First published on Travelwire Asia in conjunction with Tourism Malaysia, 4 October 2012

By Liz Ledden

THE cuisines on offer in Malaysia’s beautiful tea country, the Cameron Highlands, runs the gamut from Malay, Indian and Chinese to British-influenced high tea and an array of Western eateries. The best of the bunch inject a sense of authenticity, incorporating fresh, locally grown produce. Here are some eating options to refuel pre- or post-jungle trek, or before an exploration of the area’s many plantations and farms:

Chinese-Malay steamboat
Steamboat is a Chinese-Malay style of dining and has been adopted as a specialty of the area. At a steamboat restaurant you essentially cook your own dinner, adding everything from prawns to tofu to local vegetables into a flavoursome broth boiling away in the centre of your table. It’s lots of fun with a group, and is not only novel but a healthy eating option too.

Mayflower in Tanah Rata is a popular place to try your hand at creating your own steamboat concoction. For something a little less bustling, Glory 78 can be found on the road connecting Tanah Rata and Brinchang. Its meals are halal, and are fresh and tasty.

While some steamboat restaurants have reverted to using gas to power the individual burners, others still use the traditional charcoal method, which is said to impart better flavour into the food. Restoran Highlands in Brinchang is one place still using charcoal, or you can try and taste the difference at the excellent Cameron Organic Produce, a restaurant in Brinchang featuring organically grown produce from their farm of the same name. Seafood is on offer here, but the vegetarian soup alone is fresh, pure and makes great use of seasonal ingredients. Most steamboat places charge around RM 20 per person – about AU$6.

Malay
Delicious Malaysian cuisine is readily available in the Cameron Highlands, from spicy laksa to sweet kaya toast. At the Night Market (Brinchang Pasar Malam) stop and sample a fantastic array of local snacks, from fried sweet potato balls to chocolate dipped strawberries. Head to Restoran Ferm Nyonya for a beautiful meal of Nyonya or Peranakan cuisine, a traditional blend of Chinese and Malay cooking techniques and ingredients. A jack of all trades, they also feature Western dishes on the menu and offer steamboat too. The sambal beans are excellent, and their fish dishes are a specialty. Uncle Chow’s Kopitiam is another must-visit restaurant in the Cameron Highlands for a nasi lemak or curry laksa, or for one of their dessert offerings served up in a friendly, family-run old-style coffee shop.

British
Remnants of British cuisine remain in the area’s restaurant and cafés, with tea and scones or wintry British classics evoking nostalgia, or at least widening the area’s eating options. For some traditional British fare head to the Smoke House, a restaurant within a charming hotel of the same name. Here you can dine on dishes like beef Wellington, cod and chips or chicken Maryland. You can also settle in with a drink in their bar, complete with fireplace. This is one of the many places serving traditional English style afternoon tea or ‘high tea’ in the highlands, though at the pricier end of the scale.

Other destinations for local tea and freshly made scones include The Lord’s Café (ex-T Café), where the strawberry scones are a must-try. To sample locally grown strawberries in many guises, head to the wonderful Strawberry Moment Dessert Café, which features strawberry crepes, waffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, the lusciously stacked strawberry strudel and even a chocolate ‘steamboat’ for dipping your own strawberries in, Malaysian style.

Indian
Indian eateries are prevalent in the Cameron Highlands, and many feature delicious (and very affordable) rotis in all their guises. Restoran Sri Brinchang features delicious chicken tikka, paper thin dosais with tasty accompaniments and fresh and flavoursome thali plates. Most dishes are around the RM 6.50 (AU$2) mark, offering amazing value. Restoran Kumar’s in Tanah Rata is another excellent option, with brilliant curries served on banana leaf and some of the freshest and best naan bread in the area. The tandoori chicken here is wonderful too.

Be sure to sample a variety of the cuisines on offer in the Cameron Highlands – its restaurants reflect Malaysia’s multiculturalism and diversity. And look past the restaurants for street snacks, particularly at the night market, where you can experience some of the freshest and most ingenious ways of trying the flavoursome local produce.

First published on Travelwire Asia in conjunction with Tourism Malaysia, 4 October 2012

By Liz Ledden

THE Cameron Highlands is to Malaysia what Darjeeling is to India, or Nuwira Eliya is to Sri Lanka – a hilly, lush, green region in the country’s interior that grows premium quality tea, with cooler weather offering welcome relief from the otherwise steamy climate.

