Postcard from Langkawi

“Where are you going?” asked our taxi driver. We were heading to Penang airport, flying to Langkawi for a short break. It’s a place I’d been reading about and wanting to visit for more than a decade. “Ah, Langka-wee,” the driver said, putting the emphasis firmly on the final syllable and smiling into the rear-view mirror. “My family used to go there when I was small,” he said. After pausing a minute he added, “I think it’s changed a lot”.

Langkawi has a gilded reputation. This group of Malaysian islands in the Strait of Malacca, just south of the Thai border, is a destination of choice for a certain type of elite traveller – well-heeled sun-seekers with a penchant for yachts and exclusive, no-expense-spared resorts, perhaps with a bit of golf thrown in.

But there’s a different side of the island, too, away from the international resorts with their limp caesar salads and boring burgers. We found the food we were looking for in simple roadside restaurants and at the thriving Padang Matsirat night market in the west of the island. Our visit coincided with the start of Ramadan, which gave us a chance to try dishes we might otherwise have missed out on.

One such dish is something called roti john, pictured below. I’ve eaten my fair share of roti, but this variation on the roti theme was light years away from the crisp, flaky flatbreads that easily tear into golden, dunkable shreds.

This version is an entirely different beast: a gloriously messy mash-up of soft baguette with lots of sauces and fillings; it‘s an eggy-bread of dreams. The bread is first fried in scrambled egg until browned, then slathered with mayo and chilli sauce from squeezy bottles, topped with crunchy veg and lettuce and finished a choice of fillings – in this case, spicy chicken or beef. It’s the ultimate gooey, oozy, ‘have-it-your-way’ sandwich. With a bit of judicious Googling, I found out that it’s a much-loved Ramadan iftar dish.

In a piece for the Serious Eats website, Langkawi-based journalist and food writer Alia Ali describes it as a “beloved snack of many Malaysians and Singaporean Malays”. (Her piece also has a recipe if you want to make it for yourself.) No one knows exactly how the name ‘roti john’ came about although there’s no shortage of origin stories. Most, not surprisingly, point to the British influence during or after the colonisation of Malaya.

Apart from roti john, there was plenty on offer from other market vendors too: apom balik (crispy pancakes filled with creamed sweetcorn and peanuts); pulut panggang (glutinous rice parcels wrapped in banana leaves grilled); and, of course, smoky grilled satay. All around us, people were queuing up to get their favourite vendors’ dishes before heading home to break their fast with family and friends after sunset.

On the previous night, which was the first night of Ramadan, a friend recommended a roadside restaurant called Cili Kampung. It specialises in the cooking of the state of Negeri Sembilan, on the southwest coast of the Malaysian peninsula. We’d never have found it otherwise and would have missed out on some brilliant Malay food.

A house signature dish is masak lemak, which has a rich coconut-based sauce stained a sunny yellow from turmeric. The smoked beef version, livened with lemongrass and chillies, was balanced, rich and deeply flavoured. I’m going to try to replicate this at home. We also loved the sweetly spicy, chicken sambal merah in its tomato-based sauce, and a dish of aubergine cooked until soft then scattered with crunchy dried anchovies. The flavours were firmly aimed at the Malaysian palate, the cooking impeccable – and it cost a fraction of what you’d pay for a sad caesar salad: a salutary lesson in the joys and wisdom of ‘eating local’.

Cili Kampung has a branch in Kuala Lumpur, as we learned from a Malay family who’d made a pilgrimage from the capital to this, the original restaurant. Alas, they’d arrived too late in the evening and were turned away. I’m still hoping they eventually found something even half as delicious.