The worst and the best of food in Jordan

Here we were, in Jordan, not exactly a culinary flagstone of middle eastern cuisine but nevertheless I was intent on trying to find something worth documenting. The meal we had in Karak after getting off the bus was worth documenting but not because it was good. It wasn't good, not at all. I ordered the Mansaf, which is the national dish of Jordan. It is usually served at celebrations, and not really very often served at the everyday table. Mansaf is seasoned lamb cooked in a fermented yoghurt sauce served over rice with nuts. It was supposed to be a dish to celebrate something special, the only thing this dish celebrated was how you could cook lamb so terribly tough that it was inedible. The yoghurt suace wasnt actually that bad, it had a nice flavour but that was its only saving grace. There were supposed to be pine nuts, but these were peanuts, and not even shelled. Rubbish. Just goes to show that you can pick a restaurant based on how close it is to your bus stop.

 Then there was the polar opposite of the terrible food in Karak. I was taken out to a restaurant by my tattoo artist. We didnt get to this place until after 11pm and it was packed. We stood around for 15 mins waiting to get a table until finaly we were sat. There were at least a hundred people in there all locals, all men. almost all of them drinking arak.

 What you see here was our first course. a pile of fresh spinach like greens doused in lemon juice and paprika. Four dips, one was a Jordanian hummus, very different to the hummus that we had in Istanbul, much whiter and much thinner, very tasty, less lemon and more garlic. There was a tomato based sauce with stacks of veges and chilli, a great yoghurt capsicum and onion dip and then a cucumber and yoghurt mixture. I was told that eating this meant you could drink as much booze as you wanted and not feel its negative effects. I gave it a whirl, but didnt succeed.

 This dish was an amazingly tasty but simple lamb casserole, I just cant say enough about how much flavour these guys had jammed into this food. It such a shame that I didnt get the names of any of this stuff, but if you know, then please comment.

 Of course here we have the shish kebab, a great barbeque of chicken pieces and kofta with charred onions and capsicum. This was great, and well cooked but to be honest it had nothing on the kebap that we had at Hamdi

Then there was the final dish, the piece de resistance. This was kind of like a stroganoff, a delicious lamb mince at the bottom of this large dish then topped with potato and onions and then all covered with a delicious creamy sauce that i think was probably made from labneh. This was easily the best dish i ate in Jordan, you can see all of us jumping in to get our flat bread into the plate. Truly an amazing experience in what was otherwise a fairly unexciting city gastronomically speaking.

Dinner at Hamdi and Lunch at Salaam World

 I had made a point of not eating a swanky restaurants on this trip, I really wanted to get an idea of how the locals ate, what they could afford. But this night I made an exception and I'm glad I did. Hamdi is right in the heart of eminonu overlooking the bosphorous. You get there and the first thing you are struck by is how very fancy it all is. Compared to the place we had dinner in Kampong Baru, this place was the Ritz. We got on the elevator to the top floor which was surrounded by glass and looked out over the giant suleymani mosque and the spice markey and across the boshporous to Galata.

First we ordered the bread and hommous, I reckon this was the best hommous I had in Turkey it was thick and really garlicky with a great whack of lemon juice. The bread was freshly cooked, flakey and crisp on the outside and airy and light in the middle. Perfect with the dip. Then there was in incredible salad, alsmost like a salsa, with tomato, onion, beans cucmber and whole bunch of fresh herbs.

 For the main i got a mixed kebap grill, there was the  Tavuk şiş kebab, the chicken kebap, made from breast with a stack of pepper and paprika, a little dry but very tasty, then there was the Birecik kebabı (acılı), the chilli kebap made with beef and lamb, seasoned with a stack of hot paprika black pepper and chilli with a hint of sugar for balance, definately my favourite one, not over hot, but with a great heat, one of the hottest things i had in turkey, the third was the  Fıstıklı kebab, which was really interesting mix of beef and lamb with pistachio, a great mix of textures. The last was the standard Urfa kebab, a stable in istanbul, probably the best cooked of the meats we had at Hamdi.

 The next day we were invited to Salaam World and they fed us what I think was probably as close to what turks night eat at home. It doest look like much, and gastronomically speaking it wasn't very complicated, just tomatoes white legumes and lamb all stewed together until the lamb was wonderfully tender. It had a great robust flavour that you often find in rustic food. Again I noted it here because it felt so authentically Turkish.

