KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 29 -- My friend Hong, a fellow writer and avid "foodie" - a label that makes me squirm, and I hope makes him squirm too - is an interesting character.

When he's not talking about meeting Japanese wrestlers of Korean descent in Osaka or putting me on to Beck's 2008 album Modern Guilt, he's usually double, triple, quadruple texting me about getting linopot delivered to my house, eating egusi and fufu at a place that no longer exists, or that time he ate horse steak in Amsterdam.

Hong also happens to be my neighbour, and when I run into him, he tends to show up like an absentee father bearing gifts: some closer to home, like mee siput or tapai ubi; some from further afield, like nem chua, a Vietnamese fermented pork saus...