Best of Malaysia's tropical fruits

Writing about the coconut stalls reminded me that I have totally forgotten about Malaysian fruits. Malaysian fruits are all basically tropical fruits and they are so unique and tasty aka you should not, under no conditions miss out on it. For me, I was here for 6 years, in Kuala Lumpur and even until now I get excited about Malaysian tropical fruits. If I miss one thing from Malaysia the most is the uniqueness of these fruits and how great they taste. Although not all of them are available in all seasons, most of them can be found throughout the year. Here are a few ones, you should definitely try:

1) Durian

Durian is also called the king of Malaysian fruits. Here are a bunch of facts about durian:

• It smells horrible, it's a mixture of onion smell mixed with something even worse, I don't know how to describe it. Don't ever buy durian and take it home or to your hotel. The whole place will stink of durian and it's unbearable.
• Durian tastes horrible too, you will either love it to the point of addiction or you will hate it to the point of wanting to chop your nose and mouth, so you don't have to smell or taste it. I personally belong to the second group, I definitely belong to the second group. I tried durian twice and after that every time I saw it from the corner of my eyes, I ran away.
• Durian is such a rich fruit. Basically one KG of durian contains about 1, 350 calories. Imagine. It's also super rich in potassium, fiber, vitamin B complex, iron and vitamin C, I mean you can see why people here eat it so much.
• Durian is such a good energizer. It will give you more energy than a red bull. It's also good for fatigue.

Okay so where and when can you have durian? Durian usually grows around June/July, it peaks around that time so if you're traveling around that time expect to get bargain prices for durian and around those times you can pretty much find it anywhere in any food market. Now if you travel around other times, I know two places that have durian all year around. All the time. Well I used to have a lot of friends over, coming from different parts of the world and they all wanted to try the king of fruits, so naturally I had to always take them and just hate durian right there. Some of them loved it and some of them hated it so much, they ran away and never looked back. Anyways the stores one of them is located in Jalan Alor, That street is famous for its sea food, it's literally located behind Bukit Bintang. It's a pretty live street, specially at night, and the other one is in Chow kit market. I've only been to the Chow kit one once but I always go to the Jalan Alor one.

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Oh also make sure you haggle with them, so much, they always raise the price way too high. Durian costs something from 20 ringgits per kilo until 50 ringgits per kilo, anything more than that is unreasonable. Let me know how you feel the first time you try durian, it's gonna be epic. Film it and send it to me.

2) Mangosteen

Now this is my absolute favorite tropical fruit in Malaysia. The texture is so soft and smooth, that it kinda of melts in your mouth. I really love how it tastes, it so sweet and how it's so easy to open it. Right now around march/April it's not mangosteen season, so the fruit is really expensive but when it's time for it, it's so cheap and you can find it anywhere. The seasons that you can find mangosteen is basically from July to October, there's a lot of it around then.

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3) Guava

Guava is great, it has so much vitamin C in it, we used to eat it like crazy when we were sick. Just hundred grams of guava gives three times more vitamin C than your daily needed dosage. It doesn't have a really distinct taste, it's more like watery. But I love it nonetheless. Now Malaysians themselves eat guava with a special powder they have and man that turns guava into the most amazing fruit ever. It tastes so unique and you can only get the powder in Malaysia. Just ask them for the guava powder and a lot of stores have it. It's usually home made though, so it tastes even better. You can pretty much find cheap guava in any time of the year.

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4) Rambutan

Okay rambutan is definitely most cute looking fruit of them all. I personally am not a biggest rambutan fan, because it has these really big seeds and I don't like it. Rambutan is basically jelly like, it tastes like jelly too and you can take off the peel so easily, you can eat it anywhere and it's not gonna get messy. Try it for yourself and let me know what you think about it.

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5) Lychee

Lychee is quite similar to rambutan, except that it looks totally different and doesn't have that big of a seeds. I like lychee more than rambutan. Lychee is also called cat's eye, because of the way it looks. Lychee is not that common in Kuala Lumpur and I didn't have it much but nonetheless it's great.

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6) Papaya

My absolute favorite, you can find papaya in any season and I know that papaya isn't limited to Malaysia only, you can have it in a lot of countries but I honestly love papaya and it has so many health benefits especially for hair and skin. The texture is super soft and smooth; it's also really moist rather than dry.

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Okay these are pretty much all of the "must try" fruits here in KL and generally in Malaysia. If you have any other favorite ones let me know.

Cheers!

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