Recently, LA Times’ CounterIntelligence column ran a great review on this hidden gem of a restaurant in Redondo Beach, CA. My wife and I, along with two other couples paid them a visit last night, and oh, man, I am still raving about its delicacy!

This is one fine restaurant. The service was very fast! Well, it was a rainy Saturday night and the restaurant was not filled up so that might have helped.

We ordered seven dishes to share among ourselves:

• Wat Tan Hor (Fried flat, white rice noolde, covered with a rich egg based sauce with seafood).
• Belacan Crab (Fresh crab deep fried to perfection and then stir fried with belacan - a shrimp paste).
• Fish Head Curry (Fresh fish head cooked in curry powder, spices, chillies and cooconut milk.
• Datin’s Beef Rendang (Fresh beef cutlets marinated and cooked in a rich, dry curry paste)
• Ampang Yong Tau Foo (Stuff bean curd, egg plant and peppers coooked in claypot)
• Belacan Kangkong (Fresh water spinach vegetable stir fried in a light belacan shrimp paste sauche)
• Malaysian Curry Chicken (Moist morsels of chicken meat, slow cooked in a rich coconut milk based curry sauce.

We had steamed white rice to go with the sumptuous dishes.

When the first dish arrived, the Wat Tan Hor. I was surprised at the smaller serving than usual. There was enough only for about a couple of spoonfuls each for the six of us, but the authentic taste more than made up for the smaller serving. We needed to save room for the other dishes as well! The noodle was soft and crisp, fried to just the right consistency, and the sauce was very smooth; the egg white was not overcooked and blended in with the sauce without being lumpy or hard. It was perfectly done. There were ample servings of juicy shrimps and the bok choy was crispy and fresh. Since leaving Malaysia almost 25 years ago, I have never tasted such authentic fare until now! If I had to leave at this moment I was already satisfied, but what was to come was more of the same! It was really good!

Each of other dishes were relatively smaller in serving sizes than your regular Asian restaurant, except for the Fish Head Curry, and Belacan Crab. The Fish Head Curry was served in a good sized claypot filled with huge morsels of fish, egg plant, aubergine, green bean, bell peppers and onions cooked in perfection in a luxuriant coconut curry with just the right blend of spices. The taste was delicate — not too spicy, with a hint of sweetness from the coconut base and the fragrance of tamarind. My family were out at another famous Malaysian haunt, the Penang in West Covina and their Fish Head Curry was memorable, but this was a cut above. Highly recommended.

The Belacan Crab was deep fried and then stir fried with belacan, fragrantly enhanced by a noticable portion of roasted dried shrimps, providing a really exotic taste to the tender crab meat. Each bite was as juicy, and tender as the next. The crab was meaty and the meat was cooked to the right consistency. Delicious!

Although the Ampang Yong Tau Foo was not particularly outstanding, the serving size was reasonable for the six of us, and the ingredients tasted fresh. Each piece of yong tau foo (stuffed bean curd) was lightly seared and the stuffed eggplant and peppers were juicy and crisp, while the fish paste was moist and tender. The sauce for the Yong Tau Foo was just right too, making the entire dish well balanced and satisfying.

The Belacan KangKong was classic - when the dish was brought out, the color of the vegetable showed that it was cooked just right, leaving the leaf fresh and the stem crunchy. The vegetable was stir fried, and tossed in a light belacan sauce, garnished with crisp cut red chiles on top. It was simply yummmm!

The Beef Rendang was simply sensational! The pieces of beef was tenderized with a blend of the rich spices and the dry curry paste with firm chunky pieces of potatoes were well blended together just like what you’d expect at a Kampung makan feast back home. The beef rendang simply melts in your mouth and the only complaint I have is that the serving size was a tad on the small side.

The Malaysian Curry Chicken tasted as if it was served by the hawker stalls back at Medan Selara in Petaling Jaya! Heavenly!

I had a glass of the teh tarik. While the tea may have looked a little darker than the tea you get from the Mamak stall next to the KL Hilton, the taste sends your senses right back to the roadside extravaganza! I simply loved it!

For desert, we had the Ice Kacang and the Cendol. The Ice Kacang looked and tasted like any you would get from the side stalls of any Malaysian marketplace or hawker center. The Cendol was a disappointment, but by then we did not mind it a bit.

To finish, the restaurant brought out complimentary bowls of Bobo Cha Cha which was served hot, but the taste again! It was sensationally close to the original that you could get in Malaysia.

Having lived in Malaysia the first twenty years of my live, I haven’t been able to get such authentic fare any where else, and I have been eating all over the world - both coasts of Australia, Hong Kong, both coasts of the US, and after twenty-odd years of being away from Malaysia, this is the first time I have tasted food from a restaurant that I can truly say is authentic Malaysian. Yet, as I said, it was not overpoweringly spicy. Before we left, each of the three couples at our table made a pact among ourselves to return, together, as well as with our individual families/friends. I would highly recommend anyone who wishes to try the blends of Malay, Indian and Chinese cuisine for which Malaysia is so notable.

So if you guys are in the SoCal area, you must get out there soon. If you are not in the SoCal area, well perhaps you can put it down to a must-visit when you next come over to LA-LA-LAND. The ocean is only a mile or two from that location.

