Hummus? Options

[ttocs]

Anyone tried hummus? It's mashed chickpeas, blended with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic.

[Esfandiari]

Great topic! Why? Because me, wife and daughter just had 'hummus' for the first time last week at the renowned Arab (Yemeni) restaurant, RESTORAN SABA (Saba Restaurant), in the sprawling nouvelle city of Cyberjaya just outside of Kuala Lumpur and next to its sister city of Putrajaya.

Actually, I didn't really know what hummus looked like before we went to Saba. I didn't know that it was shaped like a crater with a watery hole in the middle! I was imagining 'hummus' to be a dish of chunky beef or mutton. Gee! When it was served to me in a bowl, I thought the restaurant made a mistake! The bowl was white, and so was the edge of the hummus crater, so I could only see the hole in the middle of the crater since the rest of that hummus was camouflaged by the color of the bowl. My wife and daughter had the same vision too! Then the garcon pointed to the thick white hummus edge, so then only I knew it! But it tasted like some mashed saltless peanut. My wife said it was made of mashed pistachios..

Don't know if I would care for hummus again, tasted bland to me!



This post has been edited by Esfandiari: Aug 2 2010, 10:43 AM

[sree]

Actually, I didn't really know what hummus looked like before we went to Saba.

Come on, man. You live in Malaysia and don't know what hummus is? You should visit Kuala Lumpur which is more Middle Eastern than the Middle East. In the Golden Triangle, hummus is more common than nasi lemak.

[Esfandiari]

Come on, man. You live in Malaysia and don't know what hummus is? You should visit Kuala Lumpur which is more Middle Eastern than the Middle East. In the Golden Triangle, hummus is more common than nasi lemak.

You are probably right! KL is probably very Mid East with more Arabs teeming into the city now. I live in Bangi, closer to Putrajaya than to KL, but still only 30 minutes from KL. But I generally avoid KL, especially the Golden Triangle, unless I need to go there. That place is too congested with foreigners, give me the creeps! Hahaha! Still, I love nasi lemak better than hummus. Some Arabic cuisines are OK though with my taste buds.

[sree]

This looks like something that has to be eaten with three fingers of the right hand.

[Esfandiari]

This looks like something that has to be eaten with three fingers of the right hand.

I would rather have a Bic Mac than a bowl of hummus! As for the nasi lemak in the picture above, most of the time (I'd say over 90% of the time) Malaysians use spoon and fork to eat it. This is strange because most Malaysians, particularly the Malay and Indian ones, prefer using their hands when eating rice. Nasi lemak is a rice dish, the word nasi lemak itself means 'fatty rice', but I can say that nasi lemak is the only rice dish in Malaysia that Malaysians feel uncomfortable to eat with their hands or even three fingers. It's always spoon and fork for nasi lemak! But this 'mat salleh' (white) lady in the pic below obviously feels that it's OK to eat nasi lemak with three fingers! Hahaha!!



This post has been edited by Esfandiari: Aug 13 2010, 01:05 PM

[sree]

It's always spoon and fork for nasi lemak! But this 'mat salleh' (white) lady in the pic below obviously feels that it's OK to eat nasi lemak with three fingers! Hahaha!!

Hoi! Esfandari. That's not nasi lemak she is eating. She is eating Indian banana leaf rice and the only way to do that is Indian style: all fingers - mash it in the palm of the hand and plop it in your mouth like a kiling.