Roti King (Revisited), Euston

I wrote about Roti King a couple of years ago, when it was on the Charing Cross Road. I only went once, and I am a total fool. It was so convenient to my office, and I only went once! Those were the days when word hadn't quite got out yet about Mr Roti King, and you could swan on in there, have a sit and eat some freaking delicious roti. 

Not so now. 

Admittedly, we did visit on a Friday night, right at prime time, and we did go as a group of 5 when the restaurant sits 30 at most. We queued for at least an hour, watching the guy slap his rotis out, folding them up and cooking them on a hot flat griddle next to him. The result? All our clothes absolutely honked. But no matter, as we had wine to slurp our way through (it's BYOB). The waitress, weaving in and out of everyone, delivering orders to the tables must have a patience of a saint.

The roti (opening pic) is so, so good. Cooked freshly to order, it's hot and flaky. We peeled off pieces to dip in both lamb and chicken curries. The murtabak (the roti is spread with egg, folded and cooked so it is stuffed) came with a dhal that was pleasantly spicier than expected too. Char kway teow had the appropriate smokiness from the wok, and enough prawns to please the table. I asked the chap on the table next to us how his Laksa was, and he looked pretty ambivalent about it. Further reports have been favourable though, so I'll just have to return. Soon.

Nasi lemak could have done with fresher coconut rice, but it was still pretty good. To be honest, we all had eyes for the roti and not much else. 

Yup, that there is a roti cone, drizzled with chocolate syrup. A nice, sweet ending to proceedings, though the roti stuffed with banana is infinitely more satisfying. 

(I have a recipe for banana roti, Thai style, drizzled with condensed milk in my book, Chinatown Kitchen... it's out on 2nd April plug plug plug) 

At £15 per head, it's stupidly good value. I can't wait to return, already. 

Roti King 
40 Doric Way,
London NW1 1LH

Chee Cheung Fun - Rice Noodle Rolls

One of my favourite dim sum dishes is 'cheung fun', which is a lasagne-like sheet made of rice noodle and often stuffed with king prawns, char siu (Cantonese barbecued pork), or my favourite - deep fried dough. It's served with a sweetened soy sauce to pour over, and I could eat it every day if I could. 

In Malaysia and Singapore, the same rice noodle sheets are served without stuffing, called 'chee cheung fun' and, happily, you can buy packets of this in Chinatown in the fridge section to steam at home yourself. All you need is a sauce, maybe a topping or two. I ate this and variants of it for breakfast last weekend; the noodles are slippery and comforting, the sauce lurking within the folds. 

Chee Cheung Fun Sauce

Enough for 1 packet of cheung fun

1 tbsp dark sesame paste
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp hoi sin sauce
1 tbsp chilli oil with sediment, or Sriracha
1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
5 tbsp water 
1 stalk of spring onion, sliced finely
1 tsp sesame seeds

Cut the cheung fun into 3 inch lengths into a bowl, with a tablespoon of water. Place inside a steamer and steam on a high heat for 15 minutes, stirring a couple of times. 

Meanwhile, mix together the sesame paster, the hoi sin sauce, light soy, chilli oil and water. Place in a small saucepan and simmer over a gentle heat, mixing well so that the sesame paste melts and the sauce is smooth. 

Spoon a couple tablespoons of sauce over the cheung fun, then top with the spring onions and sesame seeds. Serve with chopsticks for authenticity. 

I also like this with crushed peanuts, and sometimes I crack an egg into the rice rolls to steam about 10 minutes into the cooking process. A spicy, sweet and vinegar-spiked sauce with plenty of garlic and coriander also makes a great dressing, though perhaps not for breakfast. 

Malaysian Deli

One of the more vivid memories I have of my time in Malaysia in 2011 was a lunch prepared by my friend's aunty. In preparation for our 23 hour train from Penang to Bangkok, curried prawns in their shells were packed into plastic tubs along with rice, a boiled egg and some vegetables. Hot at 7am when we set off, it preyed on my mind that the rice was cooling, sitting in the Malaysian warmth for a few hours before it would be eaten. Some would call that dangerous - see bacillus cereus - but no one else seemed fussed. I threw caution to the wind and, some hours later, wolfed down my incredibly delicious lunch. No doom befell me.