 In contrast to the fairly rustic bean casserole there was a couscous salad. Again there was the ubiquitous paprika but what really made this dish really stand out was the pomegranate seeds and the mint. Together these two ingredients made this dish a knockout, the spicy, salty couscous then the freshness of mint and every now and then there was a wonderful burst of pomegranate. Delicious.

For dessert we were served Tulumba, an incredibly sweet fried pastry doused in a lemony sugary sweet syrup. I think I really like this stuff, to be honest I don't really like much about Turkish desserts, they have an amazing tolerance for sweetness. The texture was almost like glace pastry. It felt dense but it crumbled or dissolved away to nothing when you put it in your mouth. A truly unique dessert that i recommend to anyone with a taste for sugar

Fish on the Bosphorous

 On our way to the Islamic science museum I was lured by the smell of roasting chestnuts. The guy was standing behind a little cart which was just a big hotplate one one sideand a rack of nuts on the other. I had these in Malaysia, and they were good, but here in Istanbul the goodness was even gooder. Deep earth and char, a heady smell like that tasted like old nature. Cream white felsh that resisted the tooth and filled your mouth and your stomach. A great buy for a few lira. Real street food.

 Off to the Galata bridge and we were taken back by the masses of people streaming in and out of these gaudy restaurants by the water. As you apporached you were hearded in amongst the swarthy masses to take your seat at a table the size of a large dinner plate on little stools no higher than my shins. you were given a ticket and pointed towards the edge of the water where a boat was rocking viloently on the waves. Upon the boat was an incredible series of cook plates searing fresh fish and heating onions. All of which they served on a delicious fresh roll. Crispy and flaky on the outside and fluff and air in the middle but perfectly dense to hold in the flesh lettuce and onions. An incredible experience was had by the group. I really felt at this point that i was eating food like the locals. There was noone around us that looked like tourists. The meal cost us all of a few dollars  and filled the belly to overflowing. I imagined the workers down at the docks of this busy city eating food like this for generations

Thanks to Halim for this one. He and I took a night walk through the spice markets. It was bitter cold, and the wind off the bosphorous chilled to the bone. At one end of the market perched a big copper urn out of which emanated an amazing smell of cinnamon and nutmeg. Halim said we had to try this stuff. Salep, is a delicious milky drink made from a ground root and mixed with water and then infused with incredible blend  warming spices. It comes out creamy and thick with a slight skin. You then top it with as much ground cinnamon as you want. This stuff was delicious and sweet and really staved off the cold on the walk through the cobbled streets.

Look out Istanbul, I have arrived.

After another fantastic international plane trip full of joy and excitement we arrived in Istanbul. I was incredibly keen to get in to the day and get ahold of some Turkish food. But I had developed a keen cigarette habit in KL so the first thing I needed was a nice sweet drink, preferably coke. But believe it or not the kiosk that I went to had no coke! so I was reduced to drinking coke zero, bloody terrible stuff, but here I am pretending to be excited about it. Hey, given the opportunity I'll be enthusiastic with just about anything.

After a train ride with a thousand sweaty turks, we got off at Sultanahmet station and trudged through the snow to our hotel. The Hotel Seraglio is a lovely little boutique establishment tight in the heart of old Istanbul. We had arrived early but they had put breakfast on for us. It was very very different from all of our breakfasts in SEAsia, (of course). The highlight of the breakfasts at Seraglio were the omelette's, freshly cooked by a chef behind the breakfast serving table. They had red onion, plenty of yellow cheese, capsicum, and some crazy looking ham that was bright pink, you can see a little bit of it sticking out of the edge on that photo. Crazy coloured processed meats aside, the omlette was cooked wonderfully, it was light and fluffy and the combination of flavours was perfect, the cheese all oozy the ham and cheese nice and salty. Suffice to say the omlette was on the menu everyday in Istanbul. There really was alot of cheese around in Turkey, it was the ubiquitous ingredient everywhere we went. It is usually unmatured, so its soft and white and relatively low in fat. Here you see the Turkish version of string cheese Dil Peyniri, it was fibrous and kind of chewy. there is a type of Beyaz Peynir, what we would call feta cheese that alot saliter than the string cheese and a little sour, very nice with the rye bread toasted. Behind that you can see the chicken loaf with some dried apricots in it, and a dandy little cheerio. Carbs and fat for breakfast anyone?

