The next few posts are dedicated to the very lively, popular, and wonderfully diverse night market (Pasar Malam) at SS2, Petaling Jaya – one of the largest in the area. The market sells various types of goods (clothes, toys, electronics, etc.) but the main reason to come is the street food.
Monday night is market night ! We were there early-ish and the parking area was filling up quickly. There were hundreds of stalls just setting up when we arrived.
We have never heard of this market, let alone finding it which lies just outside Kuala Lumpur. So thanks to our local friend J who drove us to SS2 and showed us the place.
Petaling Jaya (known locally as PJ) was a satellite town set up in the 50’s to deal with the overpopulation of Kuala Lumpur. It was granted its city status in 2006. SS2 is one of its districts.
The Chinese word means “explode” – it comes in cheese or wasabi flavor.
Deep-dried jackfruit – we had some – nothing special – I (Chris) don’t see the point of deep-frying it.
J bought us some otak-otak. We have no idea what is sandwiched between the two blades of leaves.
It was toasted on a strip of hot metal. The inside is mystery meat – similar to the material used to make fish ball. An interesting way (and certainly ecologically-conscious) to cook and serve food.
This contraption is (I believe) for making salt-baked chicken. Please insert a comment if I got this wrong.
Salt-baked chicken (I think) looked delish … but since we were going to have a sit-down dinner at the open-air food court, we were deterred from trying this out.
At the open-air market and food court, there were more Chinese food here than Malay or Indian dishes. Wikipedia says the demographic of PJ is more than 50% Chinese.
Other than cooked food, there were many fruit and vegetable stands.
As much as the food was not covered, nobody seems to be worried about hygiene or spoilage due to weather – there were no flies – this is partly because the food was freshly made and sold immediately.
We saw many cake stands too – on the left is vanilla milky cranberry cake, yam cake in the middle and green tea-red bean cake on the right.
More street food stands to come in the next post. Click here to see our post of a market on the other side of the world, in Vienna, Austria.