I bring this rather gnarly story up as the food at Malaysia Deli, a new place in Crofton Park, reminded me much of the lunchbox Aunty packed up for me in its composition. For only a fiver, you get a box of rice with a meat or fish, some vegetables and whichever sauce you choose. I uhm'd and aah'd over each one, asking the nice lady behind the counter which was which while she patiently explained the choices. I finally settled on salmon with sambal sauce; when asked if I wanted it heated up, I elected not to. Hot rice was layered into the box, two crisp salmon pieces next and that fiery sauce. On the cycle home, the hot rice heated up everything else in there, making my lunch perfectly warmed and ready to eat. 

It doesn't look like much (I went over a few speed bumps...) but it was lovely - tender salmon, crunchy beans and perfectly cooked rice. But HOLY MOTHER that sambal. I wish they'd sell it as a jarred sauce. Sweet and spicy, I started off feeling a tingle of heat; by the end of my lunch I was sucking air through my teeth while my housemate laughed at me. Worth it, and I'd do it again. Though I might try the percik next time - described as a mild, sweet, tangy coconut sauce. 

Cute and colourful inside, they sell ingredients as well as meals. They have a few tables and open 12pm - 8pm Tuesday - Saturday, 12pm - 6pm on Sundays; I'm looking forward to revisiting, especially for the nasi ulam, a dish I haven't come across before. 

Malaysian Deli

338 Brockley Road, London SE4 2BT

Roti King, Charing Cross Road - NOW IN CAMDEN

EDIT: Now at 40 Doric Way, London NW1 

Anyone who's been to Malaysia might balk at the £5.50 price tag, but the roti canai at Roti King is really freaking good. Located on the shabby part of Charing Cross Road, Roti King is actually inside Malaysia Kopi Tiam; the roti chef stands at his own counter at the front, turning and slapping the dough to order. 

An alarming / delicious amount of oil goes down on the counter and the dough is formed. The chef then spins it in the air, slapping it down to get that flaky thinness. Meanwhile, a bowl of curry (lamb, chicken, dhal or fish) is popped into the microwave while the roti cooks. 

What you get is two rounds of lovely flaky bread to dip in a spicy, fragrant bowl of curry. Two large pieces of chicken on the bone are juicy and flavoursome. A hot mug of teh tarik, sweet and milky soothes the spices of the curry. 

On the menu there's also murtabak, which is the roti cooked with a filling, wrapped up like a parcel. There are various sweet options if that's your thing too. We also tried a Penang Char Kway Teow on the main menu which while nice enough, wasn't up to much. I'd stick to the rotis. 

Roti King, inside Malaysian Kopi Tiam

67 Charing Cross Road, 

London WC2H 0NE

Irene's Peranakan Recipes

In the same part of the cookbook series as Uncle Lau's Teochew Recipes, Irene's Peranakan Recipes have the same simple style and layout. Peranakan refers to the descendants of the late 15th & 16th century Chinese immigrants who settled in Malaysia and Indonesia  Now, normally I'd object to quotes like: "Girls have to do girls' things", being the raging bra-burning feminist that I am, but the picture of Irene herself at the stove with big glasses and 70s hair, as well as her charmingly honest history was enough to tame me.  
  
It was one Sunday and a group of my friends, obsessed with South East Asian food, decided to get together for a British version of a potluck, also known as the Pie Out. It was the perfect opportunity to try out this new cookbook. It's not the easiest cookbook to navigate as the contents page lists the Peranakan name of the dishes, but it's a fascinating flick through. 

Fish curry was well spiced with a tangy hit. The gelatinous quality of the sauce was made by the addition of lots of sliced okra. 

With plenty of spicy, creamy curries (including the chicken rendang in the opening picture), a simple cleansing cucumber salad was ideal to cool mouths, even if it did have some chilli in it. 

One of the dishes I made was braised green beans with prawns in spicy coconut milk. Pretty straightforward to make, the shrimp paste used to stir-fry the spice mixture gave it a deep savoury flavour that only shrimp paste makes. 

My favourite accompaniment of the dishes though was pickled pineapple. Chunks of pineapple are cooked until soft with salt, sugar, chilli and cinnamon (or cassia bark in my case) and then served at room temperature. It was the perfect acidic foil for the richness of the meal.