A special mention has to be made of the pancakes they served for breakfast. These things were obscenely decadent, doused in a chocolate sauce that had a flavour reminiscent of nutella but a heck of alot richer. The pancakes were all perfectly cooked, with a nice firm texture but not too stodgy.  I must have had dozens of these things over the week.

After my adventure into Istanbul Ink we discovered the first of many Narghila Bars. We ended up sitting here all day drinking cheap Turkish beer and smoking apple and melon flavoured tobacco. nothing better to warm you up when its snowing out than profuse amounts of alcohol and tobacco. There were very few locals about anywhere in sultanahmet, it really was all about the tourists, and of course the prices were reflective of this. Whilst I say here that the drinks and everything else was cheap I'm sure that these kind of  indulgent days would have been entirely out of reach for the average turk.

Lunch was a delightful kofta wrap. This has to be one of the cleanest and most balanced wraps I had in my two weeks in wrap countries. I call them this, Turkey and Jordan, because wraps are everywhere. If you're eating meat, your probably eating it on a wrap. But this wrap was great, the kofta was nicely spiced with some garlic and paprika and a hint of somthing like rosemary. There was tomato and cucumber as well, also everywhere in this part of the world and, all of this was dressed with a great yoghurt based sauce with a hint of mint and garlic. Really fresh and tasty, a great lunch when your drinking way to much beer. A little expensive though to be honest. There is no way that any turk would pay this much for a wrap. It was pretty comparable to what we might pay here in Australia for the same thing. But it was good, so I wont complain too much.

Then there was raki, oh wow, raki what can I say. This stuff was just terrible. now I don't like aniseed at the best of the time, and I dont much go in for straight alcohol either, but this raki took nasty to a new level. According to wiki raki is an unsweetened aniseed based beverage that is popular in Turkey, Greece and some other Balkan countries. It tastes like ouzo on steroids, with a really mean streak. All I can say is yuck, clearly these people don't have taste buds or if they do they've been burnt away by years off drinking raki.

Then came dinner, and man this stuff was the bomb. Its called a guevec, which is basically a lamb casserole. I had had guevec back in oz but this thing put that stuff to shame. It was incredibly robust in flavour, jam packed with tomatos onion and garlic with a big whack of hot paprika. In side was a whole pile of  veg like zucchini and celery. The lamb was cut into small cubes and was sucelent and tender. A real powerhouse of flavour. They cooked it in these fantastic cast iron pots and served the same, right at the end they sprinkle it with a matured yellow cheese that melts and bubble as they bring it out to you. THe cheese was all stringy and stretchy and went perfectly with the rich tomotoey sauce and the tender lamb.

Firey vego soup in Kampong Baru

This night was all about Julias birthday. We went down to Kampong Baru to try and find something a little more authentic. We wandered up and down the bustling street trying to find somewhere to go, but pleasing 14 people is not always easy. I settled on a place that was overflowing with people but they said there was no way that they would be able to make room for our group so we finally settled on this place. It was typically Malaysian, open air, with a few things out in the Nasi Lemak bar and a few locals milling around in the corners, but it was a bit empty so I wasn't optimistic.

 I shouldn't have doubted it. Bing told to ash your cigarettes on the floor should always inspire you with confidence. The soups that we ordered were great, I ordered a chicken noodle one and someone else ordered a vegetarian one. Mine came out first, it was piping hot and seemingly freshly cooked. The best way to describe the flavour was almost like some of the soups I had in thailand. There was a great chilli kick in the stock and also a big hit of lemon grass. I think it was the lemongrass that made it taste so thai. The chicken was really well cooked and the noodles were glassy and squishy, very nice. I really liked all the fresh coriander and the peeled tomatos as well.

Then there was the vegetarian soup, and wow, this was definitely the star of the night. We ended up sharing the soups between us. It was absolutley jam packed with onions and green beans and oyster mushrooms, the same delicious noodles as there was in mine. But it was the stock that carried this one across the line. I dont know what they had done differently, but this stock had a chilli kick that had me sweating after the first few mouthfulls. It really made me feel like I was in Thailand again.

