Food, food everywhere or 'heaven for foodies'

Food is a way of life in Malaysia. Small restaurants and food markets jostle for attention among stalls 'hawking' freshly prepared food or drink every twenty feet or so. Each hawker stall specializes in just one or items. There also exists the awesome invention of the hawker center, wherein a bunch of hawkers surround 20 or so tables. Each hawker uses plates and utensils of a specific color so they are easily retrieved when a table leaves. The heat and smoke can be intense, but the bliss of so many options and the refreshingly cold drinks more than make up for any discomfort.

The blizzard of unfamiliar names and mysterious ingredients, compounded by the pressure to order quickly because the queue (a.k.a. the mad crush to be first that defies any attempt at line-making and that occurs every night) immediately backs up, has resulted in a few very tasty accidents and a few that are just accidents best left on the plate.

But the prices, which I previously mentioned are astonishingly low, turn mistakes into no big deal and good choices into belly-ache inducing feasts.

Food stalls tend to fall into the following categories with numerous subcategories:

Mee, which is Chinese noodles, will be offered with or without chicken/pork/seafood, spicy or not. There are also a rich variety of Malay-style noodle dishes with chicken or fish (never pork since this is a Muslim nation), which tend to be less spicy. There are at least 5 different styles of noodles (narrow/flat, thin/round, round/curly, wide/flat, really wide/flat), which is further confused by wheat, rice or soya bean as the main component in the noodle. Noodle dishes can also be served with or without broth. This all translates into about 50 different noodle options!

Nasi, which is Malay for rice, is served with chicken, fish or prawn, with one or another type of sauce. Nasi too has its own variants: steamed white, fried with bits of veg and egg, made with coconut milk, smothered in gravy, even sweetened as a dessert. And of course there are scores of Malay, Indian, Chinese and Thai versions of each.

Roti, a delicious and buttery Indian thin flatbread, can be made savory and paired with dhal (bean-basedstew) and/or meat or veg curry, or sweet with cinnamon sugar on top.

Then there are 'Western' options, which range from pizzas, non-pork sausages and sandwiches, to a wondrous creation that marries chicken pot pie with puff pastry. 

Finally, there are copious single-ingredient options: barbecued chicken parts, meat satay, stir fried green beans, deep fried anything, spring rolls, steamed buns, wan tans, whole fishes, dried fishes, fish's heads...

I could go on, or I could go find lunch...