The location couldn’t have been any worse, a stall by the five-foot way located at a busy intersection where bus operators use as a temporary depot – that can only mean smelly diesel fumes, mob-crowds of alighting passengers scurrying between tables lit only by roadside lamps. To make things worse, you have to balance your food on that rickety, folding table. It sounds terrible, but a sip of that porridge and the harsh reality around you literally melts away.

The location couldn’t have been any worse, a stall by the five-foot way located at a busy intersection where bus operators use as a temporary depot – that can only mean smelly diesel fumes, mob-crowds of alighting passengers scurrying between tables lit only by roadside lamps. To make things worse, you have to balance your food on that rickety, folding table. It sounds terrible, but a sip of that porridge and the harsh reality around you literally melts away.

As a kid, I never really like having porridge. To me, it tastes like

“diluted rice” (which is what it is), yet this particular porridge stall

located at the intersection of Jalan Tun H.S. Lee and Jalan Silang manages to win me over. To be precise, it’s located at N3 08.851 E101 41.810, accurate to a three-metre from the front of the stall.

Generally referred to as a Point of Interest, or POI, in the realm of global positioning, these co-ordinates consist of the basic latitude and longitude of the location, a name, and some details such as a short comment are sometimes included.

Additionally, there is newer information from dedicated global positioning satellite (GPS) hardware such as altitude, like 5,000 feet above sea level if your diner happens to be located in Genting or Cameron Highlands.

The thing with food in Malaysia is that it’s literally everywhere, and with the new generation of high-

accuracy dedicated GPS devices and smartphones with built-in GPS, it is obvious that the two go hand-in-hand. From the infamous hawker fare in Penang to the delicacies in Titi in Kuala Kelawang, all you need is a handheld GPS and a freely available community map such as Malsingmaps.com at http://www.malsingmaps.com. While commercial maps do list places to eat, chances are that you’d be only looking at fast food joints, which, if you ask me, isn’t really considered food at all.

There’s also a rather interesting local food blog dubbed Food Point of Interest at http://www.foodpoi.com that provides a comprehensive mini review of local delicacies, halal or non-halal, restaurant addresses and the all-important GPS co-ordinates.

With Food Point of Interest, it’s more of casual browsing, planning ahead and keying in the co-ordinates to your device. But with the community map, the food POIs already pre-loaded in your GPS, it’s convenient since deciding where to eat is as easy as punching the Find button on your GPS, selecting Food & Drink and scrolling down a list of nearby food stalls in the area. Best of all, it takes the entire guesswork out of eating in a new place.

I remembered discussing about the food haunts in Ipoh with a journalist from Ipoh and she was surprised that my Garmin could list down almost all the famous stalls and restaurants in Ipoh, except her dad’s tau foo fah (beancurd) stall.

Sometimes people get too caught up in their food to even bother keying in the co-ordinates, I replied.

So what if your favourite stall isn’t on the map? Well, one easy way of going about it is to have your GPS handy, mark the co-ordinates, include a picture if you like, some details and a mini food review and then contribute it to either one of the sites. You don’t have to buy everyone a meal just to show that you’ve got good taste in food!