After the friendly traditional game match with the kampung boys at the badminton court earlier, we’re finally off for lunch.

Our host’s house. The host has taken the trouble to not only prepare lunch for us but also attends to our needs for refreshment and prayer break for the Muslims.

Generous lunch spread prepared by our host.

They have certainly gone all out for us. Just take a look at all these dishes. They are all authentic kampung dish delicacies.

A humble plate of plain steamed rice with traditional dishes. Clockwise from bottom left; nangka masak lemak cili padi, sambal tempe, kangkung goreng belacan and a side of jantung pisang, ulam daun tenggek burung and sambal belacan. These are not strange dishes to me. In fact my husband and I buy these from the Malay economy rice stalls pretty often…and would gleefully eat them by using our fingers if we buy takeouts and dine at home, but these are strangely addictive. Believe it or not, my husband had two huge plates of these, and took plenty of ulam to go with the rice, especially the ‘tenggek burung’ leaves (literally translated as the perching birds leaves).Being almost a carnivore, I was reluctant to try the leaves at first. I don’t always fancy greens, but when I did, I ended up like him; keep adding up a handful of the leaves to go with the rice. The leaves goes well with rice and sambal belacan, and tasted pretty much like sourish mango, slightly on a bitter note.

Lunch was a pretty interesting gastronomic affair, I must say. Something that we definitely wouldn’t mind doing over and over again in Banghuris Homestay, but such pleasure must come to end. Fortunately for us though, the day is still young and more adventures and surprises awaits us.

Next up: A visit to the bamboo farm.