Jambalaya is a cajun dish, a bit like paella, and usually consists of meat, vegetables, rice and stock.  Ruby’s jambalaya was a little light on the vegetables, but made up for it with phenomenal sausage.

Served with coleslaw, crackers and a pitcher of Lone Star, it was exactly what these travel-weary bones needed.

While visiting the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art last night, I was surprised and intrigued to find that in place of the pickle, the Museum’s café offer these giant chillies.

Operating under the conventional wisdom that the smaller the chilli, the hotter the hit, I assumed these big guys would be a nice, mild accompaniment to my weird corned-beef and slaw sandwiches.

I was wrong.

I went for a stroll around Kansas City this morning and happened upon the most wonderful supermarket I’ve ever seen, Cosentino’s Market, a third-generation family-run “fine foods” retailer.  As far as I’m concerned, the jewel in the Cosentino crown is the sandwich counter in the centre of the store.

There’s nothing flash about this sandwich, but it was just perfect.  Turkey, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion and cucumber, with just the right amount of honey-mustard served on freshly baked marble rye.

I wish there was more that I could say about this sandwich, because it really made my day.  In the end, however, it’s a sandwich, so I’ll just leave it there.

My colleague, Ros, and I arrived in Kansas City just in time for dinner last night and I managed to convince her to join me for dinner at Famous Dave’s, a chain-restaurant and bar in the Power and Light District.

Famous Dave’s is by no means the classiest establishment I’ve ever visited, but then I can’t imagine any pit BBQ restaurant offering silver-service (or even cloth serviettes!) and the sports-bar/ saloon ambience suited the food perfectly.

I had the Georgia Chopped Pork, served with a corncob, potato salad, corn muffin and “wilbur” beans.

The pork is apparently cooked for 8 hours, before being drowned in a delicious, rich BBQ sauce. The standout of this dish, however, was the wilbur beans – baked beans with smoked pork, brisket, hot link sausage and jalapeños.  As far as side-dishes go, the wilbur beans could easily be a meal unto itself and I’m sure that as part of a regular diet, they would guarantee anyone an early grave.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging solo as I ramble around North America for work.

I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport early this morning and after choking down two bites of the heinous Qantas bacon and eggs, I went on the hunt for a proper American breakfast.

As a big fan of shows like Happy Days, I was pretty excited to discover Ruby’s Diner

The red booths, undoubtedly humiliating waitress uniforms and jukebox all resonated with my love of all things absurdly nostalgic, but on to the food!

Ruby’s Breakfast Sandwich contains crispy bacon, an omelete and cheese and is quite possibly the best greasy airport breakfast that I’ve ever had.  I ordered it with a side of home-fried potatoes (delicious) and the worst cup of tar-like coffee I’ve ever ingested.

On balance, a pretty good meal.  Certainly better than I’d expected.

The awesome nasi lemak that Nat wrote about in the last post was our breakfast before this class.  So yeah lots of food.  To top that, Nat and I went to a seafood restaurant that Rohani recommended, which had the most spectacular crab.  I’m sure we’ll blog about it soon, but if not I’d be happy to rant about it when I see some of you (which will be pretty soon I guess).

But I digress… the cooking class.  Rohani asked us what kind of dishes we’d like to make when we made the booking for Bayan Indah.  I’m sure you’ve picked up by now that I have an interest in Peranakan/ Baba-Nyonya culture.  That made my choice pretty obvious.  What I didn’t know was that we would have the option of doing a Peranakan cooking class in Melaka; had I known, I might have made a different choice, but it certainly didn’t make Rohani’s class any less fun.

Ayam Pongteh

Nat and I had made this dish in Melaka with Chef Kenny, however, Rohani’s class was a little more hands on.  Additionally, the recipe was different, so it has been interesting to compare the two.  What I’m told about Peranakan cooking, is that each family had their own recipe – their own take on the well-known dishes.  Family recipes have been, and are still, jealously guarded to the point where many recipes have died with their authors.  The photo above shows Nat sealing the chicken which is about midway through the recipe.  The class agreed that Nat made the best pongteh.

stir fried four angle beans

gerang asam ikan – sour fish curry (this is the one I made – not bad hey?)

