Native Food

I remember when I was younger (a.k.a. a few years ago, back in high school), I had this immensive dislike for Chinese food because I was often forced to eat my share of white rice, the same sort of wet, drippy cooking that my mom liked to put together every single weekday. What made my dislike of it even greater was of my culturally-ignorant non-Asian peers who would try to convince me that I was missing out on their favorite oriental dishes: white rice, orange chicken, and teriyaki sauce.

I remember there was this one time when I worked in the legal department at Maxim Integrated Products as an intern, the other intern I worked with was absolutely bewildered at my dislike of Chinese food. Again, she, like my high school peers who only knew the world of P.F. Chang's, Mr. Chau's, and Panda Express, said how she enjoyed white (or fried) rice, orange or teriyaki chicken, and California rolls. When the entire department, her, and I went to grab dim sum, she immediately cringed and grew suspicious of all the Chinese food before her. She predictably poked at her Ha Gao with her obvious choice of a fork utensil, and wonder if the shrimp inside was edible. She then asked me if any of this food was safe to eat, and mentally I roll my eyes at every single fear she had about chicken feet, pork buns, egg tarts, and tofu deserts. Thank you for trying to correct my dislike of Chinese food when pork buns seem unsafe to eat.

However, the people who found my initial dislike of Chinese food to be strange had a point. Usually, people from different nationalities prefer their own culture's food more than other ethnic foods. And because I am Chinese, it seemed odd that I disliked my own ethnic food.

But ever since I was young, I actually did prefer my own culture's food over others. Even to this day, my favorite food to have is Malaysian. My whole family is from Malaysia and a lot of the dishes my mom put together when dinner wasn't involved, had Malaysian influences, and those were my favorite dishes of hers at that time. I really enjoyed the variety of sauces and curry and meats that Malay foods had to offer that foods from other cultures didn't have. Of course, because of the Indian and Thai influences, it's no surprise that I liked Indian and Thai food as well despite how spicy they are (but it makes the meal all the more fun to have).

The reason why I brought this up was because this last weekend, my parents and I went to a Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant that has been around since I remembered moving to Milpitas. Banana Leaf has always been my first or second favorite restaurant (Nyo Nya was my first for a while, but its owner lost Nyo Nya due to his gambling habits) and since I haven't eaten there in years, the food brought back many memories of me from early grade school when I could have all the Roti Canai and Beef/Chicken satay sticks that I could want.

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Another thing that I didn't like as a kid but I really love now is the appetizer dish called the Nasi Lemak where a bowl of coconut rice is served with one whole cold hard-boiled egg that's already been diced, a handful of peanuts, and beef w/ curry. It's the best thing in the world. Over dinner, my dad told me that this was the typical breakfast food he had in Malaysia when he was growing up there. His mom would make this for him and he would mix all of the parts together which made the dish end up resembling fried rice, only messier, and not really fried. He would have this every day and I told him if I had this every day, I'd be the happiest camper ever.

The last dish was sort of our main entree along with this other dish that my mom ordered that tasted pretty oily. This one though was the typically good plate of noodles that Malay chefs would drown in sodium, soy sauce, and all that good fattening stuff. Chow Kueh Teow is the dish that my parents have to order every time we go to a Malaysian restaurant along with the Nasi Lemak, the Roti Canai, and the Beef/Chicken Satay.

And lastly, I used to love this stuff as a kid, but my newfound love for Nasi Lemak sort of replaced this. I had this every day for breakfast when I was in Malaysia last summer for 2 weeks. In my opinion, it was better than any Denny's or dining hall breakfast that I had in America but it obviously goes with my preference for my own country's food rather than 'foreign food' (aka that country across the Pacific Ocean). The Hainan Chicken Rice at Banana Leaf is the closest I've ever gotten to my homeland's chicken rice. It falls short by a mile compared to the ones they make in rural parts of Malaysia because the soy sauce in Malaysia has a mix of salty and sweet textures in their soy sauce that I didn't think was possibly good until I tried it.

And I don't consider it real chicken rice if the it tastes like faint chicken and white. It's got to be yellow. White and chicken-tasting doesn't cut it.

Image credits: softrice.wordpress.com, flickr, hungerhunger.blogspot.com, feedmelah.com, newasiancuisne.wordpress.com