About to land in Amsterdam in a China Southern Airplane. The food experience in Malaysia was not remarkably exotic. Expectations were high and the quest to find stuff that ‘lives up to the expectation’ seems to lower significantly a sense of satisfaction. Did you ever decide to be ‘done’ with exotic food tourism? We did. Just now. During this trip. Not in the least because our exotic country’s food exploration had to do more with trying novelties than with experiencing new authentic flavors, exciting consistencies and unknown ingredients. In Kuala Lumpur I had Nitrogen ice cream. 

My self made airplane meal is topped with herbal medicinal jelly, a Chinese thing similar to grass jelly. Gras jelly you might have gotten to know through the new BoBa hype. The Bubble Teas can be enriched with cubed grass jelly. Grass jelly to my pleasant surprise is a genuinely plant based gelatin. I combine it with pickles and fresh fruit. The Chinese medicinal jelly unfortunately is not a succes. It’s very medicinal. Imagine tea tree oil flavored Jell-O with black colorant.

I stomach a little bit but decide to discard most if it from the food container I brought with me in the plane. It leaves me with mini banana and Snake skin fruit mixed with pickled radishes and spicy pickled un-named pear shaped items. I add China Southern breakfast portions of fresh honey melon and dragon fruit which are distributed to me without asking for it by one of the very friendly Chinese stewardesses. My eclectic breakfast gets topped up with crumbled deep fried Japanese nori snack. To my surprise I enjoy the weird combination of textures and tastes. It certainly isn’t softly pleasing the taste buds but it answers a craving; excitedly experiencing unusual and unheard-of-food-things.

Beautiful Cincau/Cendol

The myriad versions of Cendol (in Bahasar) and Cincau (Chinese name) I was so lucky to have during our week in Malaysia, have satisfied my quest for new things. I much prefer cubed frozen durian paste with corn from a can, red beans, shiny green agar agar ‘worms’ and grass jelly on top of shaved ice inundated with coconut milk and Melaka palm sugar syrup, over the latest ‘no sugar’ frozen yoghurt concept topped with nutella, lotus cookies and popping mango pearls. 

For the rest of it we let the exotic food corners in my Dutch supermarkets lure us back into memories of holiday destinations.