When you are in Malaysia, you have to leave behind your usual eating-at-restaurants frills. Forget tissues, forget placemats, and very often, forget forks – this is a country where you eat with all your senses – the slurp of sucking out crab meat is as important as the breaking of the tail of a lobster.

The country overflows with hawker stalls. And they are the best places to eat. Even if you are the fancy-shmancy type that normally never gets down to hawker stalls, you will love the food out of carts in Malaysia. Served on rainbow coloured plastic plates, food here is just plain a-mazing! Provided you know what you are eating. While most menu cards have a picture of food with an English name for the food, there are these terms that you need to understand (especially for local stalls):

• Sotong: squid. And this can be served in more ways than you can imagine. Whether it is a salted egg squid, a squid sambal or a stuffed squid, you’ll find it very hard to choose. But yeah, choose the salted egg squid. It’s nothing like anything we had tasted before.

• Telur: egg. Most dishes come with a boiled egg, called Telur Rebus in the local language.
• Ayam: chicken. The hawker stalls sell everything from a Chinese sweet and sour chicken to a local Nasi ayam – chicken rice. The safest bet, if you aren’t feeling too adventurous.
• Nasi: rice. This is the staple, and you’ll find all kinds of fried rice, glutinous rice or even simple steamed rice. Nasi Lemak is coconut rice, chili on the side, slivers of anchovy, nuts, and a boiled egg.

• Mee: noodles. Again, you’ll find all kinds of stir-fried noodles, noodle soup and more. Mee Goreng is a stir-fried noodles with any amount of other ingredients.
• Daging: meat, or more commonly, beef. Beef seems to be a very popular item in Malaysia, and any dish that can be made with chicken can be customised for you and made with beef.

• Tiram: oysters. The most popular thing to order here is the fried oysters. This is basically a duck egg omelet that is scrambled with little bits of oyster in it. Every hawker stall makes it differently, so you’ll need to have a few to really decide if you like it.
• Ketam: crab. Most hawker stalls will sell crabs in pairs. Usually these are soft-shell crabs that can be fried, batter-fried or cooked with salted egg yolks, sambal or other ingredients. Forget pincers to break the shell, you’re expected to use your hands to eat crabs.

• Ikan: fish. Have you heard of chicken fish? Garoupa? No? You’ll hear about them here. Fish is served grilled, steamed, poached and fried, and it is usually the whole fish.
• Udang: prawns/shrimp. You can ask for the shells to be removed, or have them with shells on. This can be served in many, many ways. One amazing dish is butter prawns that is served with a deep-fried cover of eggs and a ton of butter.
• Babi: pork. Not terribly common, but you’ll still find it in some restaurants. Pork trotters and offal are quite common.
• Katak: frog. Yep, frogs are very popular. From fried to made into a porridge, you’ll get frogs of all kinds here.
• Kerang: shellfish/cockles. These can be served with a salted egg yolk, with sambal or even in a fried rice. And they’re really quite tasty
• Kecil: small. A small portion is enough for one person.

• Besar: large. A large portion is good for two people.
• Kopi: coffee. Definitely have the local white coffee. It is bloody amazing.
• Teh: tea. Teh tarik is a very sweet concoction and might just give you a sugar rush.
• Cendol:  iced sweet dessert that contains droplets of green rice flour jelly.
• Ais krim: ice cream. Try the coconut ice cream or even the Durian ice cream.
• Laksa: Malaysian Coconut Curry Soup with rice noodles, shrimp and chicken in a coconut curry broth.

• Char kway teow: flat rice noodles, stir-fried over very high heat with light or dark soy sauce, chili, while prawns, deshelled cockles, bean sprouts, chinese chives and eggs.
• Roti Canai: an Indian-inspired flatbread/paratha served with a curry or even sweetened coconut milk.
• Itik: duck. Anything that can be made with chicken can be customised and made with duck for you.

So there. For everything else, look at the folder they give you with photos of food, and choose what you want. To wash it down, you’ll get beer. soft drinks or juice. Water is charged by the bottle.

And since we are talking about hawker stalls, look for one with everything on a stick. They put all kinds of vegetables and meat on a stick and all you have to do is pick one and put it in the can of boiling water in front of the shop for a minute and then slather some sauce/gravy on and eat away! Later, they charge you the skewer. And it is very, very cheap!