I still remember my first encounter with a bowl of laksa. I had a nice deep bowl in my hand – and in front of me was a table full of all the goodies that could go into it. There was everything in front of me — from meats and vegetables to seafood and chillies. I took a good helping of a coconut-milk based soup and filled the bowl with all that pleased my eye and palate. And so I began my love affair with Malaysian food.
And that is why, when I was invited to a Malaysian food fest at Le Meridien, New Delhi, some days ago, I didn’t demur. I tied the metaphorical bib around my neck and landed up at Le Belvedere, the pan-Asian restaurant in the hotel that straddles Raisina Road and Janpath. I was keen to meet the Malaysian chefs who had come to Delhi for the festival too. At the end of the evening I realised that the chief chef — whose ample girth gave me a fair idea of how good the food was going to be even before I had tasted it — and his assistant (sadly rather lean) had indeed done a great job.
I began with some excellent starters – a raw mango and squid salad and a raw papaya and shrimp salad. The salads were very, very good — the green fruits cut into thin slices were sweet and tart, and the shrimps and squid light and crunchy. Then I ate some grilled meats — tenderloin (ah — that was good!), lamb (rather nice) and chicken (so so). From the main entrees I opted for some lamb, tuna and tenderloin. The lamb, cooked in coconut milk, was delicious, as was the tuna which was in a spicy curry. The tenderloin — which had been simmered in dark soy sauce and flavoured with spices — was excellent, and went rather well with steamed rice. I also tried out the sayur petola masak bening — a vegetable not very different from tori which had been very lightly cooked with chillies and glass noodles. I had eaten too much by then — so didn’t go near the chicken cooked with tomatoes and chillies and the other vegetarian dishes.
When it comes to desserts, I fear our Southeast Asian cuisine is a bit limited. Sago occupies the high table in desserts and came in many forms — coated around star fruit or served as a jelly served with baby coconut (the pale green jelly with the little white blob looked rather nice, I must admit, and tasted good too). Then, of course, there is fruit — of which Malaysia has plenty. The guavas —huge, but light and crunchy — are of the kind that would give our relatively emaciated fruit a real complex.
The festival, which opened with much singing and festivity this past Thursday night, is on till October 14. The lunch is a la carte, and the dinner buffet is for Rs 2500 plus taxes. If you can, I would suggest that you try out the food at the festival. Malaysian food is a wonderful cuisine influenced by disparate streams. The food is a mix of Malaya, Chinese and Indian cultures — and ends up as an exciting confluence of old and new strains. And that is what good food is all about.
