuala Lumpur, the pork is all of that and more. It's more oily and more sweet. In some places, the char siew pork belly (served with rice or noodles) is infused with garlic. Imagine garlic, barbecue Chinese pork.
The drinks you see in the background of the photos are: fresh lime juice (green) or fresh starfruit juice (yellow).
I'd also like to make it clear to my readers: all of these photos were taken by me. I also put all of the food in these photographs into my stomach and ate it.
Malaysia also knows how to do seafood:
There were also some Chinese soups, Italian, Indian, Arab and Afghani dishes that I ate:
Then there is the kapi ais takeaway (ice coffee to go, in Manhattan-ese). Yes, that's a ziploc bag:
My friend Jared, a former coworker at one of the startups I worked for, wrote a little Facebook rant about people who call themselves "foodies". I absolutely loved it. I had posted, "In Malayasia, they don't call it being a "foodie". They just call it 'Malaysian'." He wrote:
Thank god (I mean science). I can't think of a more pretentious word than "foodie" (like "oh really? you love *food*? well aren't you so effin special omg, wow, I am so jealous of you / I wish I had your gift / You must live such an amazing life!" #KillMe)
Yes, Jared... keep writing. You give me strength!