Rohani making the dough for the kuih ang koo (ang koo cakes)

I think these kuih were the most interesting dish made that day.  The red dough is made with glutinous rice flour (hence the shiny appearance once steamed).  A filling is made separately of green mungbeans – which actually turns out to be yellow in colour. Putting the dough and the filling together is quite a skill – you have to make a small pinch-pot out of the dough, put a small ball of the filling in the middle, pinch dough over the top so the filling is fully enclosed, and press into the wooden moulds seen above.  The kuih are then turned out of the moulds and steamed.  So quite a process really.

This is what they look like post steam.  They are sweet and sticky and quite delicious.  I never really cared for them before but after making these, I’m now a fan.

but then I turned around and saw the breakfast served for us at Rohani Jelani’s Bayan Indah Culinary Resort

(more about the breakfast later!)

Bayan Indah is located about 30 minutes outside of Kuala Lumpur in a small kampung (village), surrounded by beautiful tropical jungle.

Rohani’s philosophy is “culinary peace” – a sense that permeates the entire property;  from the all-day homemade cookies, to the bathtubs with jungle-views and the phenomenal meals prepared by Rohani’s team, this place is paradise.

There’s not a lot to do here, but Bayan Indah works its spell even on people as perpetually restless as me and Rini.  Aside from the brilliant distraction of today’s cooking class, Rini and I have whiled away the hours just sitting around, talking over cups of ginger tea and reading. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as calm and content as I do here.

Now, on to the breakfast!

What we have here is a very fancy nasi lemak, a traditional Malaysian breakfast still eaten daily, based on coconut rice.

Nasi lemak can be served with a variety of things, including fried chicken, saté or just about anything you can think of, however, you will always find the boiled egg, peanuts, sliced cucumber and ikan bilis (dried anchovies).

Our fancy nasi lemak this morning was served with the requisite peanuts, ikan bilis, cucumber and eggs, as well as a mouthwatering prawn sambal and lightly stir-fried kangkung (water spinach).

It certainly beats the omelette and turkey-bacon of a big hotel breakfast buffet!

I had expressed such sentiments myself when Nat and I had wandered into a mall in Melaka seeking refuge from the rain and found ourselves at Starbucks (yes to my great shame).

Nat had said to me at the time, as we chowed down on cinnamon scrolls, that you could have a genuine Malaysian food experience in a food court which would be just as authentic as eating off the street.

“Indeed” I had thought.  However, when Nat took me to KL Central Station – he has been telling me about this for years – I had to stuff all my words back in my mouth along with the first roti canai we’ve had here.  It was fantastic!

roti canai served with a dahl curry

Perhaps what was equally as exciting for Nat was finding dadar gulung in the same food court.  In English we call them green pancakes (yes an obvious name).  Nat and I can’t agree whether it is the pandan essence used in the pancakes that makes them green, but I suspect in an older recipe that would be the case.

Desiccated coconut is mixed with melted palm sugar and then placed in the pancakes to make a delicious filling.  Also pictured are samosas – curry puffs – and something which Nat and I could only identify as deep fried pizza roll.  Teh tarik (literally ‘pulled tea’) the wonderfully sweet morning drink made with condensed milk was a great accompaniment to these.

After we had breakfast, we continued our authentic KL experience by going to the Pavillion Mall – a ridiculous place housing Prada, Coach, YSL, Chloe and Tiffany’s, just to name a few.

I drooled over bags and bought some shoes; Nat was very patient.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world

~ J.R.R Tolkien

Rather fortuitously, our dear friend, Henri, had a brief layover on his way back to Indonesia so we decided to meet for lunch.

Now, I don’t usually hold with vegetarians – Henri’s such a nice guy that I had to give him the benefit of the doubt – but I’ll admit to being rather impressed with the vegetarian restaurant that Henri discovered for us today in Chinatown.

3 Mushrooms with Sabah Beans (not sure what Sabah beans are, they seem pretty similar to peas…)

Roast “Duck” (made from tofu)

Malay Asparagus

I’ve not seen asparagus in Malay cooking before, but this was fantastic; soft asparagus in a mild sambal (chilli sauce).

It was fantastic catching up with Henri; Rini and I headed back to the hotel with bellies full of vegetables and beer, and smiles on our faces.

Our smiles grew even wider when we got back to our room and found this lovely surprise from the hotel.

Somehow, even after our big lunch with Henri, we found a little bit of room for some cake.