Food and drinks in Malaysia

Although we had a quite convenient kitchen in our apartment, we literally never used it. I always had my breakfast at one of the food stalls next to our office. My favourite was Roti Canai, the only ‘light’ breakfast that they sold at the stalls. My colleagues on the other hand were eating big bowls of noodles, Tom Yam soup or nasi lemak at 09:30 in the morning! Not my way to start the day… With my breakfast I usually had a coffee. This meant an instant coffee, as the coffee culture in Malaysia is not very extensive (although there is a Starbucks at every street corner), and I had to emphasize every time that I did not want any sugar, or else it would be so sweet that your teeth would decay instantly. Malaysian people love sweet food and drinks. They add sugar to almost everything: juices, coffee, tea, even cheese sandwiches could taste sweet. And if you ask for something without sugar, the waiters are usually very surprised.
For lunch we usually went to the same food stalls and took some food to the office and ate it there, or we went to the very popular ‘five dollar shop’. This Indian place sold set menu’s for five Ringgit. You would choose your rice, one sort of vegetables and one sort of curry. I’ve come to really appreciate the Indian cuisine in my time in Malaysia.
I had dinner with my flatmates usually around 07:30 pm. Most of the time we went to one of two Indian places in Bangsar. The food was cheap and very tasty! One of the places had a buffet where you could get your own food. The waiter would come to your table when you sat down, had a look at what you put on your plate and would than calculate a price based on how big the pile was. The other place was even better. You would sit down and get a banana leaf as a plate. You could order a lot of different dishes which would be served on small plates. A bit like the Spanish tapas. Rice and vegetables were served on the banana leaf, and it was not very common to use cutlery. Indian and Malay people rather used their hands. Or actually, only their right hand. The left hand was used to clean their behinds after going to the toilet. As we are in the food topic, I’ll leave the description of bathroom visits for another paragraph.