Pohpia at Imbi Market, Kuala Lumpur
Imbi Market, formally Pasar Baru Bukit Bintang, is one of Kuala Lumpur's "wet" markets, meaning one that specializes in fresh food. The "wet" idea is clearer when you get there - stalls without walls, selling fresh meat and seafood in tropical conditions, use plenty of water to keep a semblance of cleanliness.
Imbi Market also includes a good selection of prepared food vendors, and Malaysian Chinese come here daily for breakfast (this market is a morning event) by the hundreds, to eat as well as to shop. This ethnically-specific character means a Malay taxi driver may not even know what "Imbi Market" is (yes, this is not a merely hypothetical statement!), although there will be a smattering of Malay and Indian vendors or workers at Imbi Market too, and you can get a decent Nasi Lemak here.
One of the drawcards among the food stalls is the original outpost of "Sister's Pohpia", a vendor which has grown from small beginnings to be a franchise with branches in the slick Suria KLCC mall, among others. You would never know this from the unprepossessing stall at Imbi, where you can watch the RM 2 (about 70c) rolls being assembled and chat with the cook for no extra charge.
These pohpia - fresh spring rolls, if you like - centre on an unlikely mix of turnip strips cooked with garlic and soy. Each fresh pohpia is made by taking a fresh wrapper like a thin wheat crepe, spreading it thinly with sauce and then adding fillings. The Sister's version seems to use a thick sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) and then bean sauce, before adding the turnip and the "crunchy" ingredients - fried shallots, peanuts, cucumber, carrot and fresh bean sprouts. The result is wrapped, and cut - not cooked further.
The favoured accompanying beverage with the locals seems to be Hainan Tea or cham, an unlikely mixture of sweet milky coffee and tea (RM 1.60). It wouldn't work anywhere else, but here it does...
Imbi Market also includes a good selection of prepared food vendors, and Malaysian Chinese come here daily for breakfast (this market is a morning event) by the hundreds, to eat as well as to shop. This ethnically-specific character means a Malay taxi driver may not even know what "Imbi Market" is (yes, this is not a merely hypothetical statement!), although there will be a smattering of Malay and Indian vendors or workers at Imbi Market too, and you can get a decent Nasi Lemak here.
One of the drawcards among the food stalls is the original outpost of "Sister's Pohpia", a vendor which has grown from small beginnings to be a franchise with branches in the slick Suria KLCC mall, among others. You would never know this from the unprepossessing stall at Imbi, where you can watch the RM 2 (about 70c) rolls being assembled and chat with the cook for no extra charge.
These pohpia - fresh spring rolls, if you like - centre on an unlikely mix of turnip strips cooked with garlic and soy. Each fresh pohpia is made by taking a fresh wrapper like a thin wheat crepe, spreading it thinly with sauce and then adding fillings. The Sister's version seems to use a thick sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) and then bean sauce, before adding the turnip and the "crunchy" ingredients - fried shallots, peanuts, cucumber, carrot and fresh bean sprouts. The result is wrapped, and cut - not cooked further.
The favoured accompanying beverage with the locals seems to be Hainan Tea or cham, an unlikely mixture of sweet milky coffee and tea (RM 1.60). It wouldn't work anywhere else, but here it does...
Comments
RM is "Ringgit Malaysia", the currency here - which the locals sometimes call "dollars" when speaking English. The Ringgit Malaysia is about 3 to the US dollar.
I was thinking that "70c" meant something in the US, which I guess it doesn't. It's seventy cents - although I was fudging the question of whose cents, which given the relatively close state of the USD and AUD at the moment I thought I could get away with!