This isn’t about wine under 20. Instead, it’s about curry under 20.

I’ve been in Malaysia for the last week and I only managed to have one glass, but I did have a number of very good curries which all cost less than $20 – with beer – so I thought I’d write about them.

The first was a Malay dish at a lovely little place called Limpalu; Baba can cook which was recommended by Time Out. It was a Prawn Sambal with Petai.

I had no idea what Petai were but I liked the sound of prawn sambal so I said ‘one of those please’. There was no beer on the drinks list but they managed to find a warm can of Carlsberg which was served in a glass full of ice. I stared at it blankly for a moment, but I have to say, it worked well.

The sambal arrived half way through and I discovered what petai are – they looked like really green broad beans, but they’re not, and they go very well with the sweet chili coconut in the sambal. I looked them up on a site which was called ‘food that makes you stink’ which isn’t very appealing. Fortunately I was travelling alone. Apparently they are good for your kidneys.

The next curry was a classic banana leaf number in Brickfields, which is the Little India of KL. Out came a generous banana leaf followed by a mountain of mixed curries, all quite delicious in their own way. Most of it was vegetables, with some tasty but chewy mutton and some interesting fish. It cost $15 for two and I was grateful to my friend Mark Pyrgos for introducing me to the place.

I was less grateful the next morning. I can’t say it made me ill, but it did make me recall an interesting fact concerning sewage systems and the sub-contintent; One of the world’s oldest civic sewage systems can be found in a place in the Indus valley called Mohenjo Daro, which dates back nearly 5,000 years. How about that? Was curry the incentive?

My third curry was a laksa. Every since I encountered laksa at Chinta Ria in Melbourne over 25 years ago I have been in love with this dish so I was on the look out for a good one in the home of the laksa. Rather than getting the curry laksa I knew so well, laden with wicked coconut milk, I had an Assam laksa, which was fishy, slightly sour – in a good way – and much healthier. And only $3.

Yum.