Taman Tun Doctor Ismail Wet Market

For the next 3 Thursdays, I am on a HELLO KL! course, which is run by... yip, you guessed it, the Association of British Women (I am all about them at the moment!). A group of 10 women, including Mandy and Pauline our tour guides, will be adventuring around KL for the next few Thursdays.

Mandy has been living here for I think on 3 years, Pauline has been here for 2 years. They are both a fountain of knowledge and great people to know! They run the HELLO KL! course for 4 consecutive Thursdays. The aim is to get newies settled.

Yesterday was all about getting to know the places to shop around Bangsar. They highlight important places like the post office, the hardware store, the woman's doctor, the wine shop, a good hair dresser, flower shop, nursery's, children's doctor, a dentist... the list went on and on. All things one needs to feel more at home.

The first stop was at the Taman Tun Doctor Ismail (that's the road name!) Wet Market. Before we arrived Mandy gave us a run down of the day, and where we would be heading... she said (in her very proper accent)

"We will be visiting TTDI Wet Market, its a marvellous market for meat and such things"

Hearing the words meat and market in the same sentence, sent my alarms bells a-ringing. Hello people, do we not know that meat out in the open, surrounded by flies and God in Heaven only knows what other germs... is a recipe for some serious food poisoning and life long viral onslaughts? I admit, I do remembering thinking to myself "FAT CHANCE I am shopping there for our meat! Tescos, Village Grocer or Cold Storage is where its at for the Bumas"

As we approached the Wet Market I was chatting with Liz, my new friend (lives in the same condo as us, is a couple years older than me, has two girls 2 and 4) and she says (in her also, very proper accent):

"I am so looking forward to seeing this meat market. Apparently the hotel chefs buy their meat from here directly. I have had such unpleasant experiences with the meat I have bought from Tescos, Village Grocer and Cold Storage - its gone off between purchasing it and arriving at home...and apparently you can buy Pork at this market!"

There you go. Once again, my assumptions and prejudices have been blown out of the water.

It was a wonderful experience, the vegetables and fruit were straight from the farm and half the price they are in the super market. There were stalls after stalls of fresh flowers and lots of spice stands. I can see me going there weekly for all our fresh goods. The meat section, was clean and cold. No flies, no hanging carcasses, no bad smells and all rather (much to my surprise) civilised! And you can get pork! I didn't realise, but apparently (according to the ladies) pork is hard to come by - makes sense being in a Muslim country I guess!

The Bumas will be buying all their meat at the Wet Market!

I had such a wonderful day with the girls, that I forgot to take photos! I did steal this one however from another persons blog. I needed to show you the meat!

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