Bentong Outing

Bentong is just fringing on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.  If memory does not fail me, its about an hour's ride away from the big smoke.  When I was growing up, Bentong is a one horse town, and if you had to go there for your school holidays, it would be fate worst than death!!!

50 years on... it seems there are tourist buses arriving at the crack of dawn creating chaos and the town is buzzing with a hype of activities especially over the weekend on market day!  It is indeed very happening the day we were there and all along the streets you would be lucky to either find a park or the streets are lined with vendors selling home grown organic veggies from their own backyard, pick your own chooks still alive in cages and slaughtered in front of your eyes.  How much fresher can you get? All kinds of food cooking aromas filled the air and all you needed was a good nose to follow the smell leading to the food stalls.  Obviously, produce are cheaper and if not fresher than what you can get in the big stores downtown.  Bentong is famous for its fresh ginger.  As you can see from the pix, the root ginger is so huge and its root clutters are formed spreading out in the shape of a "fan" unlike those sold in little broken bits and pieces normally found here in the Oz shops!!

DC is still very much a "Bentong boy" at heart.  Now in his 60s, although he officially resides in Singapore, but of late, he has been toing and froing to Bentong so often, they recently acquired a fully renovated smaller home in Bentong as his weekend getaway/hideout!!! 



Taufoo Pok

DC loves cooking in his spare time, so he comes back to Bentong to stock up on his taufoo pok, soya sauce, fresh hand made egg noodles and obviously the ginger amongst other things.  He also has a circle of close friends, so now semi retired, DC and wife, SF spends a lot of time in Bentong just chilling with friends and doing some of his "big "smelly" cooking" as he calls it in his wet kitchen which is fitted out with commercial like equipment found in the restaurants!  Besides marketing and shopping, there is also lots of local eating to be done.  DC knows every nook and cranny and where to find them not to mention durains that are out of season, DC has connections, so we gave our taste buds a great work out tasting some "country" cooking at its best.  Authentic home cooking by Bentong locales with no fancy frills but hearty, tasty, good portions and cheap!!!  We had to try as many varieties as we could so we made a pig of ourselves from curry noodles, to congee, roti chanai, abc ice kachang etc etc saving the best for last which is durains. 

Oh, I forgot to mention SL and HS drove up to Bentong in the morning to rendezvous with us and they had fun too as all we did was eat and shop.  After lunch, SF took us into the village where most of the locals reside, and houses are still very "original" and one could not help but notice that the way they lived was in a close and warmly knitted community so different from the modern neighbourhood homes found in Ozland.





Even this cup of local coffee brings back memories from my childhood days.  Rarely do you see coffee served in crockery like this in the big smoke and it is made so strong that after having a couple, you will definitely be buzzing for the rest of the day!

Durains, durains, durains ... my all time favourite fruit - the King of Fruits.  The hybrid, Musang King was supposedly out of season, but DC froze some for me and managed to get a few other varieties for me to satisfy my craving.  It was sooooooo good and gooey and selfish me wished I did not have to share it with the rest of the ladies!!!!



Typical village home

King of Fruits - Durain

It was only a flying visit through Bentong and hopefully when I am next back in KL, I will be lucky enough to follow DC and SF up to Bentong again.  Looks like this little gem is worth keeping in mind if one is looking for a day trip out of KL for something different to do.