Vegan in Malaysia

Saya hanya makan sayuram.

I traveled to Malaysia for about 10 days in January 2008 for business.

As someone who's been vegan for almost 20 years now, I was a bit concerned about my ability to eat in Malaysia. Overall, it was a stunning success. Yes, I was served a few dishes that I declined to eat after the first bite because I could tell that something wasn't quite right, but I'd say that 95% of the food I was served was vegan on the first try.

As anyone who's traveled in Asia knows, the idea of "vegetarian" food varies greatly by country, region, city, etc. For example, I had an awful time finding vegan food in Japan a few years ago--though I hear it's improved recently, albeit slightly--because there's fish flakes, fish stock, or some animal "flavoring" in almost all the food you find pre-packaged and in restaurants. In Hong Kong, on the other hand, it was very difficult to find pre-made vegan food, but easy to talk a chef/waiter through my dietary requirements.

Eating in Malaysia was made easier by the fact that everyone speaks English. All my carefully memorized and rehearsed vegetarian phrases were only good for a laugh, apparently. :) Also, Malaysia is an intersection of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures and cuisines, with a strong tradition of vegetarian food being eaten by ~20% of the population during certain religious holidays/festivals. There were quite a few Chinese vegetarian-only restaurants available in the cities, and it was very easy to avoid eggs/dairy at these restaurants--despite the fact that my Mandarin and Cantonese are awful at best. I had the most difficulty eating at the (Muslim) Malaysian restaurants.

I thought this group might enjoy seeing a few pictures of vegan food and vegetarian restaurants from my trip. I'll post a few over the next day or so...if there's any interest. :shrug:

Terima Kasih!

I've never been to that part of the world, so I would have no idea how easy/difficult it would be to eat vegan the whole time.

I have enough trouble just traveling to another city in the US, if I'm eating out.

I too would like to see pics. I love Malaysian food. Yummy. :9

yeah, I bet that it can be tough. It seems that fish- be it fish flavoring, broth or any other component seems to be a given.

Thanks for the encouraging words, all. :)

Just to give some context to these photos, I took 5 co-workers to a nice, upscale Chinese restaurant for lunch. We all feasted like we were going into hibernation, and yet the total bill was about $15. And that's with the weak dollar.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my trip:

Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur @ the Traders Hotel buffet:

(Nothing like sloppy, slurpy noodle soup to start the day right!)

Lunch in Kuala Lumpur @ a veggie stall in a mall:

(The stuffed tofu to the lower right was awesome!)
(BTW, Brown rice is NOT easy to find in Asia, but I had good luck at veggie places.)

Dinner in Ipoh @ a Chinese veggie restaurant:

(That's vegan Curry Mutton on the right--yeah, you heard me, vegan freakin' MUTTON!)
?

Lunch in Ipoh @ a veggie stall in a mall:

(Yes, that's more curry mutton on the left. The fried okra was fantastic, too.)

(So many choices!)

(These ladies were great, and they recommended some kick-ass food from the menu.)

Amazing fresh fruit with almost every meal:

(The purple thing with black seeds is some sort of cactus fruit.)

Chinese sweet peanut soup:


There are a few more @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/23212645@N06/sets/72157604488563137/
More coming soon--once I find my other memory card. :)

Enjoy!

Dang, but that looks really, really good.

Thanks for posting! Looking forward to the next batch.

they all look like such yummy meals. I am going to have to check for some recipes on these, particularly the sweet peanut soup, as I am a big soup fan.

Thanks so much for posting them and for the heads up PM! :)

what camera did you use?
keep this stuff coming!

enjoyed....

I did get a lot of laughs from Malaysians for my habit of photographic everything I ate. :)

My camera for this trip was a cheap (~$100) Sony Cybershot DSC-700. Nice little traveling camera.