Down the other end of the table the guys had ordered some kind of fish. I have made a point of not blogging about what everyone else had too much. But thankfully I was invited to come down and have a try of this fish. It was steamed and then served in a really cool fish boat thing. It was served with a delicious seafood stock seasoned with garlic and chilli. The fish just fell off the bone, it was succulent and very morish. SO much so that the group ended up ordering another fish to follow up, and of course I had some of that too :)

The last meal in Cherating and the best Indian food ever.

On our last day in Cherating I dragged Jono back to the same spot that we had the Nasi Goreng the day before. I know I said its all about whats around the corner, but at the same time I knew this place was good, and I really wanted to try their Roti. And once again it was a win. We ordered the ubiquitous Teh Tarik, not the best I'd had on the trip, it was really missing the usual froth and bubble. But the Roti Canai was great. Im a massive fan of savoury for breakfast so I ordered the onion and cheese roti.

My roti was cooked perfectly it was nice and crispy on the outside and on the inside the cheese and lightly cooked onions blended together perfectly. It was a little wetter on the inside than a plain roti would be but the flavour of the filling more than made up for it. The dal that went with it was a perfect match for the onion bread. It was nicely flavoured with a hint of chilli and a great marsala blend that I've never had before. It was kinda like the dal from the dosai that I'd had in KL but this was thinner and had more of a kick. A perfect breakfast.

 When we got back to KL we were all hanging out for lunch. We had found our cabby having lunch in this restoran when we went to cherating. The food looked amazing so when we were coming home we asked him to drop us back here so we could try it for ourselves.

 This was without a doubt the best meal I had in KL. Called Banana Leaf Rice, it was absolutely stunning. This southern Indian style dish is famous in Malaysia. In fact I found on google a malaysian restaurant in Adelaide that serves just banana leaf. Apparently the hot rice on the banana leaf releases some kind of digestive aroma. I dont know how true that is, but who cares? It looks cool! At the heart of this dish was the boiled rice. The guy served this out of the characteristic esky bucket. He kept piling it on until I had to beg him to stop, it was hilarious, he looked at me funny like I was being soft by not wanting more rice, and added a little more just for good measure.

Then came the condiments I really dont know what any of the names were and I still cant quite figure it out, feel free to comment if you can shed any light. The first one, the orange one was dal based, a sweeter chutney but with a nice warmness kind of like mustard seeds. Then there was the green spinachy one, I wasnt a massive fan of this one, it was ok, a bit of garlic and something a little sour, not so bad just not my scene. There was a  simple little cucumber salad, nice and fresh and a good bite from the spanish onion. The best one though was the white pasty looking one, after much research I found out it was a coconut chutney. You dont usually expect heat from something this colour but this stuff s stuff was stunning, firey hot but still fresh, something the indians are great at, packed full of green chilli and coconut this stuff was a revelation. Then there was the curry and the dal. I cant figure out what style of dal this is, but I think its similar to the stuff they serve with a lot of the bread dishes, kind of like a dal stew with veges, not to hot but a great marsala. I have been effusive i know, but damn, this stuff was amazing. Please if you are in KL, eat it, in fact eat it twice

The best lunch in Cherating and Dinner with the Chief

 Lunch in Cherating

For Lunch on day two in Cherating, Jono and I decided to walk a little further down the main road to see if we could find something a little different. To be honest I wasnt all that fussed on the place where we got our Nasi Lemak. And I wanted to check out a little more of the town, you never know what is hiding just around the next corner.

I'm glad we decided to venture a little further because we found what I think was the best food we had in Cherating. We picked this place because it seemed the busiest  of the warongs in this little strip and they had Roti Canai advertised on thier sign. Once we got there we found out the Roti was only for breakfast, so we ordered Ice Tea and Nasi Goreng. The Ice Tea was wonderfully refreshing. It tasted very similar in make up to the Teh Tarik I had developed a taste for already. It was a stinking hot day and the cool sweet milky tea was just perfect. Again a perfect match for 4 Dunhills.




There was a Nasi Lemak on sale at this place as well but I'm glad that we went for the Nasi Goreng because it was cooked fresh for us out the back. The moment they put it down in front of me I knew that we had made the right choice.It was piping hot and the smells wafting up hinted at the fresh chillis onion and garlic that awaited.

