To know the flavor of a place, you must burn your tongue on its stories.

I just got back from Kuala Lumpur.

A short solo stay. A few days to recalibrate
Eat my way through some back alleys, and feel the rhythm of the city.

What I found was a beautiful surprise.

KL isn’t loud in its beauty.
It’s layered.

A living reflection of trade routes, empires, spices, migrations, and adaptations.

I’ve cooked sambal and laksa before.
Thought I had a pretty good handle on them.
But having them there—in their home—was humbling.

No two spoons will ever taste the same.
Just like no two streets carry the same scent.
And no two people tell the same story.

That’s something travel teaches you, over and over.

Culture isn’t a monolith.

It’s a nervous system of rhythms.
Every region has its own heartbeat.
Every street, its pulse.

The same way you heard me saying Sardinia isn’t “just” Italy–
Malaysia isn’t “just” Southeast Asia.

And food will always be the gateway drug into that understanding.

Now I’m back in Thailand where contrast is the baseline.
Chaos and grace. Temples and scooters.

Malaysia?
Stunning landscapes.
Breathtaking in a quiet, cinematic way.

I saw the endless palms from the sky before we even landed.
It’s easy to demonize it.

But what I saw was more complicated than good vs evil.
80% of the country’s economy depends on it.
And that complexity, like every food system—deserves curiosity before judgment.

I drove into the city.
Not wild and tangled like Bangkok, KL also rises tall.
Glass and steel, but with a kind of order that’s rare in this part of the world.

And within it, something I hadn’t felt in a while:
A middle class.

Not just socioeconomically.
Rhythmically.

People getting on with it.
Working. Living. Moving.

A quiet current of something so ordinary, so comfortably normal.
A sturdiness I didn’t realize I’d missed.

I’ve lived humble. I still do.
But I know the texture of a place where people have space to breathe.
And I felt it there.

That rhythm.

Of course, the West came in hard.
Petronas Towers rise like a post-colonial aspiration.
Sprawling malls. Brand dreamlands.

Not my taste.

But fascinating to witness.
A dream no one asked for.
One bought and sold in neon lights.

The malls are cathedrals of consumption.
I don’t enjoy them—but I observe them.

With interest.

There’s something sobering about seeing what gets sold as a dream.

I spent a day at Batu Caves before leaving.
The temples nearby– a tourist checkbox, maybe.
But also a small, mindful pilgrimage.

The stories. The gods. The colors. The rituals.
They reminded me how much we need myth to make meaning.

To remember that everything we do is tied to a place, a people, a story of survival and celebration.

I wandered into a few vegan restaurants—no expectations.
That’s when the best experiences happen.

Feasted at street vendors.
Walked past the heady sweetness of durian, the hustle of Petaling Street.

Eventually, I found myself at a bar.

A rooftop speakeasy inside a hostel.
Low red lights. Jazz humming.
A drink in hand—virgin passionfruit mojito.
Don’t judge.

Three guys stood next to me.
One Malasyan, one Indian looking and a blond one I could place anywhere in East Europe.
My age, roughly. Curious glances.

The Malaysian one breaks the ice: “You’re Latino, right?”
I laughed. “Not really. Guess again.”
“Spanish?” “Closer.”
“Moroccan?” “Hot.”
They gave up.

“So where are you from?”

And I never really know how to answer that.

My passport says Italian.
But you know..

I also left in my teens.
Spain. Then London for 12 years.
Now Thailand and bla bla bla
(this goes on inside my head pretty much every time I got asked the question)

So where I am from I do not really know, deep inside.

I told them “Italian” to keep it simple.
But nothing about it is simple.

Then I noticed the burn on the guy’s forearm.
Still fresh—the kind only a salamander tray or oven rack leaves.
Next to him: a Carhartt bag. Knife roll half-open.

“You’re a chef, right?” I asked.

He blinked. “How the hell did you know?”

I smiled. “The burn’s fresh dude. And your knives are showing.”

Turned out they had come back from Australia after COVID.
Opened a vegan Japanese restaurant.
What the chances!

We talked.
About kitchens.
About rhythm.
About making food that matters.

And I was reminded:
Your tribe will find you. Or you'll find them.

At the market.
At the counter.
Through a story, a burn, a flavor shared.

Online or offline—authenticity is the frequency.
You either hear it or you don’t.

Some people travel to escape.
I travel to recognize.

To catch those micro-moments
At a hostel bar or in a chaotic alley—when someone speaks your language.
Not Italian. Not English.
But the language of stories, intention, curiosity.

I’m getting tired of the internet.
Yeah, I’m here writing—but you know what I mean.
I’m tired of the performances.
The fakes. The disposable things.

But I’m not tired of people.

Not the ones who sit beside you, unafraid of silence and conversation.
The ones I write for.

The ones who read the book at the library instead of filming it.
The ones who say hello at the market without a motive.
The ones who carry burns on their forearms and stories in their bags.

If that’s you—maybe we’ll meet.
At a bar.
At a market.
Or somewhere in between.

And if I put on my IG stories that I’m up for a coffee—that’s real too.
And I mean it.

I’m not a vlogger. Not a lifestyle influencer.
But I’ve realized: stories want to be told.
Through food. Through people.
Through quiet reflections written at midnight, almost 1 after a mango juice and too many steps.

So I’m sharing this.
For whoever cares.

If you don’t, that’s fine.
But if you do—I hope it finds you.

At your own bar counter.
With your own tribe.
Wherever that may be.