Saturday, August 02, 2008

Raub Durians


I had abstained and avoided the king of fruit long enough. The opportunity to saviour this great delight came when my friend Fook Shing invited me for a "Eat all you can" durian feast in Kg. Tras, Raub, Pahang. An event organized by the Heriot-Watts club. Kenny was even more keen, not just for the durians but the sheer excitement of visiting a fruit orchard farm thrilled him. Raub was also his birthplace. 6 of us + Kuan Li the only child, fit into Shing's 7-seater Toyota Avanza.


About 8 cars parked under the durian trees amongst the trimmed down short mangosteen trees. Everybody including myself was eyeing the famed "Musang King". When I finally got to eat a piece, it wasn't that great. I preferred the other stronger flavoured thick yellow-orange flesh which I did not get to identify its species.


With no more than 15 seeds, my stomach bloated and I had to surrender. After the gluttonning, we wandered off to pick more durians. The orchard owner allowed whatever dropped on the ground can be tar-pau (take-away) back, despite protest from his wife.


We greedily collected 33 durians of various sizes and hundreds of mangosteens! Despite a stuffy stomach, we still had room to eat the famous Bentong homemade ice-cream. It has been a long while since I had this kind of food for breakfast and lunch.




The orchard owner.


Dog eating Durian.


Kuan Li's first encounter with a durian tree.





Musang King


First bite.






Famous Bentong homemade ice-cream.


Corn and vanilla ice-cream.