Wherever you are in Malaysia, you're never far from food. It's everywhere you look - on any given street you're bound to find an assortment of hawker stalls, kopi kedai (literally coffee shops, but they sell all types of food) and little outdoor foodcourts, all selling a wide variety of tasty fare.

Filling your belly costs very little in this gourmet's paradise. Just a couple of ringgit (NZ$1 equals approximately RM2 - RM being Malaysian Ringgit) can get you a delicious freshly-cooked meal or snack.

The island of Penang is famous for its food. Here you can find some of the best Malay, Chinese and Indian cuisine around.

Gurney Drive is a road that stretches along the seaside in Georgetown, Penang. By day it's a pleasant place to walk, with hotels and shopping malls on one side and the ocean on the other. But every night it transforms into a culinary hotspot as the food vendors set up their stalls.

Sadly, the night we were scheduled to check out the action on Gurney Drive it was absolutely pouring with rain. Only a few hardy souls had turned out with their trolleys and trailers.

So it was onto plan B for us. We headed to the 'Red Garden Food Paradise', an outdoor foodcourt fairly close to our hotel. As the rain hammered down on the corrugated iron roof we wandered from kiosk to kiosk to select our menu for the evening.

Did I want to try Malaysia's famous chicken rice? How about some Thai or Japanese food? I bypassed the stall named simply 'Curry Fish Head', figuring it needed no further explanation.

There were dumplings and fish balls and steamed buns. There was laksa - the spicy soup with a bit of everything in it, and curries and breads and even waffles (at 'MacWaffle', a shop that brings new meaning to the phrase 'brazenly flouting copyright').

I had to go for one of Malaysia's most famous dishes: the simple satay. You can't go wrong ordering grilled things on sticks with a tasty peanut sauce, right? So over to the satay stall ('Guang Zhou Delicious of BBQ') I went, to select the raw materials for the chef to cook for me.

There wasn't just lamb, beef or chicken on offer. There were all sorts of skewered vegetables, including corn and green beans, and then there were the more exotic options. Cuttlefish. Chicken feet. I chose a little of everything (okay, except the cuttlefish and chicken feet).

When it arrived, I dove eagerly in - only to be taught a valuable lesson about the difference between Chinese and Malaysian satay. Chinese satay is fairly spicy, and there's no peanut dipping sauce. It was tasty, but not what my streaming eyes and I were looking for. Luckily a quick look around the foodcourt revealed another satay stall, this time in the Malaysian style, and soon I was tucking in again. Delicious.

There were so many options at every meal time. Indian, Chinese or Malaysian? Or something even more special - Babanyonya cuisine?

Babanyonya is a term for the Straits-born Chinese who intermarried with the Malay people over the years, giving rise to a unique culture that is neither one nor the other. Their cuisine, dialect style of dress and way of decorating their homes are subtly different from the Malay culture.

Laksa is a Nyonya specialty, as is curry kapitan (a dry chicken curry) and cendol (a dessert of green noodles in coconut milk with red beans and brown sugar).

About eight percent of the Malaysian population is of Indian descent, meaning Indian food is easy to find. Roti canai - flatbread cooked in oil and served with a curry sauce - was perfect for a quick snack while out sightseeing.

For longer lunches, we found plenty of buffet-style eateries. Choose from plain rice or nasi briyani (rice with nuts, herbs and spices), then add anything from tangy tandoori chicken to dhal (a lentil stew) or curried vegetables.

And because we were in Malaysia during the Deepavali festival, there were Indian sweets aplenty - stalls in the streets were displaying little cakes, slices and biscuits in every colour of the rainbow.

I sampled dodol, described as a toffee-like sweet made of coconut milk and rice flour. It tasted a little like a cross between shortbread and white chocolate. Then there was mua chee, a squashy, sticky lump made of gelatinous rice flour and water with a subtle flavour.

Pal kova is a traditional Deepavali sweet, a pyramid-shaped soft brown toffee made of ghee, sugar and milk. I found the taste of these treats to be a little sickly compared with many of the Western desserts I'm used to, but I appreciated the artistry that goes into making them.

My favourite Malaysian dish had to be nasi lemak. Traditionally it's a breakfast food, but can be eaten at all times of the day. It consists of rice cooked with coconut milk, with a thick, spicy sambal (chilli) sauce and an assortment of other accompaniments: usually peanuts, egg, anchovy and salad veges.

This often comes wrapped in a banana leaf in a cunning little triangle, perfect for breakfast on the go. I loved the contrast between the fragrant, slightly sweet rice and the hot, tangy sambal.

Rice and noodles form the basis of many Malaysian meals. As well as nasi lemak and nasi briyani, I tried purple rice - dyed with a type of flower - and a huge variety of egg and rice noodles.

And to go with the staples? The possibilities were endless. Whole baked fish with sweet, sour and hot sauce, steamed vegetables with piquant flavourings, coconut chicken curry... I devoured them all, savouring the many different flavours packed into every dish.

Chinese food is a vast subject. The Malaysians of Chinese descent come from all over China, meaning a whole lot of cooking styles to sample.

In the Cameron Highlands we sat down to a steamboat dinner. At our outdoor table, our waiter lit a portable gas stove and placed a large pot full of simmering broth on it, then produced a flurry of plates full of raw meat, seafood and vegetables for us to add and cook to our liking. This communal meal was delicious and extremely entertaining.

But it was when we reached Kuala Lumpur that the real Chinese feasting began. The Old China café in Kuala Lumpur served us up a banquet - plate after plate of delicacies appeared, starting with piping hot spring rolls, little crispy parcels of sprouts and meat, and moving through to the mains. The highlight of the meal for me was actually the beef rendang - more of an Indonesian influence than Chinese, but delicious all the same.

The most important thing I learned in my quest to eat my way through Malaysia was not to judge a book by its cover. I wouldn't have dreamed of eating at half the places we ate if they'd been in New Zealand - mangy dogs loitering around, grubby plastic tables and chairs, and of course no council food ratings on the wall.

And yet these often humble places served up the most amazing food, and my insides didn't suffer a single side effect. As a rule of thumb, I'd say if it's good enough for the locals, it's good enough for you. Cheers!

Amy Williams travelled to Malaysia courtesy of Malaysia Airlines and Tourism Malaysia.

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