 This was without a doubt the best Nasi Goreng I have ever had, Now you may be wondering what the fuss is all about, its just fried rice. But I gotta say that cooked fresh, served hot in a little village on the beach Nasi goreng is divine. There were all the stars there in this little dish, I had asked for my Nasi to be extra hot so the chilli had more than just a bit part, it wasnt crazy Indian hot, but it had a great deep chilli flavour that built to a nice warm burn through the whole meal. Then there is of course the kecap manis, a true south east asian hero, it somehow manages to impart sweet and salt both at the same time, genius. Tamarind is another South East Asian delight, it has a characteristic sour piquancy that sits in the background and adds a great depth and complexity. Then of course there was the meat, in this case, being that it was a coastal town the meat of choice was fresh squid. The few other times I had squid in Malaysia it tended to be tough and over cooked, to be fair, squid is kinda picky, cook it just a bit too much and it turns to rubber (or u just leave it in a bain-marie and it does the nasty work for you). But here in Cherating in this great Nasi, the squid was perfect, it had the perfect time on the heat, nice and tender but still a little resistance on your teeth, it was so fresh that you could taste the ocean. All in all a great Nasi, one I would definately go back for.

Dinner with the chief

Probably the highlight of my whole trip was the night Jono, Jess and I spent at the mosque in Cherating and afterward with the Chief of the mosque. We had been invited to come to evening prayer by the chief who sat with us and talked to us about his faith and his village in his broken English during the whole service. He then blew our minds by inviting us out to dinner. We went in his car to the most incredibly busy restaurant I saw in our whole time in Malaysia. It felt like the whole town was there to eat that night.  The meal was started with drinks, and snacks. The coolest of these snacks was kerepek pisang, these were deep fried savoury banana chips, salty and with a hint of garam masala these things had a fantastic texture that could only come from a banana. I bought a whole packet home and my two year old is a massive fan.

 The next course was what we called "fish with fangs". This was a whole, deep fried fish that was coated in a delicious salty spice mix. You cant really make it out in this photo but this fish looked fierce! It had a mean looking mouth packed with a whole array of nasty looking teeth.  Now I'm not much of a seafood fan, as I have mentioned earlier, but this stuff was great, again it was just so fresh that you could taste the ocean. On the outside it was crispy and salty and inside it was wonderfully light and flaky. Thanks to the mosque's treasurer who also joined us for tea, I even learnt how to pull out the little bones along the spine.

I  want to take this opportunity to thank Jess, one of my companions who convinced me to eat the fishes eyeball, that nasty little white thing you can see in the picture. It had no taste and was hard like plastic. just a wonderful experience, thanks Jess ;)

The final course for dinner with the chief was Ayam Goreng. The chief of police told me this was like KFC kampong style. And man, this stuff was great, I reckon I must have gone back for thirds. It was fresh out of the fryer and steam was pouring from it. I don't know what the spice blend that they cooked this stuff in but it was fantastic. I definitely tasted chilli and salt, perhaps some tumeric, but after that I have no idea. They had blended the spices with some kind of really light batter and then deep fried it. What can I say? Its just fried chicken, but Kampong Ayam Goreng, whips KFC's ass any day.



Here we are after our meal. from the left we have the Chief of the Mosque, Jono, Jess, Me and the Treasurer. A great time, a truly memorable experience. 

Breakfast in Cherating

 The place to eat brekkie in Cherating was this busy Nasi Lemak shop in the middle of town. Every morning it was full of locals and their families, all sitting down to enjoy the diverse spread that is Nasi Lemak. Of course the specialty of this place, given Cherating's location on the coast was seafood. As I mentioned a few posts ago though, I don't much go in for seafood, so I ate everything else instead. The rice was served out of a round insulated water container, you can just see it on the edge of the first photo. everything else was in that bain-marie which i should point out wasn't hot. The lady there in the pink was the only one who spoke English so we dealt
with her on the couple of occasions we went back.