Pickled Pineapple

Serves 6 with other dishes 

1 small pineapple; cored, skinned and chopped into bite sized chunks

2 large red chillis, deseeded and chopped

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tbsp salt

1 6inch stick of cinnamon, or cassia bark

2 cloves

In a pan, heat up the pineapple with everything else gently. No need to add any liquid. Cook gently for 20 minutes until tender. Place in a bowl to cool and serve with creamy, rich curries at room temperature or cold.

Contact Epigram for a copy of the book here. 

Malaysian Fish Head Curry

It's a bit gnarly, this dish. I am fully expecting a lot of you to recoil in horror, and some "bleurgh!"s bursting from you as you read this. Fish heads aren't that scary, really. As long as you don't think about it too carefully, and maybe avoid looking it in the eye as you lower it into the broth.

The head simmers in the curry broth, imparting crucial base notes of the sea. Fish heads are packed full of meat, and the most prized part is the cheek meat just under the eye. Nudge this bit out with the tip of your chopstick and you're rewarded with a nugget of tender, silky flesh. The skin droops off, falling into the soup and adding an extra texture, thickening it with the collagen.
For a little extra luxury I added mussels as I had them kicking around, but this isn't particularly traditional. Green beans and okra provided textures - crunchy and slimy - that worked well with the fish. I spent a happy 15 minutes picking my way around the head, fishing deep into the bowl to ladle the curry broth onto my rice. The curry was heady with spice and a squeeze of lime juice and a splash of fish sauce added fragrance.

All the recipes I found called for fish curry powder; this was kindly gifted to me from Goz. You can buy it online here, or most Asian supermarkets will sell it. If you can't be bothered to cook this and you're in London, go to Goz's supperclub instead.

Malaysian Fish Head Curry

Serves 2

1 fish head - mine was hake. My fishmonger kindly gave it to me for free. Avoid stronger, oily fish; snapper, cod, grouper or hake work best.
4 tbsp Malaysian fish curry powder
1 onion
6 cloves of garlic
2" galangal
1 stick of lemongrass
4 dried red chillis, rehydrated
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp salt

1/2 tin of coconut milk
A handful of okra
A handful of fine green beans
2 ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 tbsp tamarind pulp, loosened in 300mls water - use your hands to work the pulp
2 sprigs of curry leaves - not dried
20 mussels (optional)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 a lime
1 tsp fish sauce
A few sprigs of coriander, for garnish

Rub the fish head with salt and set aside for 15 minutes. Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a dry frying pan. Add to a blender or a pestle and mortar to blend with the garlic, onion, chilli, lemongrass and salt. In a separate bowl add a little water to the curry powder to mix into a paste.

Heat some oil in a pan. Add the curry leaves and onion spice paste, and fry slowly until golden and toasty. Add the curry powder paste mix. Add the tamarind water (strained) and the coconut milk, then bring to a boil. Add the okra, and simmer gently for 5 - 10 minutes. Rinse the fish head, and then carefully place that in with the slices of tomato and the green beans. Place the lid on and cook on a gentle heat for 10 - 15 mins (depending on the size of your head). If using, add the mussels during the last two minutes of cooking, just so that they open up. Remove the lid and take off the heat. Add the fish sauce and the sugar, then replace the lid and leave to stand for 10 minutes to allow the flavours to mingle.

Ladle the head out of the pot, then spoon the curry sauce around it and garnish with coriander leaves and a wedge of lime. Serve with rice.

A Malaysian Street Food Brunch

When it comes to food, Malaysians know their stuff. Most of their best food is sold on the streets at hawker centres and during my two weeks in Malaysia last year I slurped my way through bowls of noodles while sat on plastic stools, cooling cendol standing on street corners and sticks of satay, barbecue smoke stinging my eyes. We just don't have that kind of culture here, although things are improving with collectives like Eat St., and markets like Berwick Street allowing traders to peddle their wares. But still no Malaysian street food. So, I jumped at the news of Wild Serai's supperclub hosting an Easter Monday street food brunch.

Located in New Malden aka. Korea Town, I battled through driving rain and wind to sit at the lunch table. Two tables were decorated brightly, huge prawn crackers (krupuk) waiting for us to snap our way through them.

Chicken and beef satay was served with a spicy, chunky peanut sauce. The meat was smoky and benefitted from the charcoal it had been grilled on outside. The peanut sauce was so addictive I turned to just slathering it on the red onion and cucumber it was served with.

