Am not a foodie! My experiments with food are… boring! Yet.. thought I will give you a quick idea of the food I had in Malaysia.

The collage above is numbered. Let me walk you through it.

Before that, I need to help you build your basic food vocabulary. At your own risk… because I didn’t confirm their meaning.

Nasi – rice
Goreng – fried
Lemak – cream
Ayam – chicken
Satay – pieces of chicken, meat, shrimp, etc in some sauce
Kopi – Coffee
Kopi susu – coffee with milk
Teh tarik – tea with cream (milk)

Okay. Now get ready to savor the menu in the collage!

1. Nasi Goreng (with chicken and egg) + Chinese tea pot (Camomile)
   Served at Mulu cafe. Fried rice with chicken and egg. You need to ask for chicken or egg or whatever other option. Average cost is around 10MYR. Tastes pretty good (Being Indian, almost all rice dishes are ok with me).  Portions vary from decent mostly to too much at few places. At Kota Kinabalu bus terminal, it cost me only 4.5MYR.
   The Chinese tea pot is very good. I chose the Camomile flavor. For 3.5MYR, you get a tea pot that fills 2.5 cups.
2. Beans, prawns curry, chicken and rice @ Uncle Tan’s
   Served for lunch / dinner@ Uncle Tan’s. Was pretty tasty! Part of the package. . (Uncle Tan was so worth it! Go for it!)
3. Bread omlet, banana dish and pan cake with black tea
   Served for breakfast @ Uncle Tan. Average food. Breakfast at Uncle Tan on all days was average stuff.
4. Beans and cauliflower curry, chicken, fried fish and rice
   Served for dinner @ Uncle Tan. The fish was cooked over fire without anything else applied on it. Beans curry was pretty good. Everything tasted good!
5. Chicken curry with rice and milk tea
   Served at Mulu cafe. Chicken curry was pretty okay. Adarsh liked it. Tea – they give you a Lipton tea bag, cup of hot water, sugar packs and a bowl of milk.
6. Nasi Lemak, fruits and black tea
   Served at Mulu cafe. My favorite dish was the Nasi Lemak – rice cooked in coconut water+dried anchovies with sauce+groundnut+boiled eggs+cucumber slices. Average cost is around 12MYR. However, at Kuala Lumpur airport, near a stall outside, pretty good Nasi Lemak cost me only 6MYR with Kopi susu.
7. Bread omlet, noodles, banana dish
   Served for breakfast @ Uncle Tan.
8. Chicken wings, beans and potato curry, salad and rice
   Served at Uncle Tan’s. Pretty good.
9. Buffet at Laban Rata (during our Mt Kinabalu climb)
   Bun with cheese, boiled eggs, salad, rice, fruits, tea, coffee, oats, corn flakes, … and quite a few other things. Buffet is part of the climbing package. Average to good depending on what you pick.
10. Mango tea
    Hmm.. there are so many varieties of bottled teas available… some weird like this one! Will not buy again.

In addition to these, there were the other dishes I tasted, but didn’t bother to click

1. noodles – no surprises here
2. biriyani (should be the Indian influence)
3. Milo – seems to be the national drink
4. some squid based meal that I got due to misunderstood conversation with the waiter at Kota Kinabalu. Didn’t enjoy it.

My favorites:

1. Nasi Lemak
2. Chinese tea pot

The entire Borneo backpacking series is listed below.

• Backpacking in Borneo-1: Prologue (includes itinerary)
• Backpacking in Borneo-2: A sneak preview
• Backpacking in Borneo-3: Wild Wild Southeast (Uncle Tan’s wildlife adventures)
• Backpacking in Borneo-4: The Teksi scare
• Backpacking in Borneo-5: Cave and canopy magic (Gunung Mulu National park)
• Backpacking in Borneo-6: Photography equipment to carry
• Backpacking in Borneo-7: Trip expenses and tips to keep it low
• Backpacking in Borneo-8: Climbing Mt Kinabalu
• Backpacking in Borneo-9: Malaysian food
• Backpacking in Borneo-10: List of sightings
• Backpacking in Borneo-11: Epilogue