From the monthly archives:

January 2010

The food of Malaysia

by Keith on January 24, 2010 · 4 comments

Food carts with table service, tea with scones, fresh strawberries and satay fondue are just a few of the delicious culinary treats that awaited us during our 12 days in Malaysia. Our feast began almost as soon as we landed in Kuala Lumpur.

As in most of Southeast Asia, the street vendors are everywhere offering delicious and affordable food. We found ourselves out wandering the streets looking for a good place for dinner the first night when the skies opened up with a torrential downpour. So we headed under cover and grabbed one of the last free tables out of the rain. As soon as we sat down multiple vendors approached with homemade photo albums with pictures of their food. It was one of the most convenient ways of ordering I had seen yet. The best part was you could order vegetables from one vendor, a main dish from another and beer from a third depending on prices and whose pictures looked the most appetizing. As much as Americans seem to dislike hawkers, I am beginning to see their value. You sit down and they bring all the details and choices to you. The result was a delicious meal of beef in bean sauce, sautéed spinach in oyster sauce and sweet and sour chicken. Decidedly Chinese in influence but as we were learning Malaysian cuisine sits at the cross roads of Malay, China, and Portugal all with a Thai influence. If that sounds delicious you would be right.

We left Kuala Lumpur below us to wind up into the mountains on our way to the Cameron Highlands, the land of 365 days of fresh strawberries. As the only place in Malaysia that has year round strawberries due to the unique climate and high elevation, the Cameron Highlands offered us a break from the heat and humidity of Kuala Lumpur. The food was strongly influenced by the British that colonized the area, but not in the overcooked vegetables and tough tasteless meat kind of way, more of a sophisticated tea and scones influence. As soon as we set foot on the bus Amy was on a quest to have tea and scones. The next day on our Countryside Tour we visited a strawberry farm and took the opportunity to have fresh scones with whipped cream and strawberries along with a cup of the local tea. They were delicious. The scones were more the texture of biscuits vs. traditional British scones, as they were more moist and flaky. Served with fresh cut strawberries and whipped cream there were no complaints, or leftovers.

After leaving the Cameron Highlands we traveled south to Melaka. Here we were introduced to the concept of satay fondue. Imagine a table with a large pot of delicious peanut satay sauce at a slow rolling boil. Then you go to the large cooler in the restaurant and select whatever meat on a stick suits your taste. I evoked my inner Anthony Bourdain and tried pig heart and kidney along with chicken, pork, prawn and vegetables. You then dip the satay sticks into the boiling satay sauce for 3-6 minutes and pull them out to enjoy. The best part is you pay at the end based upon how many sticks you have on your table. (The verdict on the pig organs is that they were chewy and not quite as good as the meat. Guess I am not meant to host a Travel Channel show yet.)

And possibly our best meal in Malaysia was due to some very friendly parents of a friend of a friend of Amy’s from law school. After graciously agreeing to meet us at our hotel and show us around Melaka, they took us to a traditional Malay restaurant that served baba nyonya food. Baba nyonya food is a blending of Chinese, Malay, Thai and Portuguese into a single wonderful cuisine. When we arrived at the restaurant our hosts proceeded to order nearly every dish on the menu so that we could taste it all. From delicious curry fish stew to Mee Siam (Siamese noodles) it was all flavorful and very fresh. The best part was having three locals that graciously explained everything to us so we could have a better understanding of the local cuisine.

Our trip to Malaysia included more than the delicious cuisine highlighted in this post but the food, with its range and history, was definitely a highlight.

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Sustainability Symbols, Icons and Certifications

by Keith on January 18, 2010 · 6 comments

Communicating to consumers that a product has an environmental benefit can be a difficult and complex issue. Trying to explain all of the reasons why the product is better due to sustainable features such as using recycled materials, having a low-carbon footprint, being organic or being locally sourced is a complicated and long list. That is why a lot of products use of one of the many icons, certifications or 3^rd party endorsements available, and there are many to choose from. A quick Google Image search turned up these 6.

All are an attempt to quickly communicate that the product is “better for the environment”. One of the best examples of making a complex sustainability message easy to understand is LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental and Design. This is the sustainable building certification process created and managed by the US Green Building Council in the United States. One of the most visible aspects of the program to the average consumer are the plaques that a building owner is entitled to put on the front of their building to communicate to everyone going by that this building is a LEED certified building. This, like all icons, allows the consumer to instantly understand that this building is better for the environment than one that is not certified by LEED.