With the towns of Tanah Rata and Brinchang at its core, the Cameron Highlands is one of Malaysia’s most fertile areas. Here, steamy tropical rainforest gives way to a temperate climate, with rolling hills and glossy green tea plantations at every turn. Tea aside, the area is dotted with butterfly gardens, waterfalls, vegetable farms and strawberry plantations, offering many places to visit and sample fresh produce. The former British hill station has a decidedly cooler climate than the rest of the country, and remains a popular holiday spot for Malaysians escaping the city, as well as visitors seeking an alternative or additional destination to Malaysia’s much-loved coastal and heritage towns.

A trip to Malaysia’s interior
After a fun-filled introduction to Malaysia via the bright lights and delicious eats of Kuala Lumpur, I was looking forward to seeing more of what the country had to offer. The beautiful turquoise beaches of Langkawi and the Perhentian Islands I was aware of, and the historic buildings and delicious cuisine in Penang was also on my radar, yet the Cameron Highlands was a part of Malaysia I previously knew little about. All was about to be revealed after an easy bus ride from the country’s capital to its agricultural heartland.

My first impressions were that it was lush, green, fertile and beautiful. I found the Cameron Highlands charming, with its occasional architectural nod to its colonial heyday adding character, and enjoyed the proliferation of places to stop, eat at and explore. As a tea lover, I was particularly enamoured with the first tea plantations I’d ever seen.

Where to go and what to expect
One of the biggest plantations is BOH Plantations, a company established in the 1920s that has several large plantations in the area. BOH Sungai Palas Tea Estate is one of the most popular and accessible to visit, located a short drive from the town of Brinchang. The stunning views of the rolling plantations alone are worth the visit, but for tea aficionados the estate offers a solid introduction to how tea is grown and processed, with an educational tour of the factory and lots of information to peruse. Afterwards you can sample some of the freshest tea on the planet in the onsite café.

An alternative to BOH is a plantation run by Bharat, who produce the Cameron Valley brand of tea. They have several plantations with teahouses along the main road just outside Tanah Rata that can easily be visited, though at peak times they can get crowded. The CameronValley tea house is perched over the vibrant green plantations, and if you’ve had your fill of plain black tea, it offers some more exciting takes on the world’s second most popular beverage. The masala chai and cardamom tea is fragrant and flavoursome, while the teas infused with fresh lemongrass or mint are highly recommended. There’s a café with lots of sweet offerings here too (think brownies, cheesecake and ice cream).

From crop to cup
A tea plantation visit offers interesting insights into the tea growing, sorting and fermenting process, though for some people, the amazing views over the plantations and the tea sampling itself end up being the highlights of their visit. Particularly if the tea is consumed in a spectacular tea house extending up and over the plantation grounds, where you can easily end up sitting for an hour or two.

By visiting some of the plantations in the highlands, I discovered a new appreciation for the hard work that goes into producing tea. Labourers picking tea leaves by hand out in the sun is something you don’t often think of while indulging in your daily caffeine boost. A trip to your tea’s source makes you realise the hard work that goes into not only growing and cultivating tea, but transforming the leaves into something palatable and ready for consumption. The plantations offer many wonderful photographic opportunities too, for a quintessential shot of the Cameron Highlands’ endless, rich green hills. Jungle treks and food forays aside, a tea plantation visit is definitely something well worth doing in the beautiful Cameron Highlands.

I’m just a little bit excited about an upcoming trip to my old home, Saigon. Though it will be for a fleeting few days, I can’t wait to:

+ catch up with friends remaining in Saigon
+ visit my old local coffee shop, home-away-from home and adopted Vietnamese family, who have since expanded with no less than three new babies in the past twelve months(!)
+ eat, eat and eat some more at a combination of old favourites and new finds
+ drink copious amounts of cafe sua da
+ barhop and try not to drink copious amounts of cocktails
+ foot massage, body massage, manicure, pedicure, hairwash/massage/blowdry, foot scraping and maybe even fish foot massage (i.e. have fish eat dead skin from my feet…if I can bear it)
+ shop. Alot.
+ walk, explore, watch, meet, talk, dream and be inspired by the colour, smells, light, sounds and energy of the city.

Ok, now I’m officially excited!