Here is the Address:
Belacan Grill
2701 190th Street
Redondo Beach
Tel: 310 370 1831

P.S. I may only have one or two other regular readers in the LA area, otherwise, we could organize a …in the outer… blog culinary experience, what say you folks?

Failing that, perhaps you can tell me what your favorite eating out place is…

I am currently in a grad program in philosophy at a the California State University, Long Beach. The other day, in one of my classes, a student, who is Cherokee, presented a paper in which in part he questioned the legitimacy of Western tradition of speciocentricity - the view that the human species is a higher form of life than any other animal and life forms. It was interesting, and while a few members of the class appreciated his call for tolerance and open-mindedness, the professor challenged us to think about the possibility of rationality in animals. According to the professor one measure of logical thinking and rational activity is playing chess, and challenged us to find an analogous mode of activity in any other animal species. While a few tried to suggest that there might be conceivable and possible analogous activities in the non-human animal kingdom, the professor doubted the plausibility of such analogies. Then, a member of the class, a retired man who has had quite a bit of learning and life experience, inpatiently disputed such "nonsense" by suggesting that if we were to maintain that "mere" animals are equal to us or even analogous to us in their mental capacity and rationality, then we are discounting the hundreds and thousands of years of collective cultural, literary and intelectual wisdom that human beings have accumulated which shows that clearly we are of a "higher intelligence" to "mere animals." He was angry and it showed, and it appeared to me that it could easily lead to an "Artest-esque confrontation." (Sorry, couldn’t refrain myself!)

This post is not really about the pros and cons of thought or conceptual life in animals, interesting though it might be. It is really about the reaction of this gentleman to the call for open mindedness, possibility and tolerance. For usually it is a "liberal" person who often calls for such tolerance. Usually it is the more "conservative" among us who resists tolerance and open mindedness. (I am using those two terms "loosely" but given the current climate in our society and especially in blogosphere, I realize that those two terms are severely loaded and controversial. So be it, let’s just go on…).

Conservatives sometimes shirk back from open mindedness because they prefer the status quo, they respect years of rich heritage and culture and bow to the traditions of the fathers, while liberals sometimes emphasize the need to be open-minded and consider other points of views. However, sometimes conservatives accuse liberals of being open-minded for the sake of open-mindedness, and liberals on the other hand accuse conservatives of being rigid and unwilling to change, preventing progress and development.

And that was what happened in my class. One group was encouraging the rest to be tolerant to other viewpoints, while the other was accusing the first group of debunking the years of collective human wisdom. It also reminds me of my earlier experience as a Christian fundamentalist.

I remember in my teenaged years, being aware of the fact that some of our friends were looking on bemusedly as we Christian boys (I went to an all-boys school) sat around debating, sometimes heatedly, about pre-trib, pre-mil, baptism (water, sprinkling), the Holy Spirit, tongues, and a host of all sorts of other doctrinal issues.

It never occured to us that our energy and passion might had better be saved to rally together, pray and work together to bring our friends to a better understanding of who their Creator is. We love this thing called doctrinal purity, probably ingrained in us by our own pastors, Sunday School or Bible Class teachers, and elders.

In fact, the church I went to as a young fella had a ranking system. Our church were supposedly closest to the Bible, in terms of "New Testament practices" especially the "rules" (or traditions) laid out in 1 Corinthians about church polity. Then other churches were ranked according to whether or not they accepted certain doctrinal priorities.

As I grew up, I often got tired of this insistence on doctrinal purity and on theological correctness. I find this to be the case among some of the churches and church leaders that I know. It seems that people were willing to sacrifice relationships just so that they can be "right." It seems so important to them that they are "right."

I was thinking of this while blog-surfing the past few days, and reading some heatinged exchanges that occur between people of opposing viewpoints. Usually these viewpoints have to do with politics, but sometimes ethical and moral issues also bring up the ire in people. For instance, the gay marriage issue has been a thorn in the side of the Church for a while now. I wonder why it is that Christians seem to appear to be some of the most disagreeable folk in the world.

Yet of course Christians are not alone in this. Recently I also observed a similar disquiet happen in an on-line forum. Someone, who is known to be a Christian, posted something about the ACLU and quoted from a source. Someone else in the group, who is not a Christian, responded by suggesting that the posted had an ulterior motive, although the original poster did not make any other remark. Names started to fly as the second poster decided that the first poster was trying to subvert the "open minded" discussion by offering a religious or ultra right-wing bent on the issues at hand. It got nasty rather quickly. This time, the supposedly "open minded" liberal was the culprit who quickly shut the "conservative" before a level headed discussion could take place. So, I supposed, the problem there was a perceived threat to a personal belief that led to heightened passions and emotional outbursts. Perhaps it is just because we all have this dire need to be right, or at least to be seen as being right.

I just popped over to Challies.com, and found Tim vexing over the issue of negative feedback he had been getting at his site due to readers’ disagreement with his views. Tim asked:

Is apologetics inherently negative? I doubt God would say so. There may be a negative aspect to apologetics, simply because to defend is to assume that there is something to defend against, but the practice in itself is not negative. On the contrary, apologetics should help people grow in their faith as they are warned against succumbing to Satan’s infiltrations. I seek to make apologetics practical rather than abstract, uplifting rather than purely negative. If I take issue with a teaching, I seek to show the proper Biblical alternative. I know that I do not always succeed in this goal, but I do strive for it. When I fail, the community who reads this site generally lets me know, and I do appreciate their concern.