Malaysia Places in Top 50 on World’s Best Cuisine List by TasteAtlas

In general, Malaysians are pretty laid-back people and are not the type to participate in direct confrontations with one exception. When it comes to our cuisine, we’ll defend our positions sampai mati. Local food lovers are fiercely proud of our gastronomic delights that are a melting pot of different cultures, quite literally.

TasteAtlas is a Bulgarian interactive ‘world atlas of traditional dishes, local ingredients, and authentic restaurants’ that recently published their list of World’s Best Cuisines. Needless to say, Malaysians were simply outraged as our country ranked No.46 out of 50 on the list.

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While we wonder if the list is legit, or if they are just chasing ‘clout’, TasteAtlas explained that the rating for each country were ranked by the average rating of the 30 best dishes, beverages and food products by users, while some countries with insufficient items on the list were not ranked altogether. Hmm, sure or not?

Our Southeast Asian neighbours Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand all ranked higher than us at no. 14, 19 and 21, respectively. Needless to say, we’re taking this very personally (this is the kind of thing that probably starts wars). This is not without basis as more credible sites *cough* such as CNN have ranked us as No.6 for World’s Best Food previously.

While their list of places to eat at seemed acceptable (Ayer Itam Assam Laksa in Penang and Nasi Lemak at Village Park restaurant), we found no.4 on their most popular Malaysian dishes selection to be rather strange. Sure, we love tossing Yee Sang during Chinese New Year but this is definitely a stretch.

Netizens across the world have chimed in on their opinions on this list, with many showing outrage that seven European countries ranked in the top ten.

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Whatever the case, any kind of mention of our food around the world makes us happy—all the more when local haunts in Selangor and Kelantan are mentioned.

Image credit: tasteatlas.com, @villageparkofficial, kualalumpur.concordehotelsresorts.com, newmalaysiankitchen.com, @klyhop 