Some of you might have heard about the famous yau char kuai (油炸粿, you tiao) stall outside Chow Yang at PJ SS2, or have even tasted it. Well, passing that super busy stall for the Nth time, I finally tried something from there when Suan’s friend Pinky was in town.
sizzle, sizzle
It was after a heavy lunch that Suan decided to check out the much talked about stall. We squeezed ourselves to the front and tried to order some of the famous yau char kuai. Unfortunately, we had to give up the idea upon hearing that waiting time for yau char kuai is 40 minutes.
However, the owner was making fried glutinous rice with dough thingy (I don’t know the Chinese name), and we could have some in for a mere 5 minute wait. So we thought, why not?
hot, sweet, delicious, and yummy (no pun intended)
We took home 6 pieces of this fried glutinous rice with dough thingy, and boy it was really good. Imagine sweet and slightly sticky glutinous rice wrapped by the slightly salty dough with the texture of good doughnut. I think my explanation failed to do justice to the taste, but Suan, Rachel, and Pinky all love it too.
the stall opens at night, expect long wait
I think I gotta try their yau char kuai next time.
Address:
Jalan SS 2/6
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.116862, 101.617377
One of my main aim going into the Bangkok trip was to taste some of the weird and wonderful foods the land of smile has to offer, something that is very difficult or impossible to get from Malaysia. This of course, would be the infamous deep fried worms, insects, and alike.
for a few ringgit, we got all these wonderful snacks
I was expecting fried insect stalls to be on every street corners. In actual fact, they are not very common. We weren’t able to locate anyone selling this for the first couple days of our stay. It was only on the 3rd night at Bangkok that Terence managed to buy a plastic bag full these weird and wonderful food from the streets near Pantip Mall (the one that is famous for selling Amulets, not the IT mall with the same name). Myself and Dree were overjoyed!
McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries
Inside the goody bag there were worms, crickets, grasshoppers, dragonflies, praying mantis, and of course, those little fried frogs in whole. Not knowing exactly how to start, we first arranged them into McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries combo meal. A couple minutes staring at these creatures, we decided to bite the bullet bugs and go straight to it to get the maximum taste instead.
having a feast!
I attacked the worms first. I don’t know if they were just worms or some insect larvae, but the slightly yellowish exterior sure looked a lot more inviting than the dark brown insects laying next to them. As it turns out, the worms were actually pretty good, slightly crunchy and tastes a lot better than the bee’s pupae I had in Vietnam. They were seasoned with salt and some spices, I believe.
my god, we were so proud of ourselves!
Next in line were all the different types of bugs. It was a bit weird chewing down grasshoppers, crickets, and so forth, but actually they too tasted quite ok, very crunchy and tasted a bit like having deep fried small prawns with shells on. Again, it was a little salty and slightly spicy. The different bugs basically tasted the same except but with slightly different textures, you can make out the long arms of praying mantis and the grasshopper’s legs in your mouth, neat.
naturally we finished the whole serving
The more difficult part of the snack attack session though, were the frogs. Unlike the familiar big fat frogs served in Malaysia, these are tiny frogs the size of fifty sen coins. They come with everything intact except for innards, so you get the whole head, the eyes staring at you, the legs, spines and all.
We threw it into our mouths and start chewing off, amazingly there were actually pretty tasty! Crunchy with slight taste of meat, it goes well with the seasoning and not too salty like the bugs. Once you get over the fact that you have to chew the entire head, it was all good!
Of course, we finished the entire serving and like little kids we just finished their vegetables, we were proud. If you’re going to Thailand, this is a must-have!