Mee Goreng was a big towering pile of fried noodles for us to all dig in to. Huge prawns were nestled within and tiny dried anchovies (ikan bilis) topped the dish. The noodles were well balanced, all sweet, savoury and tart and unlike other variations of the dish I've tried even in Malaysia, these were grease-free. I loved their colourful melamine plates.

Rojak is the Malay term for 'mixture', and a rojak salad consists of fruits and vegetables in a fruity, salty sauce. This was a strange one; sweet chunks of pineapple mingled with sour green mango, cucumber and tofu puffs. There was the unmistakable funk of fermented prawn about it. After my initial misgivings, as I speared more and more chunks onto the skewers we were given to eat it from, it became more and more palatable.

We were handed banana leaves to place on our plates for the next course, nasi lemak. At the core of the dish is a spicy sambal sauce, with fragrant coconut rice to eat it with. The rice wafted its perfume towards me as I waited for the rest of the accompaniments. I caved in, the sambal breaking my will. Sweet, spicy and with a hint of lime leaves, the sambal was gorgeous. More of those anchovies created a deep savoury base. My neighbour, Goz explained to me that sambals are all made differently according to taste; some people make theirs spicier, some sweeter. A piece of fried chicken, a couple of boiled quails eggs and some cucumber completed the plate.

I was pretty stuffed by now and grateful for the break that came in between courses. Roti jala, a type of pancake made by creating a lattice from the batter was to come. It was less crisp than I imagined, but it went well with the rich, coconutty curry sauce.

I love Asian desserts; tapioca pearls, jellies, beans and shaved ice feature a lot in hawker centre desserts. Cendol is probably the most famous, with those little green worms. We had ice kakang and beneath the shaved ice drizzled with coloured palm sugar syrup, sweetcorn mingled with red beans, sea coconut and fruit jellies. The most prominent was the honeydew melon jelly. This revived me.

To finish, cups of teh tarik - a type of black tea sweetened with condensed milk, and then poured at a high height to create a foam - reminded me of my childhood. A four hour brunch was perfect for a rainy day, and at £25 per head I felt like I was ripping them off since so much work goes into supper clubs (where do they keep all that crockery?!). It was as good as any street food I had in Penang.

Their next event is a seafood feast and you can book tickets here.

Curry Mee

I miss Malaysia. My trip there last April affected me greatly; it was one of the most hardcore eating trips I've done. After day 3 I forgot how it felt to be hungry and instead felt only 'full', 'really very full' and 'ohmygod-I'm-going-to-barf'. The ease of getting a quick bowl of noodles for next to nothing made me giddy. I hit the noodle soups hard and one of my favourites was curry mee.

Thick, spicy and coconutty soup contained chunks of congealed pigs blood and little cockles as well as tofu puffs and prawns. Alas, it's not as easy to get hold of pigs blood and cockles so my replica version leaves these out, you may well be relieved to hear.

Instead, spongy tofu soaks up the soup so that they're nice and juicy when you bite into them. There are slices of fish cake lurking in there too, underneath the mound of yellow egg noodles. For a bit of texture variation, I also added a little rice vermicelli, a tip I picked up in Penang. A few green beans in there added some crunch, and once all the sambal olek (chilli sauce) was mixed into the broth, a squeeze of lime made the dish complete. Most noodle soups in Malaysia that we tried were served with a hard boiled egg; I prefer mine a bit softer so a barely poached egg was dropped in.

The key to this lies in the paste, where most of the flavours are. You can get most of the ingredients in an Asian supermarket; in London, I use New Loon Moon on Gerrard Street.

Curry Mee

Serves 4

For the paste:

15 small purple shallots
7 cloves of garlic
3" of ginger
4 sticks of lemongrass, soft innards only
6 dried red chillis soaked in boiling water till soft
1 tsp shrimp paste (belachan)
2 tsp ground coriander
Roots or stems of a bunch of coriander
1 tsp sugar

Chop all of the above roughly and blend into a fine paste, adding some oil as you go. Any leftover paste should be kept in the fridge with a film of oil on top.