 Here we have my second attempt at enjoying a Nasi Lemak. Instead of the fatty coconut rice i went for the fried rice, i had a cold greasy omlette with onions and peas, some fried chicken that was so dry it could have been cooked 3 days earlier and finally some beef rendang, which was actually pretty good, the flavour of  rendang is hard to beat, but it was cold as well and over cooked. Again I was pretty disappointed in Nasi Lemak, the elements themselves would be pretty good if they were fresh and hot, but they weren't even close to either. I wonder if i was just unlucky or is all Nasi Lemak cold and dry?




Teh Tarik, oh let me count the ways. Basically just strong tea with condensed milk, how they make it so delicious is by pouring it between two containers from height. Its sweet and frothy and strong, and thanks to the pouring its always the prefect temperature for drinking. I must have had this stuff about 20 times when I was in Malaysia. And almost every time I ordered it people were strangely surprised, almost as though foreigners don't really order it that much. But for 1.2MR I don't know why not.




 Here we have another addition to my collection of crazy beverages, ill just refer to this stuff as double oomph. I don't know what its called, that was the only part of the label in english, it was grape flavoured, which makes it a win in my book, I dont know what its oomph was and how it was double, probably the 17 tablespoons of sugar im sure it had in it. But it was great, the perfect accompaniment to 4 dunhill blues.

China town to Cherating

 Here we have a few snaps from our walk through china town to get transport to Cherating. There are of course a whole lot more foods to savor in china town, but unfortunately this time round I didn't get the chance. The first thing I was attracted to was the roasting chestnuts. I tried to ask what those black things were in the middle but the guy just looked at me funny. These things were of course delicious, an  earthy nutty flavour with a deep roasted aftertaste. I reckon it would be good with an icy cold beer on a hot day.

 The next thing that grabbed my eye was a fruit stall, of course being in SEAsia there were all kinds of crazy fruits available. One however really stood out and that was the "Jambu Madu"also known as the water apple. This thing cost me all of ten cents and was absolutely delicious. Its texture was something like a nashi pear, really juicy and really sweet as well. A real find.

What began in china town was my obsession with drinking crazy beverages. If it looked weird or had a crazy name I had to buy it. Longjack gold was to be honest a bit of a misfire, it wasn't carbonated for a start, and was insanely sweet, I cant really describe the flavour, I suppose it was  like a cross between yellow gatorade and mountain dew. It did however have a product called nicotinamide in it, which i thought would be like a nicotine patch but it turns out its just going to cure my altzheimers.

Upon our arrival in Cherating, a little beach village on the east coast of the mainland we found accomodation and then found a restaurant, it was one of the busest in town and they couldnt feed us for another 45 mins so of course I went off to find something to fill the gap. What I came upon was a culinary revelation. the Ramly burger.






It may not look like it but the Ramly tastes amazing, its pretty much just a cheeseburger with egg but the trick is putting all the condiments on the patty and then wrapping the patty in the egg. The Ramly burger is a malaysian institution that was started from a family run mobile food stall in Kuala Lumpur in 1979 and is now a billion ringgit industry.

The texture of this burger is absolutely divine, the condiments, the onions and the cabbage are all cooked to order so they still retain a little of thier crunch, there is kecap, malaysian chilli sauce and worstershire sauce to add heat, sweetness and tang. The meat was cooked perfectly and the bun was nicely toasted. When made right the Ramly oozes with eggy cheesy goodness that is hard to beat. Seriously one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. For less than 5MR its less than a maccas burger and a hellava lot tastier. I dragged everyone who would come with me back to this Ramly stall in Cherating, here is a shot of two of us enjoying a good burger ala carte Cherating style. We asked the chefs kid to take the photo but he ignored us. I think he was a bit scared to be honest. Probably a little presumptive of us. The chef was happy to take the photo or at least he pretended he was. Malaysian are famously acquiescent 

After my divine Ramly experience I went back up to the restaurant for the proper dinner. I relatively underwhelming chicken curry. Whilst nicely cooked i would say that it certainly wasn't the best curry i had in Malaysia. And not really worth waiting 45 mins for. That chilli you can see on the plate had a great kick to it though. The other guys had some local prawns that they had chosen live out of the tank near our table. Apparently the prawns were delicious and very cheap.

At the end of a long day I sat down with an ice cold tiger beer in the "beer garden" of the only bar in town called 'Dont tell mama' for 6MR the beer in Cherating was cheap and bought us a seat in the best spot in town, looking out at the only road and the hub of the bustling little village.