A ‘rojak’ of iconic dishes

KUALA LUMPUR: Three local favourites — yong tau foo, rojak and mee rebus — have been chosen as iconic Malaysian dishes for a food tourism event featuring famous chefs.

“The dishes were picked based on the criteria that they represent Malaysia Truly Asia, common to all Malaysians and are easily available,” said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen.

She added that the dishes, chosen for the Fabulous Food 1Malaysia — 4th Asean Heritage Food Trail with Datuk Chef Wan, were selected based on feedback of the people.

The event will held until Nov 22 at Lot 10 shopping centre here, where local celebrity chefs will be conducting cooking demonstrations of their favourite Asean dishes.

The public can expect familiar names such as chef Riz, Florence Tan and Celine Marbeck.

The event will also include international chefs from Indone-sia, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Sweden, France and Singapore.

Dr Ng hoped the public would also give their input to the ministry on their favourite local food for next year’s top three dishes for the event.

On food tourism, Dr Ng said it was a great revenue generator and the local good food was sure to lure tourists to Malaysia.

She added that food tourism has been identified as one of the components that would accelerate the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan 2020 in achieving the country’s target of 36 million tourist arrivals and RM168bil tourism receipts by 2020.

“By 2020, it is expected that tourists will spend almost RM30bil on food,” she said in her speech before launching the event yesterday.

Sourced: thestar