300gr yellow eggs noodles, fresh
100gr rice vermicelli, cooked and cooled
1 branch of curry leaves, fresh
4 lime leaves, fresh
A handful of green beans
100gr Chinese fish cake, sliced thinly
20 tofu puffs, halved
A handful of beansprouts
1 tin of coconut milk
250mls chicken stock
1 limes, quartered
A handful of coriander to serve
4 eggs
Sambal Olek to serve

In a large pan, fry 2 tbsp curry paste per person, so 8 tbsp in this instance. Fry slowly for 15 minutes. Add the coconut milk, the chicken stock, the lime leaves and the curry leaves. Leave the curry leaves on the branch when you add them in as this makes it easier to remove them. Simmer gently for 35 minutes. Add the tofu puffs in the last 15 minutes, the fishcake slices in the last 5 and take off the heat. Remove the curry leaf branch.

Add the eggs to boiling water and leave for 6 minutes - take off the heat and run under cold water. Peel carefully.

In another pan, blanch the beansprouts and simmer the green beans for 3 minutes. Cook the egg noodles as per cooking instructions (mine required just plunging into boiling water for a couple of minutes) and drain.

To serve, divide the egg noodles and vermicelli noodles among 4 deep bowls equally. Top with beansprouts and green beans. Heat the soup base up till simmering, then distribute soup base equally. Halve each egg over the bowl and place in carefully, then add the coriander sprinkled on top with a quarter of lime per bowl. Serve with the sambal olek.

East Street, Rathbone Place

The very idea of 'Pan Asian' makes me sigh wearily and roll my eyes and I know full well that this is the snob in me. The countries are so different in their flavours and techniques I can't understand how a chef can be skilled enough to do all of them fantastically; yet I don't even raise an eyebrow when I see a 'Modern European' restaurant. I suppose perhaps having grown up in the Far East makes me fiercely protective, and no amounts of people telling me they like to have the option of sushi with their Thai green curries will fix that. Not to mention the sheer bloody wrongness of mixing those cuisines with such fervour - it's just not for me. I was almost apoplectic with indignation upon catching sight of Dim Sum Diner's menu.

So you might wonder why I accepted an invite to go to East Street, newly opened on the site of the former Eagle Bar & Diner. I'll be honest. I was seduced by the website. It's all pretty and colourful! And not a California roll of sushi in sight. I had high hopes.

I took a friend I knew would know his Asian and between us we picked dishes that spanned across the continent. Edamame was served freshly steamed and warm while we waited for our first dishes to appear. Bulgogi was thinly sliced grilled beef served with lettuce leaves and kimchi. The beef was grilled nicely to pink and it went well with the spicy kimchi. Wrapped up in a leafy parcel it was pleasant enough.

Tempura prawns were nicely battered crisp, served with the standard tempura dip. Though well priced at £5.75 for the dish, I think you should either pad it out (surely some tempura vegetables can't break the bank?) or use a smaller plate. It seemed sparse.

When our waitress explained the menu to us - and when I say explained, I mean read out the titles - the salads were described as suitable as a main course. Uhm. No. But when shared alongside, it was very nice. The chicken was nicely grilled and the vegetables crunchy, but we both agreed it needed more sourness, a bit more pep. The advertised coriander was barely there.

Special dish of the day was Mee Goreng, from Malaysia. This is a dish of fried yellow noodles with meat, sometimes pickles and egg, often cooked in lard for extra deliciousness. The dish presented to us was nothing of the sort. It was gloopy and lacked any of what we call in Cantonese 'wok hei', breath of the wok. That's the smoky, charcoal smell you get from frying things in a wok at a high heat - that's the kind of smell you encounter all over South East Asia.

My own dish, Khao Soi noodles was billed as chicken and yellow noodles in red curry sauce. A whole two chillis sit next to this menu listing so I was expecting something nose clearing, or at least sweat inducing. Disappointingly, it didn't even induce a sniffle. Again, it was gloopy and rich without enough lime or fresh red onion to cut through that heavy coconut. Deceptively deep, the bowl turned out to be quite small for the £8.95 they were charging though given that I lost interest half way through all the better for the small serving. Why bother with this? What is even the point in saying it's hot on the menu when you won't make it so? This sort of thing really pisses me off; if you're too lame to serve dishes authentically spiced, then don't serve it at all. Open a pie and mash shop or something.

That famous mango with sticky rice dessert seen all over Bangkok was a total disaster. The claggy clump of sticky rice was barely sweet and physically taxing to get through, the coconut cream served either side of it rendered completely useless. The mango was only just ripe, perhaps a touch under given it had still a powdery texture. Miles away from the real thing.

The Malaysian bubor pulot hittam was a black glutinous rice dessert with coconut cream and palm sugar. This was luxurious and tasty, the rice nicely cooked.

