On the cusp of spring break this year, I visited Italy for the first time! I went with seven other friends—all Malaysian students who were on exchange in Nottingham, United Kingdom. As we departed from the UK, we made promises to one another.
“We have to eat gelato every day, okay! We all get different flavours so by the end of the trip we would have tried 80 flavours in total. Work smart, not hard.”
“Eh, must get the super famous sandwich in Florence.”
“I can’t wait to try REAL pizza from Italy leh!”
We were going to visit four cities over 10 days: Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan. Starting strong in Rome, we shared pizza for breakfast, hunted for good coffee and devoured our weight’s worth in fresh pasta.
There was an oven in our airbnb, so pizza for breakfast it was.
Dinner at a famous restaurant in Rome, Tonnarello.
Once we reached Florence, we managed to get our hands on the famous sandwich from All’Antico Vinaio. There were so many toppings to choose from, but I decided on thick layers of mozzarella, sliced meat, and tomato. I also had the best affogato I’ve ever had in my life! The food scene in Florence had a lot to offer.
The sandwiches we lined up for.
The best affogato ever!!!
However, on the fourth day, when the age-old question of what we were going to have for dinner was posed, it became evident that none of us could stomach another slice of pizza.
We wanted rice. Perhaps something with a little spice. Soup to warm up our insides.
So on a chilly spring evening in the heart of Florence, we settled on dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Our Asian stomachs couldn’t even last one week in Italy.
The noodle soup didn’t taste exactly like home (I wasn’t expecting it to, I was in Italy after all haha), but it definitely warmed me up on the inside.
After Florence, we made our way to Venice, where it was a little harder to find Asian food.
By the time we reached Milan, we were craving for anything other than risottos and paninos. So on day nine, we ventured into Chinatown on a hunt for something that would satisfy not only our bellies, but a deeper desire for a taste of home. A few of my friends took comfort in freshly pan-fried dumplings, while others happily sipped away at their bubble milk teas. As for me, I found solace in this huge plate of mapo tofu.
Hand for size reference, the portion for the Mapo Tofu was huge!
Tofu was light and easy on the stomach, exactly what I needed after consuming the copious amount of rich cheeses and cream in our Italian diet.
Back home in Malaysia, tofu was my everyday staple. I love all its varieties: cold soft tofu drizzled with soy sauce, braised beancurd, tofu puffs in curries that soak up all that delicious sauce. Even in the past two months living in the UK, I often gravitated towards tofu in my cooking because it was a lot cheaper than meat. It also worked wonderfully with the limited sauces I had—just Lee Kum Kee’s chili crisp and doubanjiang sauce were enough to make it delicious.
Tofu dishes I made in the UK:
Crispy pepper tofu!
My version of “girl dinner”: soft tofu over rice, drizzled with chili crisp, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Visually unappealing, but taste-wise? AMAZING.
Pan-fried tofu with chili crisp (again). We love chili crisp.
Mapo tofu was my favourite way of cooking tofu because it’s tied to many fond memories of a home in the UK away from home. For example, at the start of the year, my housemates and I had barely settled in Nottingham when we were invited to join in some Chinese New Year celebrations. One such celebration featured a home-cooked meal by our friends, Rui Zhe and Willy. Mapo tofu, steamed fish, roasted pork, bok choy; it was a full-fledged CNY reunion dinner. They even had mandarin oranges!
Perhaps it was the hospitality they showed us, or the heartfelt conversations we had, or the fact that I was so far from home, but the food on this day tasted exceptionally better than any reunion dinner I’ve ever had.
Given my obsession with tofu, the mapo tofu dish especially won my heart. Soft tofu cubes paired with a generous amount of minced beef, all coated in a savoury spicy mala sauce. From that point on, whenever I had the opportunity to host friends, Malaysian or otherwise, mapo tofu was my way of making them feel a bit closer to my home.
A Malaysian-Chinese home-cooked meal. Mapo Tofu is on the bottom right.
Made mapo tofu (center dish) when my housemate and I hosted friends for dinner.
If you had asked me then in Milan, why I had decided to order a plate of mapo tofu, I would’ve shrugged and said, “I don’t know, just felt like it.” At that point, I had three more months of living abroad before heading back to Malaysia.
Now that I’m back home and reflecting on all that has happened, I think I understand a bit better the reason why. A humble plate of mapo tofu reminded me that despite being 10,332 kilometres away from home, there were things I could do, people I could be with, foods I could eat, to bring home a little closer to me.
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- Singaporean Dishes We Miss Most Living Abroad
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- Two Pizzas, and Then Some.
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