Malaysia is a country where many different races live in harmony. Geographically, Malaysia is divided into two parts: East Malaysia and West Malaysia. Since West Malaysia is a peninsula, it borders Thailand to the north and Singapore to the south.
And, East Malaysia belongs to the island of Borneo and has a very long border to the east and west with Indonesia, which is called Kalimantan. Also, the Kingdom of Brunei is sandwiched between the states of Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia. So, it is undeniable that Malaysia is a country where you can taste various delicious and colorful dishes of Southeast Asia.
In particular, as it is in contact with Southern Thailand, many Muslim Thais also live in Malaysia. Although Thailand is a religiously Buddhist country, most people from the Southern Thai provinces bordering Malaysia have largely Muslim religion in their background, so the famous variety of Thai food has to be mainly halal food.
Personally, a Thai colleague in the company I work for is also a Muslim Thai from Southern province in Thailand, so it’s not difficult to see a Muslim Thai.
There are a lot of big and small restaurants in Malaysia that serve Thai food. For example, Thai food sold at night markets or street food can be easily enjoyed by anyone without worrying about the price.
Also, mid-rage price Thai food is available in many large shopping malls, pubs and bars, high-end restaurants, and in-house hotel restaurants.
In my case, I always prefer buying delicious and cheap Thai food at local markets since I have lived in Malaysia for nearly 11 years. Before the Covid-19, I enjoyed visiting the night market by visiting different areas on different days of the week.
The thing is that I don’t go to night markets as much as I used to after the Covid crisis. The main reason is that the frequency of the night market has decreased. Or I went to the night market according to the original schedule, however, there is a chance that there will be no night market that day.
Fortunately, we are now in the stage of getting a Covid vaccine booster. So, the Malaysian government has also showed efforts to revive the economy from around the end of 2021, in particular, to enable the economic activities of many locals and foreign workers in various food industries.
Currently, most restaurants in all food industries are open until 10pm. Customers can also sit and eat at the restaurant or have food delivered through the food delivery app.
Most popular Indian Mamak Restaurant is open until 10 pm or midnight, depending on the restaurant. All restaurants in the shopping mall are closed as of 10 pm when the shopping mall closes.
And now, various night markets, which are held in different areas and on different days of the week, are also being revived back to their schedule, and they are usually open from as early as 4 pm and close around 10 pm.
So in today’s blog, I’m going to talk about my favorite Thai street food. Every time I go to a Malaysian night market, Thai food is one of the cheapest and delicious food I often buy.
Halal Thai food prepared by Muslim Thais is readily available in Malaysia and is a commonly consumed food among Malays today. In terms of price, Thai food is quite affordable, so locals can get it just as easily as Indian mamak food at Malaysia mamak restaurant without making a big hole in their pocket.
As mentioned above, Halal Thai food is very popular among the locals. Therefore, it is not difficult to see Halal Thai food fairs, food festivals, and events held here and there in Kuala Lumpur.
Personally, when I went to a Malaysian night market, I had to eat the spicy and delicious papaya salad (som tam) among Thai food.
The papaya salad sold here is also equally delicious because I know that it is not very different from the taste of som tam I bought at night or morning markets while traveling in Thailand.
I’ve recently been to a fairly large Thai food festival(MATHAF), starting around the end of December 2021 and running for about ten days until the beginning of January 2022.
This festival literally consisted of about 20 types of Thai halal food enjoyed by Thai Muslims in South Thailand, and there seemed to be more than 40 booths, including street vendors selling similar items and types.
I stumbled upon this festival by chance in a district called Kota Damansara in Petaling Jaya, where I live. Actually, I go to Starbucks on the weekends in a rather uncrowded mall called Strand Mall, which is about a 20-minute walk from my house. I go there because I can write my travel and food blog in a quiet atmosphere while sipping coffee.
At that time, I happened to see the entrance and alley in front of the shopping mall, which were very crowded with exceptionally many people, and I was very curious as to what was going on. So I went to the entrance with a barricade with loud music and found out that a Thai food festival was being held.
I remember that day as the third day of the event. So after that, I went twice without any special plans during the ten-day period of the Thai food event. It was already past lunchtime when I went. But it was a weekend, so it was very crowded with many locals. In each booth, colorful banners showed the prices of their signature foods and photos of various foods they were selling.
There were still a lot of foods full of Thai flavor, but there are quite a few dishes that are already adapted to the local malay style foods you see here at night markets.
So, I think local Malaysians will not be afraid of the taste and flavors of Thai food at the festival.
After scanning the body temperature and the Corona 19 vaccine tracking app in front of the festival barricade, the first thing I noticed as soon as I entered the venue was the beverage corner on the left.
The bottle of about six flavors, which is so huge that even if you hold it with both arms, you can’t even put your hands together, it rotates slowly in one direction without stopping.
In my opinion, no matter how much the color and taste of tropical fruits were applied to the color of the drink, the color was so vivid that it looked fake.
So, I honestly think that the drinks must have had some edible chemical coloring to their taste and smell.
