Hi there,
Selamat Hari Malaysia! (ok I’m a day late on this one…)
We Malaysians are a lucky bunch, surrounded by fantastic food. However…. lots of the good stuff ain’t vegetarian. Even if the dish looks mostly vegetarian, there may be a prawn or two, hanging around. Or a piece of fishcake. Or some ikan bilis (anchovies) thrown in the mix.
There’s also piring kacang (nut cracker), which looks like a yummy, crunchy snack, but it almost always has ikan bills stuck on top. Previously, I’ve only eaten homemade versions of the thing. Ok, let me re-state that. Until a few weeks ago, I’d only eaten it once, at my friend’s friend’s house in Penang.
However…. something great happened recently. My darling aunt went to Melaka, and bought us all vegetarian piring kacang! She said she got it from a huge shop on Jonker Street, but unfortunately couldn’t remember the name (she said the shop’s huge, and you can’t miss it…. but since I don’t know Jonker Street well….)
I tell you those piring kacang things….were absolutely delicious. I tried to photograph them to put pics on the blog, but my food photography skills need work (and here I am, a food blogger!). My pics did not do them justice. And every time I tried to “pose” the piring kacang on a plate, I’d keep eating them almost immediately. It was like, oh that pic isn’t good, let me try again, no wait, let me eat the one on the plate and get another one from the bottle…..you get the idea.
Anyway, I do have a picture of the bottle: it’s called Kak Noi Piring Kacang:
If you know where I can get them in KL or PJ, please let me know, I’d really, really appreciate it – just drop a comment or email me at info@thevegetarianwriter.com. And I’m pretty sure my colleagues at work would appreciate it too, when I share the goodies with them. And I’ll post the info on this blog too…
I have to say though, these Kak Noi piring kacang are smaller than most of what I’ve seen in shops. But very sedap.
Cheers,
The Vegetarian Writer