Restoran Kapitan – George Town Indian Food

Back in Cameron Highlands, I met an Indian couple from Texas who recommended Restoran Kapitan

So as I wandered around George Town, lo and behold, I found it. It wasn’t actually difficult to find, I suppose, as I’m pretty sure I could’ve asked anyone and they would’ve pointed me in the right direction. But I wasn’t really looking and just happened to stumble upon it.

I ordered the tandoori chicken and naan with an orange Fanta and have to admit that it was delicious! The chicken was spicy and moist. I felt a little awkward eating alone though, because the place was slammin’ during lunch hour. There were lots of business people dressed in nice long-sleeved shirts and slacks (I don’t understand how they weren’t dripping with sweat like I was) enjoying the food as well. Most of the patrons were men, with a few groups of women with their young children. I was the only single woman, which got some stares, but, having been in Malaysia for a while now, I was getting used to it.

I’ve found that it’s a bit different traveling alone in Asia than it was in Australia or New Zealand. It seemed more acceptable to be a girl on your own in the latter than it is in the former. I observed that more people (mostly men) tended to stare at me in Malaysia (and to a lesser extent Singapore) when I walked around the town on my explorations.

It’s not as if I felt physically threatened or anything, but I did find it a bit disconcerting at times. It’s as if I’m an insect under a microscope or an oddity of some sort because the men just blatantly look at you. Even if you catch them looking and stare right back at them, they don’t take the subtle hint (even when I sometimes wasn’t so subtle and glared back at them).

Oftentimes I could feel my American upbringing bubbling near the surface, and I wanted to snap at the guys by saying, “what the hell are you looking at?” But I didn’t. Why should I condemn people from another country for breaking the societal pleasantries and customs of my country? After all, we weren’t in my country.

After a while, I just tried to ignore them. But, I can only imagine the attention that Caucasian girls drum up in Asia. I assume it’s a pain in the butt most of the time.

Malaysian-style Indian and Chinese Food

With Voon serving as my personal Malaysian food guide, we headed over to her local Indian restaurant and had some breakfast. Before coming to Malaysia, I hadn’t really tried much Indian food before as I’m not a huge fan of curry. But, I figured, “when in Rome (or in this case KL) . . .” So, why not?

Voon ordered tosai, roti canai with sambal, neslo and teh tarik. Here’s a brief description of each with my impressions:

Tosai: It’s crunchy and thin like a crêpe and served with mild and spicy curries and a lentil/coconut/basil sauce. I really enjoyed the curries as they weren’t too spicy and the lentil/coconut/basil dip helped to cool down your mouth if things got a bit too hot.

Roti Canai with Sambal: This dish is served with soft pieces of crepe-like bread with a side of mild and hot curries mixed together. When you dipped your roti canai into the sauce, you got a taste of both curries at once. It was also nice and the curries weren’t extremely hot.

Neslo: This cold drink is a mixture of Nescafe and Milo (similar to Nesquik chocolate mix for Americans) so it tasted like a watered-down iced mocha. I enjoyed this because the heat and humidity were upon us again and the drink helped to cool you down.

Teh Tarik: This is hot tea with milk, and although I’m not a coffee or tea drinker, it tasted good. The tea taste wasn’t too strong, in my opinion, which made it all the better for me. The only off-putting thing was that it’s a hot drink served in a hot climate. I will never understand how people can consume things like this. Perhaps the heat from the drink matches the heat from the environment so you don’t feel it anymore? To me, it just doubles the heat and everything becomes doubly unbearable.

If all of that weren’t enough, we gorged at dinner as well. For dinner we got chicken and beef satay and chee cheong fun.

Chicken and Beef Satay: In this dish, grilled skewers of chicken and beef are served with a chili/peanut mixture. Yum! I’m all about the meat so this was great for me. I’ve had similar things back at home, but I guess eating this in another country took the excitement level up a notch. This dish was one of my favorites.

Chee Cheong Fun: This is a noodle dish covered in a sweet shoyu sauce. The noodles are round instead of long and stringy. After a quick Wikipedia-ing, I can compare chee cheong fun to what I know as look fun back at home. In my version of this, the rice noodle is big and flat like a tortilla and you roll up shrimp or pork pieces within the noodle. It’s served as one long, burrito look-a-like. In the Malaysian version, there was no meat or seafood and the noodle burrito was cut up into bite-sized pieces. Because you rolled the noodle, the pieces come out looking like small round discs. Any way you serve it, it’s delicious.

I can’t recall what we had to drink with this meal. From the photo, I think I might have had sugarcane juice (the greenish liquid). It was nice and fresh with no artificial flavoring, just as I remember it being straight from the sugarcane stalk. I’m not sure what’s in Voon’s white cup. I guess that’ll have to remain a mystery.

For dessert, we ate rambutan, which I’ve seen before but never tasted. It turns out I enjoyed this as well (although I’m not sure why I’m surprised at this because I haven’t come across anything that I didn’t like yet). You peel the outer, furry layer away to get to the sweet, juicy inner fruit. The fruit looks, feels and tastes like lychee, but I found it harder to get the fruit off the seed, which made it a bit frustrating to eat. I wanted to gobble them down quickly but had to pick and pull the fruit off the seed. Oh well, maybe some things are better in small doses?

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Alfresco Dining in Malacca

My first meal in Malaysia was also my first experience with Indian food as well. My Taiwanese roommate Wendy and I joined Howard, our hostel’s owner, at his favorite local Indian joint. He was born and raised in Malacca and had come to this restaurant all his life.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the workers set up a table and chairs on the sidewalk alfresco style. Despite evening’s approach, it was still really hot and humid. We ordered gigantic, and I’m talking extremely huge, mugs of mango juice to quench our thirst. Wendy and I decided to share a mug as well as an order of tandoori chicken. We also got sides of naan bread with different curries. I think Howard ate a chicken and rice dish but I don’t know what it’s called.

As we waited for our food, Howard told us a bit about the area. He was really passionate about his hometown and his thriving hostel business. He said the area was undergoing a major cultural revival, and the government was actively trying to preserve and promote Malacca’s historical value.

However, while this brought more worldwide awareness to the colonial city, it also increased the commercialism of Malacca. Large hotels were coming up all around to accommodate the increased tourist traffic. Howard felt at odds with this because even though this could have a positive effect on his hostel, he was afraid the small-town feel of Malacca would disappear. He wanted travelers to have an authentic experience of Malacca and not one that was packaged for them in a group tour.

While I can definitely understand his sentiments (after all, I’m from Hawaii, one of the most commercialized “dream vacation” destinations in the world), once a place is “discovered” by tourists and the local government decides to capitalize on this there is no going back to what was once considered quaint or charming. This may be a sad notion for purists or those who are deeply sentimental, but it is also a sign of progress and has happened many times before. And while I agree that a sudden rise in popularity can sometimes be harmful, I also believe that it creates new opportunities for locals. It can increase cultural appreciation, promote religious acceptance and foster technological advancements in addition to any financial rewards gained in the process.

Sometimes development is a good thing. Maybe the next time I return, this small Indian joint will have expanded into a franchise that tourists can enjoy all throughout Malaysia. The naan was extremely soft and the chicken pieces were juicy with just a hint of heat. And the mango juice . . . simply delicious and necessary for such a hot and humid environment.

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