There is also a green sugarcane drink derived from natural tropical sugarcane. However, unlike the very dark green I drank when I traveled to South America such as Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia a long time ago, it was a light green that looked like it had been diluted with water.
Also, after passing the drink section, you can find the fried squid and shrimp, which are commonly found here, coated in wheat flour and deep-fried. You can also see mini donuts coated with local palm sugar.
There are also several Thai-style mixed rice with juicy chicken corners. There is also a booth selling Thai-style very sweet pancakes.
It can be seen as a Thai-style crepe that looks very sweet with chocolate spread like Nutella and sweet corn syrup topped with chopped banana.
I especially stopped by the papaya salad section, which is one of my very favorite Thai dishes. But the problem is that many locals love papaya salad as much as I do, so there were too many people to buy som tam, so the line was really long.
Instead, I stood at a distance by the long line. And I couldn’t take my eyes off the seller’s quick hand movements making the spicy and refreshing papaya salad.
What I liked so much just looking at it was that the ingredients for Som tam were fresh shrimp, squid, jellyfish, etc. And next to it are stacks of very large green young papaya fruits, lemons, tomatoes and cilantros etc that are on display as if to suggest to people how fresh papaya salad is.
Looking at the papayas already shredded in a large colander, I sighed for a moment at my own impatience that I decided not to eat today because of the long line.
Anyway, it is true that it is by no means easy to choose only two or three items from among the many diverse and delicious foods at a food festival. In this Thai halal food event, I will list various foods that look delicious besides papaya salad (som tam).
First, beef, chicken, and lamb are marinated in Thai-style sweet and spicy sauce and roasted in a wide pan, and the smell attracts people. The hot plate was filled with sizzling noises, the gravy of the meat, and the delicious-smelling smoke.
There is also a deep-fried very small crab coated with various spices, which is a must-see at a local night market in Thailand.
Visually, you can feel how crispy the muted sound is. There are sweet and spicy flavors, and they are sold in stacks of sausages on skewers in the same booth.
There are also quite a few booths selling whole squid coated in crispy Thai tempura, fried chicken and vegetables, strong fish and prawn flavoured chips, various oden like local fish cakes.
In particular, when I saw fried squid, I remember eating dried squid as a snack in Korea without frying it. I especially remember eating squid and peanuts with beer when I was in college. And I was a little surprised to see the booth selling Korean-style hot dogs.
And a must-try in Thai food is a meat soup with a deep soy sauce flavor, which is made by boiling beef bones for a long time. The flesh attached to the thick bones of the meat is not very tender.
However, the soup tastes so good that you can eat it with rice noodles or just the soup alone. It is also very popular with locals because of its low price and high nutritional value.
And the Thai-style laksa noodles are a must try. The sardine fish is boiled for a long time and the sour taste is added from lemon and tamarind.
Then, add the short, transparent laksa noodles to the laksa, and eat it with a variety of fresh Thai vegetables as a garnish.
Also, Thai yellow mango called waterlily, and glutinous rice which are commonly seen as Thai desserts, are available in most Thai restaurants. Here too, there are a lot of yellow mangoes piled up in one booth, so I fell in love with the scent of mango just by looking at it.
And ripe, bright yellow mangoes are already peeled and cut into bite-size pieces and placed in a plastic container. Glutinous rice is placed on one side of the same container. In fact, the mango is usually very sweet, but the coconut cream mixed with sweet condensed milk comes in a separate bag to pour over the mango and glutinous rice for those who prefer a sweeter taste,.
The good thing is that if you live or travel in Malaysia, you can easily find Thai halal food here. And Thai food festivals can often be seen in shopping malls and streets.
Or, stop by the local night market where you are staying and don’t miss the opportunity to try Thai Halal Muslim food that mixes with Malaysian food but still has a unique Thai flavor, aroma, and color.
Also, check out the YouTube videos of Thai restaurants, Thai food festivals, and night markets that I have been to in Malaysia. ????
????? ?? ?? ????? ?? ?? All you can eat Korean bbq Kuala Lumpur Arabic food arabic food restaurant Malaysia Char siu cheap and delicious indonesian food cheap and delicious local food in Malaysia cheap and delicious local indian food in Malaysia Cheap indian food Cheap Korean bbq buffet cheap street food malaysia chia seed recipe chickpea recipe chickpeas chinese street food dosa and chutney gluten free recipe healthy chia seed biscuit recipe indian food malaysia Indian mamak food indonesian food korean bbq buffet malaysia Korean desserts korean food malaysia Malaysia's must try local food Malaysian Chinese food malaysian local food mamak indian food mamak restaurant in Kuala Lumpur Muslim halal food must try malaysian food no butter recipe red bean recipe red beans red bean spaghetti restaurant review Sichuan food street food in Malaysia Street Food Malaysia Tteok recipe Yemeni cuisine Yemeni food yemeni malawah bread Yemeni restaurant Malaysia
- December 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- March 2023
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020