eating the world

I travel to pig out. If you have ever been my travel buddy, you know I start eating the minute I step into the airport. When I'm lucky enough to fly first class, I taste everything in the lounge. If I am in the cattle class, I eat from the food outlets. If you happen to be in the transit area and see a woman carrying a brown leather handcarry bag (with stickers of international flags) and happily munching on something -- anything -- that is probably me.

Last week, I went to the sultanate to try the best flavors that Borneo has to offer. Here are just some of the dishes I stuffed into my smallish frame:

• Roast chicken laksa
• Rojak (vegetable dish with sweet turnips)
• Beef rice
• Kahwin Cakoi - Brunei's version of the churros
• Ambuyat - the traditional Bruneian dish / essentially sago paste that you dip into spicy sauces
• Halal red bean pancakes
• Ayamku chicken
• Satays paied with soups
• Salted lobsters
• Teh Tarik (lots of this!)

...plus HUNDREDS of dishes at Empire Hotel's sungkai buffet -- a big meal after sunset during Ramadhan.

It can be hard to eat healthy when you're in another country. You may often feel like you have no choice, as though you're a "victim" of whatever it is that they eat there - lard, fat, and all. There's so much joy in being a victim, though. You never really regret eating unhealthy food when you're in another country. It's what you don't eat that you regret.

And that, my dear, is why I didn't hesitate to eat sheep testicles in the South of France and fried cicadas in Cambodia.

YUM.