All in all, it was as expected. Jack of all trades and master of none. I know people will love this; the bright colours, Cath Kidston-esque decorated stools and the manga cartoons projected onto a huge back wall will be an instant hit, but then again people love that hell hole that is Cha Cha Moon, and for God's sake people still flock to Wagamamas. But me and Pan Asian, we are over. It was a brief flirtation and it just didn't work out.

East Street

3 - 5 Rathbone Place
London W1T 1HJ

Tel: 020 7323 0860



I didn't pay as I was invited to review but this would have been £20 / head.

Crab, Prawn & Samphire Sambal

I've made prawn sambal before; it was so long ago that I got a desperate craving for it again this weekend. Leftover white and brown crabmeat as well as samphire sat in the fridge, glaring at me unused so in a fit of experimentation it all got lobbed in and I was richly rewarded. Spicy, coconutty with deep undertones of the sea, eaten with plenty of rice it brought a sheen of sweat to the brow. Though samphire isn't a typical Asian ingredient, its' salty crunch worked beautifully, complementing the velvet strands of the white crab meat.


Open all your windows when frying your spice paste, unless you like the feeling of your lungs burning with every breath.

Crab, Prawn & Samphire Sambal

Serves 2

10 raw prawns
A small handful of samphire
1 small onion sliced into half moons
2 tbsp brown crabmeat
1 heaped tbsp white crabmeat
1 spring onion
2 tomatoes
10 tbsp coconut milk

For the spice paste:

1 small onion
2 stalks of lemongrass
2 cloves of garlic
2 red chillis
4 dried red chillis
1 inch piece of galangal
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp shrimp paste

Wash thoroughly and steam the samphire for a couple of minutes. In a small blender add the onion, garlic, galangal, the inner part of the lemongrass roughly chopped with the tamarind and shrimp paste. Soak the chillis in hot water, then add these. Deseed them if you're not a hardcore chilli head. Add 2 tbsp cooking oil and blend into a paste.

In a wok, heat a little oil and add the curry leaves taken off the branch till they sizzle. Add the spice paste and the brown crabmeat, add the half moon onions, then stir-fry until fragrant. Add the coconut milk and the sugar and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes sliced into quarters, the samphire and the prawns, stirring until they turn pink. Take off the heat and garnish with the spring onion, sliced on the diagonal. Serve with rice, topping with the white crabmeat.

Other Malaysian Eats

Let's start with breakfast. We were totally addicted to roti canai, a flaky bread served with a curry dip, varying in spiciness. We craved this daily, and washed down with a frothy teh tarik (tea made with sweet condensed milk) it was an ideal start to the day.

Banana leaf curries were common. Walking along a busy main road, we ducked inside a grimy-looking cafe, only to be served one of the best curries of the trip. Sweet sticky chicken drumsticks, dolloped with a ladle of spicy curried green beans, lightly spiced cabbage and rice served from long silver containers. I was less impressed with the lizard that ran up my leg, causing me to scream like a total girl.

Murtabak, eaten here at the night market in Kota Bharu, were egg-laden treats. We watched mesmerised as the maker flipped out the roti dough nice and thinly, and on it went to the hot plate to be spread with whipped eggs and a curry mixture, folded, folded and folded again until hot and crisp.

It sounds like a rude word, but in fact Popiah are like a cross between spring rolls and the Vietnamese summer rolls. Amongst the best street food we sampled, I watched as the lady warmed up a wafer-thin crepe wrapper, spread it with a hoi-sin like sweet sauce, before piling on shreds of daikon and some scrambled tofu.

Chilli sauce seasoned each mouthful, and it was a delight to chow down on a mixture of soft wrapper, crunchy vegetable and piquant and sweet sauces. To my distress, they seem almost impossible to replicate at home unless you're a master of dough. I am not.

Desserts came in the form of small bowls, often flavoured with coconut and riddled with beans or jelly-like textures. The most famous, Cendol, was made with shaved ice, coconut cream, caramel, threads of flour-based noodle flavoured with pandan and sweet kidney beans. It was icy and surprisingly refreshing.

Weirdest dish of the trip was perhaps 'Tandoori Kashmir Chicken'. A naan bread, topped with tandoori chicken and watermelon, banana, apple, and cashew nuts. Like a big chickeny fruit salad.