Being familiar with these plaques and seeing more and more of them in the States, I was perplexed on our recent stop in Singapore. As we walked through a couple of the malls in the downtown area, including City Square Mall, I saw signs and even plasma televisions extolling the many features that were designed into these new buildings to make them more environmentally friendly. They also included the measurable impact, i.e. tons of carbon saved, swimming pools of water saved, etc. as part of the consumer education campaign. What I did not see was any communication of what official certification, if any, the mall had achieved. It led me to do some digging to see if Singapore in fact did have a sustainable building certification process similar to LEED in the US. Turns out they do in fact have quite a robust process, Green Mark, that has been in place since 2005, and they even have a pretty good logo. My question is why are they not better at branding their achievements?

It seems that the lesson of the Hybrid Honda Civic has not been shared with the leadership of the BCA (Building and Construction Authority), which oversees Green Mark in Singapore. Part of what makes the Prius so successful in the US is that the car is a rolling statement by the driver. It is a status symbol, pure green consumer social capital that is awfully hard to miss as the car has such a distinctive design. The first generation Hybrid Honda Civic, however, looked exactly the same as the non-hybrid car, the only difference being a small badge on the back. The result, as of April 2008, is that despite a much lower price, Hybrid Honda Civics have sold 80% fewer cars than the Prius[1]. Consumers that are looking for a more environmentally sustainable product, especially with a significant purchase such as a car, house or office space, want to ensure that the premium they paid for an environmentally superior choice sends a message, so making that message easy to communicate and understand is critical.

I would offer that a major success for LEED in the States has been the effective marketing they do jointly with developers and building owners to promote their certification. A major contributor of the value for the building owner is the LEED certification, as it helps to command higher rents and attract increased numbers of potential tenants. Green Mark needs to quickly invest in establishing their band to ensure they continue to provide value to the developers that choose to go through the certification process.

What do you think? If you were to invest in a more sustainable purchase, like a car, house, or office space, would you want to ensure it was easy to talk about it?

[1] Source: http://www.hybridcars.com/market-dashboard/april-2008-hybrids-defy-recession.html referenced on January 16, 2010

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Backpacker v. Flashpacker

by Amy on January 14, 2010 · 4 comments

Flashpacker: a tech-savvy adventurer who often prefers to travel with a cell phone, digital camera, iPod and a laptop. The term also reflects a growing demographic of travelers who are forsaking traditional organized travel, venturing to destinations once the reserve of more adventurous backpackers, and the increasing number of individuals who leave well paid jobs or take ‘career breaks’, using the time to travel independently, but with greater comfort and many of the gadgets they are accustomed to at home.[1]

Hello, my name is Amy, and I am…a flashpacker. It’s official. Keith and I fit squarely into the definition and have accepted that despite the 15 kilogram packs on our backs, we are not backpackers.

Our realization and acceptance of this label occurred last week in Singapore, when we arrived at the Backpacker’s Cozy Corner Guesthouse. We arrived to a dirty, characterless hostel where the rooms were windowless, the sheets stained and the wifi nonexistent. We were at least ten years older than the other travelers who were roaming the bleak hallways with that dazed, still-hung-over-even-though-it’s-4pm look in their eyes. Our five-night reservation was immediately reduced to one night, and our first afternoon in Singapore was spent searching for a new place to stay.

We found what we were looking for at Sleepy Sam’s Bed & Breakfast: wifi, lockers for our valuables, a secure entrance both to our room and to the hostel itself, a clean kitchen for self-catering, comfortable common areas and a slightly older and less hung-over looking crowd. Our room itself was smaller than at Cozy Corner, and the walls were paper thin, but for the extra $30 a night we had peace of mind, clean sheets and the ability to stay in touch with friends and family, work on our blog and research the next leg of our journey.

Looking back, we probably should have realized long ago that we weren’t cut out for the low-budget backpacking scene. We’ve never been thrilled when staying in a hostel with “backpacker” in its name, and given our age, the amount of electronic gear we’re carrying and our proclivity for tour guides it should have been obvious. I suppose we all must pass through denial – i.e. that we are no longer twenty-two and willing to sleep (or pass out) anywhere – before reaching acceptance. We are flashpackers, flashpacking around the world, hopping from one wifi enabled hostel to the next on this well-guided and technologically connected adventure.

Are you a backpacker, flashpacker, or something else entirely?

[1] Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_%28travel%29#Flashpacking

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