King of Kings |
As is our family tradition, my extended family whipped out our schedules (on our respective phones), whilst eating our Chinese New Year lunch, to figure out when we could make our way to the Pearl of the Orient to feast on the fabled fruit (and other goodies) for four days, three nights.
By now, we have our routines down pat: the setting up of a common $ pot, the hiring of a van and driver to take us all around, the identification of a few nice peranakan restaurants for dinner, and of course our durian routines, which I summarise here in a few simple rules:
1. Go in the morning. Mornings are critical because these are when the durians which fall in the night are harvested and brought to the collection centres. Later in the day, the durians would be less fresh and more importantly, the good ones would have been eaten by the tourists who got there in the morning.
At the durian collection centre |
3.Go with a knowledgeable local. Which could be a friend, family member or your driver.
Having said all that, be flexible should things go wrong or the durians run out. Our group was turning up in two batches - the main group on Thurs morning, then another two the next morning. As such, we decided to have our first batch of durian the afternoon of our arrival (breaking rule 1 above) as we would otherwise have to wait one whole day more before sampling the fruit..
We went off first to a durian collection centre in Balik Pulau recommended by a friend. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was a little late as they had run out of durians after setting aside the majority of the day’s durians for a durian party at a local hospital (in other words they were probably quite a reputed supplier, just our bad luck to appear late in the day). So we had to go to a roadside stall we had passed earlier on, called Durian Kaki. Easy to find as there is a gigantic inflatable durian right outside.
Durian Kaki |
The next day was not a big durian day since we were waiting to meet up with our fellow travellers, but on Saturday we went off to a durian collection centre in Balik Pulau, followed by a durian stall. There were just three of us (everyone else had gone off to Ipoh for the day). My uncle was our "durian tour host". The durian collection centre had been recommended by a friend, but the selection was a bit limited (were we there a little late?). Anyway, we had Cheh Puay (green skin) and Ang Hae (red prawn) - both rather good. We then went to a small roadside stall where we had Hor Lor (gourd-shaped) which I found rather hard. We also had a kampong durian, which as everyone knows is hit or miss and in our case it was a miss.
Cheh Puay (Green Skin) |
My uncle then drove off to a private house which was also serving as a durian collection centre. Quite interesting as the house was in the middle of a housing estate! I could just imagine the neighbours complaining in Singapore.
We also went and bought more durian (mostly Ang hae ) to bring to the people who went off to Ipoh. They would eat it later, as dessert after our seafood dinner. (More on that later).
So that’s all the durians we ate during our little jaunt this year. I was quite amused subsequently to learn that my colleague was in Penang around the same time, staying at a durian farm (in a tree house at that). Maybe an idea to explore for another time :-)
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