Nuffnang Food Fest at Sunway Pyramid

Being a food lover and Penangite (which, I’m told, means I’m a miser) I obviously had to attend the Nuffnang Food Fest.

It’s been billed as Malaysia’s first-ever Tw(eat) fest. You don’t have to pay cash to eat, just post a Tweet and you’ll get a free food sample from the stalls at the festival.

It’s nice to see the Cannes Grand Prix-winning idea of Pay with a Tweet brought to life in Malaysia in such a yummy way.

The festival was great, with a lot of my favourite makan places participating. It was totally worth enduring the horrendous parking at Sunway Pyramid to be there.

Here are some highlights from my food crawl around the Nuffnang Food Fest.

First sample was from Cielo Dolci, one of our favourite gelato places. They always have creative flavours and very well-made gelato. For this event, we immediately zoomed in on the two most interesting flavours available: kedondong and nasi lemak. The kedondong was nice and sourish and refreshing, with bits of kedondong peel in the gelato.

Kedondong Gelato

What totally blew our minds was the nasi lemak gelato. It really tasted like nasi lemak! It had the gingery flavour that immediately made me think of nasi lemak rice, a rich creaminess that reminds me of santan, just the right hint of sambal and even tiny bits of crunchy ikan bilis and possibly peanuts. It really was nasi lemak in gelato form, and I feel, done in the best way possible.

Nasi Lemak Gelato

Cielo Dolci is located at Paradigm Mall. They do serve nasi lemak gelato occasionally, and kedondong when it’s in season. Just follow their Facebook page to find out when certain flavours become available.

Next, it was a bowl of curry pan mee from Dai Ban Noodles. Not too bad, but I still prefer their more traditional pan mee. And of course, their pork burger trumps everything else I’ve had there to date.

Curry Pan Mee

The sample from Crayon Burger was disappointing. Their miniature sample burger had too much bread, too little filling and was way too dry. Their actual-sized burgers (which they were selling for the discounted price of RM10 each) looked like they might be better, but they had been pre-made and left sitting out for too long so I wasn’t willing to pay for them. Guess they hadn’t really gotten this whole sampling thing down yet. I am curious to try out their freshly-made burgers though. Guess I’ll visit their shop (which they said is located near Station 1 in SS15) one of these days.

Crayon Burger - These pre-made burgers were going for RM10 each. I don't think anyone in their right mind would buy these, unless they're drunk out of their skulls at some music festival somewhere with no other food in sight.

The people who did get sampling right, and seemed to be able to do no wrong, was My Burger Lab. The queue for samples at their stall was so incredibly long, it reminded me of queuing at their actual shop. The guys running the stall were every bit as helpful and friendly, taking time to chit-chat with people in queue, helping them get their Tweets done in time to help move the queue along faster. The burger sample (I had the Waterballoon burger) was very nice, with just the right ratio of bread to patty to cheese to watermelon and lychee.

Waterballoon Burger

The sample from Nando’s was notable because of how big it was: a whole drumstick and thigh per person was a truly extravagant size for a sample.

Hot Peri Peri Chicken

Another of our favourite makan places, Zuo from the Publika food court, had nasi lemak rolls. They were quite delicious, tasting extra-salty to compensate for the extra doughiness of the tortilla wrap. It was a tiny bit on the dry side, however; I would have preferred a little more gravy. But all in all, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Nasi Lemak Roll

Sek Me Choy was interesting because it was one of the few stalls I was not familiar with. They serve Chinese dishes and are notable for their peppery Singapore-style bak kut teh. The soup was not as peppery as the one I tried in Singapore, and tasted quite mediocre. Maybe the one at their shop will taste better. I won’t be trying though, because I am not a fan of pepper and much prefer herbal bak kut teh. The fatty pork in mantou also tasted only so-so.

Pepper Bak Kut Teh

Pork Mantou

There was a cooking competition by Maggi between a few well-known bloggers. Then there was a cooking demonstration by Maggi’s Executive Chef. We got to try the two dishes he made: a fruit salad as well as an instant noodle salad. Both were very refreshing and tasty. The fruit salad had crunchy fruits and a creamy yogurt dressing. The noodle salad had a riot of flavours and textures – crunchy vegetables, aromatic cilantro, a tangy dressing and more.

Fruit Salad

Instant Noodle Salad

We were quite full by the time we saw N Brew’s stall offering liquid nitrogen ice-cream. Curious, we both got a sample each and were glad we did. It was a simple vanilla ice-cream, but the texture was just incredible and unlike anything I’ve ever had before. It looked like a really heavy and dense ice-cream, but was extremely light and silky-smooth, disappearing almost immediately on contact with my tongue. The cone was also very light and crumbly and tasty. I really must have more of this stuff soon.

Liquid Nitrogen Ice-cream

We had many more samples at the food fest, but these were the most memorable ones. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. The samples were generous (though not many were Nando’s-generous) and by the time we left, I was completely stuffed and regretting (only very slightly) eating so much.

I really hope they do it again next year.