Roti Canai and Teh Tarik

Anne! Roti satu , Teh tarik satu!
ah...ne , kasi banjeeee ah...

The typical malaysians' almost instinctive line for ordering their national favorite food and drink.


The roti canai comes from Parotta(south india) and Paratha(North india). Roti in some indian , modern carribean creoles mean bread , while canai comes from the malay term which means to knead. While Teh tarik literally means pulled tea in malay literally , they are mostly made from rose fragranced tea mixed with the maker's choice of another tea and condensed milk.

The ingredients for Roti Canai are generally Wheat flour , salt , condensed milk , cheap margarine and egg(i prefer the non-egged ones) , kneaded , left overnight, and the macha near the frying pan will do his magic and bring us this wonderful roti canai. While Teh tarik is made by mixing two types of powdered tea , boiled , filtered ,mixed with condensed milk and again the macha will do his magic and bring you the foamy milk tea.

The price for roti canai could go from 60 cents to RM 1.20. While the famous brown drink could go from 60 cents to RM 1.

So lemme tell you some stuffs you might not know about mamak stalls and mamak restaurants. The weird things about them are they are not run by MAMAKs(people of malay and indian mixed marriages)!!! But by indians and most of the restaurants are owned and run by non-malaysian muslim indians generally from Malabar , Kerala(a south indian state) , while the mamak stalls are owned mostly by malaysians of indian descent and run by Indian workers generally from Tamil Nadu(a south indian state).

The famous varieties of roti canai are roti susu , roti cheese , roti planta , roti milo , roti sardin , roti gula , roti tisu , roti pisang , roti telur and banyak lagila sial , malas aku nak tulis. The best choices of gravy to eat with them are of course dhal and kari campur(a mix of chicken and dhal curry).Sadly i can't have the latter :(.

On my next scribble i'ma write about the famous Malaysian english creole called Manglish...ngeh , cant wait!




Your macha,

Thara