De Vietnamien for Grandma's Birthday

De Vietnamien
http://www.devietnamien.com.au/

Congratulations to me! I've finally plowed through all my overseas posts and can get back to Brisbane. In truth I haven't had too many opportunities to dine out at new restaurants in Brisbane since my return... but luckily, this is a big post.

I heard about De Vietnamien through the Twitter grapvine. It looked familiar and I realized this is because I drive past it to get to my parents house from Brisbane city. There's rarely anything to write home about from the Eastern suburbs of Brisbane so I was instantly drawn to it.

Kuala Lumpur 5 - Du Viet

Du Viet
http://www.duviet.com.my/

Say hello to my last Kuala Lumpur post, also the final entry from my recent overseas fling. We found Du Viet at the top floor of Suria, KLCC (aka my KL second home). I suspect that the craving for Vietnamese food originated from an excess of curry the day before (from Spice of India and Old China Cafe).

As a generalization, Vietnamese cuisine tends to be lighter and projects the illusion of healthiness. Whether it actually is healthy or not would depend on what you order. I find that I rarely hold back when I'm eating out :).

Kuala Lumpur 4 - Spice of India

Spice of India
http://www.spiceofindia.com.my/

Indian cuisine features heavily throughout Singapore and Malaysia. We didn't get a chance to try some Indian food in Singapore but I ADORE the stuff so by the time we got to Kuala Lumpur, it featured heavily on my to-do list.

We went to Spice of India, located at the top level of Suria. It's a chain restaurant though, so there are several others scattered around the city.

Kuala Lumpur 3 - Old China Cafe

Old China Cafe
www.oldchina.com.my/

While we were still on the Intrepid tour through Borneo, we started picking everyone's brains about what we should do in KL. Our tour guide recommended this restaurant. She said that she used to take her tour groups there to eat and one day, found it was more popular than usual and learnt that it had been featured in the Lonely Planet guide.

We set off to find it late one night with the aid of Google and a tourist map. I'm still amazed that we didn't get lost or give up (on the trip we learnt that we fail at maps).

Kuala Lumpur 2 - La Bodega

La Bodega
http://www.bodega.com.my/labodega/

The first of my KL restaurant posts feature La Bodega, a tapas restaurant near The Pavilion in Bukit Bintang.  We walked around for AGES before deciding 'what the heck, let's just chose something' and walked into this place. I recall the criteria at the time being something along the lines of 'I'm not sure what I feel like eating but if I see it I'll know' and 'they better serve drinks'.

We picked a nice outdoor table and started off by poring over the drinks menu. It didn't take very long to make a decision. Spanish restaurant. Sangria. Simple. We ordered a jug to start with.

Kuala Lumpur 1 - Misc Fast Food and Street Food

Random eating around KL

That last portion of my holiday was spent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We stayed in Traders Hotel, right opposite the Petronas Towers. On our first walk exploring the city, we found ourselves at Suria, the giant shopping complex at the foot of the Towers. Over the next few days, this quickly developed into my go-to spot for shopping and food.

I've separated the eating in KL into 'misc' (which is what you're reading now) and individual posts specific to restaurants that we went to. Marc and I got into a bit of a time lapse once we reached KL (because we weren't forced to be up at the same times as we were on tour). I wake up very early and he... doesn't. As a result, I spent a number of lunches/mornings wandering solo through the shopping centre, picking up small treats and spending a lot of money.

This post will cover some of the things I tasted, as well as a couple of meals we had at streetside eateries late at night.

Borneo 4 - DURIAN

My first (and perhaps only) taste of durian

Durian gets its own post because... durian blew my mind.

The backstory to this is that before we embarked on our holiday, Marc and I were traversing the internet for things we should do while away and I think it was he who brought up the topic of durian. Durian is available in Australia so it's hardly a holiday-specific thing to do. I had never given it much thought in the past aside from "oh, it's that prickly thing that stinks" and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how many people think of it.

Borneo 3 - Rural

Traditional Borneo chow eaten throughout our Sabah Tour

This post will concern itself with the food I had during the Intrepid tour I went on through Sabah. The tour was called Sabah Adventure and got fully booked fairy far in advance... for good reason: because it was awesome! I'll run through what we did/saw/ate chronologically and share some non-food related feedback and photos too. I hope you enjoy the read.

Borneo 2 - Gayana Eco Resort

Gayana Eco Resort
http://www.gayana-eco-resort.com

This post will almost sound like an advertisement for Gayana Eco Resort because it's all about the food we ate there, but I assure you I'm not being paid to write any of this. To be fair, I was there for 2 nights and it is an island so I was limited in my food options. We could hardly kayak off to the mainland for a meal (although we would have tried if we were allowed to, and would have probably died in the attempt).

Borneo 1 - Urban

The Cities of Sabah



The 2nd leg of my recent overseas stint involved a tour through the Sabah region of Borneo. I learnt something while I was away. Borneo is divided into 3 areas: the portion owned by Indonesia, the portion owned by Malaysia and the part that's Brunei. The Malaysian part of Borneo has 2 states: Sabah and Sarawak.

Marc and I flew from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu, which is the capital city of Sabah. We spent a night there before heading to Gayana Eco Resort, which is an island retreat off the mainland, before returning to start the Intrepid tour.

I didn't really know how to categorize the food I tried on my journeys since they weren't really at proper/famous restaurants so I thought I'd roughly segregate the experience as urban/rural with a separate post for what we ate at Gayana. To be fair, there isn't a huge distinction between the food we had in the cities vs the food we had in 'rural Borneo' (quotations because I'm not even sure what I'm defining as rural; I guess, just 'not city').