Fullboy - Kuala Lumpur, Food, Fusion and Fun!

And we’re off!! Tired, dreary eyed and bloated from sitting on planes for 15 hours without sleep, we attempt to navigate our way through Kuala Lumpur airport, which is thankfully small, nicely laid out and hassle free. The only pain was getting through passport control which involved another hour long wait. We collected our backpacks, found our way to the express train into Kuala Lumpur, found the monorail, found our stop and found our hostel. Done!

We checked in, resisted the urge to fall asleep as it was still only around 5pm local time, and got ourselves ready to have a wander around the local streets. Our hostel was nicely located, a few steps outside the Chinatown area of the city which seemed to have a relatively large tourist population. We wandered past food stalls, a man roasting chestnuts on a street corner, fresh fruit stands with fruits we didn’t recognise, lots of men trying to sell us pirated DVDs, fake Rolex shops, fake Gucci bags and generally lots of hustle bustle without it being too crazy. We decided to have our first meal on foreign soil in a simple looking Chinese restaurant that caught our eye earlier. It was also the one with least foreigners which is a bit snooty of us but it just makes me think ’tourist trap’ if the only people I can see eating at a restaurant in Malaysia are obviously not Malaysian.

We sat down on the plastic chairs, ordered a couple of large Tiger beers (the excellent local brew), and perused the large menu complete with pictures. The first thing that took us aback was the exceptionally low price of everything. We ordered small portions of pork udon noodle soup, hokkien mee which is a Malay-Chinese dish of egg noodles, dark soy sauce, pork, shrimp and vegetables all cooked together, and a fried rice that looked the equivalent of a special fried rice that you’d order from your local Chinese take-away shop in England. After a short wait the food arrived and it was lucky that we ordered the small portions as they were very generous helpings of food. Everything was piping hot and very fresh, the noodles coated in sauce but not too smothered, the fried rice steaming hot and full of flavour and the wonderful soup with its clear, meaty stock, thick udon noodles (a nightmare for chopstick novices!) and crisp green vegetables. With full, warm bellies, Melissa and I strolled slowly back to our room for a restless, broken, jetlagged sleep.

We were in Kuala Lumpur for 3 nights and to be honest, all we seemed to do was eat, eat, eat. It was just such an easy thing to do, cheap, very good quality and so much variety. We went to see the Batu caves just outside the city and I managed to get attacked by a monkey who wanted my bag!! We had our first Malay-Indian meal there, Roti Canai, a moist bread accompanied with dhal, spiced cauliflower, (like Aloo Gobi) and spiced greens (like Saag). The whole experience of eating with our hands was very satisfying and the food was amazing.

Our whirlwind tour of Kuala Lumpur introduced us to the fusion of Malaysian food. Malaysia appears to have a population split into three major groups, Malay, Malay-Chinese and Malay Indian. The food clearly reflects these three groups. In Kuala Lumpur we mainly ate Malay-Chinese and Malay-Indian food. One night though we decided to eat at a street stall that we had passed the night before, a man grilling satay sticks over a fiery BBQ. This style of food, in my mind, was Malaysian. Melissa found a table while I ordered the food, 4 chicken satay sticks, 4 beef satay sticks and 2 chicken liver satay sticks. This came to the grand total of £1. With food at this price it is difficult to resist the urge to just eat all of the time!! The old Malaysian man was busy at his fiery BBQ whilst Melissa and I were sipping our Tiger beers, salivating at the fine smells of char-grilled meat wafting in our direction. Our plate arrived at our table along with a peanut dipping sauce and some raw onion. Dip, munch, joy!


















Across the road from the satay stick man was a man cooking something in clay pots. His stall looked really busy so the next night we decided to go there. I’d read in our guidebook about a clay pot chicken stall called Hong Kee. The stall had been in the same place for 25 years run by three generations of a Chinese family. They only cooked clay pot chicken and rice and I think it’s great when a food stall only cooks one thing because you know it must be good. Supposedly the dish originates from Portugal, a sign of Malaysia’s turbulent history of being colonised by several European countries. The chicken and rice is slow cooked in the clay pot which ensures the chicken is tender and the rice moist. The chicken was marinated in a BBQ sauce and the whole meal was enjoyable and delicious. Eating out of a clay pot has a certain element of satisfaction and my favourite part of the meal was Melissa scraping all of the crispy, burnt bits of rice off the pot into my mouth.























Our final morning in Kuala Lumpur involved a trek to a coffee shop called Yut-Kee that I had read about on another Asian food blog called Eating Asia. The woman who writes this blog happens to be based in Kuala Lumpur and she said this coffee shop makes the best coffee the city has to offer. The food’s meant to be pretty good too so, after at least twenty minutes of navigating Kuala Lumpur’s fairly chaotic roads in muggy morning heat, we find a tiny, very busy, old Chinese coffee shop. These old coffee shops are supposedly a dying breed, fast being replaced by Starbucks and the like. We ordered a couple of coffees and a couple of Roti Babi, their signature dish! Roti Babi means pork bread, it is a traditional Malaysian dish and one that we hadn’t seen in any of the other restaurants we had frequented.

The coffee arrived at our table, dark, thick and strong. It was great coffee, strong, sweet and milky with a surprise dollop of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom. Then, the huge roti babi’s arrived, monsters!! A breakfast feast! My eyes gazed promisingly at the mass of stuffed bread that was before me. I tore the bread open and couldn’t really tell you everything that was inside. I’d have a guess at pork, bean sprouts, shrimp, onions, some other meats… It was scrumptious, one of the best things I’d tasted on our journey so far. Melissa was equally as enthusiastic about the breakfast experience and it was a lovely way to end our time at Kuala Lumpur. Next stop, Melaka!!
























Addresses and Links


For great roti babis, amazing coffee and old school fusion Chinese food, go to.... Yut Kee Restaurant
Open Tues-Sun 08:00-17:00 (closed Mon)
35 Jalan Dang Wangi, Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur
T: (03) 2698 8108


For a cheap, centrally located accommodation in Chinatown, check out http://www.mataharilodge.com/


Claypot Chicken at Hong Kee, Jalan Sultan, Chinatown