Malaysian Wet Market

Have you ever done your daily grocery shopping out in the open wet market? I don't mean your novelty weekend's Farmers market. That is nice too. However, this is the place where you would buy your meat and veges in the mornings and take it home to cook. There are two types of markets in Malaysia; one in the day and another that opens only during the night known as 'Pasar malam'

I recalled that my late Dad used to drive my mum to the market every morning and we would placed our orders of kari mee, chee cheung fun or whatever catches our fancy then for breakfast. Mum would buy her cooking stuff and then buy us breaky. This was the norm of daily life when living in Malaysia before the days of refrigeration.

I remembered that; even after Dad had bought Mum a fridge, she would continue to go to the market for fresh produces and for the social sides of things. The daily banter and barter...

As for myself, I didn't like going to markets as a young girl, seeing meat hung on hooks freaks me out. This is not your normal air-conditioned supermarket where the meat is already packed in a sterile pack for you to take home. Here, you see chickens being slaughtered and pieces of meat and offal are hung. It's absolutely revolting! Gagged! And the floors are always wet with butchers splashing water to clean off the blood from their work area. Eeeww, I would be tippy toeing walking through the stalls there and praying to the merciful Almighty God that nothing gets inside my shoes! Gross! So thankful that the wet market stalls are separated from the food stalls in the market.

These days whenever I go back to Malaysia, I would asked my sis to take me to the markets. Still staying clear off the meat section, I would buy ready to eat breakfast, fruits, cheap dvds, nyonya kuihs etc. I love the markets. My recent trip to KL and Penang was no different.

In Kuala Lumpur, my sis and I went to the market at Pandan Jaya and in Penang, we went to the market at Pulau Tikus. Both places has fantastic foods such as nasi lemak, laksa, char kway teow for breakfast. Just to give you an idea of the energy and excitement of a day and nite markets, here are some photos.

Lok lok stall aka steamboat. Various types of seafood, fishcakes, meat gets dunked in hot boiling broth and served with fresh chilli sauce. Crunchy springrolls are yummy served with sweet chilli sauce. Nasi Kandar/ Nasi Padang. Pick the dishes you want, served with rice. A seller frying radish rice cakes also known as carrot cakes. Some local D24 durians on sale $5 a kilo

Chinese New Year decorations are everywhere at the moment, it can be seen hanging in stalls available for purchases. Sigh, I didn't see any petais! I want sambal petais...and just below...I love you so much Assam Boi drink ;) I am happy just eating these with a cup of black coffee for breaky. But why would you want to when there are so many things to eat? Just love it! Why can't mine turn out like those? Perfection!

 Our breakfast at Pulau Tikus market. Found the love of my life ....chillies ;)

And lastly, I got my apom balik with jagung (sweetcorn), check out this video. A young man, obviously an expert, has been doing this for years.

Another thing I have to tweak and make properly at home.