Malaysia Restaurants

[JustKay]

I would like to suggest you trying Malay food too, besides the Nasi Lemak.

KLCC is one good place to find food. Either the food courts or the many restaurants there.

There is one outlet there called Kelantan Delights which sells well, Kelantanese food.

Also, you must try Satay. I'm not sure if they (Hj. Samuri Satay) have outlets in KL itself but if you do visit Putrajaya, there is one nice outlet at Taman Warisan Pertanian .

Putrajaya itself has become a tourist destination. You can visit the PM's office complex, the official residence Seri Perdana as well as the Putra Mosque (but don't forget to bring your passport - not photocopies - or you won't be able to get in). And then there is The Souq adjacent to the mosque - there is a food court below with mamak stall, ais kacang stall, Nando's Chicken, Rain Nudle House, a Malay kueh outlet, and Aladdin Cafe which sells nasi Beriyani, and a few more food stalls. And then there is the Taman Botani and The Wetlands. There is a seafood restaurant in Taman Botani called D'Fisherman.

If you visit Putrajaya and are able to hop over to Cyberjaya during lunch time, there is a wonderful Malay restaurant called Kenanga at The Street Mall. Lunch is buffet-style (very authentic dishes - like homemade) so you can sample as many different dishes as you can; dinner is ala-carte Thai food. Next to it is The Penang House which has delicious fares from Penang.

Edited June 23, 2004 by kew (log)

[PCL]

As the future Mrs jimmyt and I will be spending a fair amount of time in resorts / hotels (including 5 nights in Pangkor Laut and the Burj Al Arab in Dubai) we would love some suggestions for non-hotel dining that would allow us to do a bit of exploring and sample the local culture and, of course, food!!

I was at Pangkor Laut with Mrs PCL two weeks ago for a week. It's a great resort, and it's all on one island. It's an hour by boat back to the mainland, but they don't really want you to leave, and you won't want to!

The Fisherman's Cove restaurant is great, but they are closed Wednesdays I think. Go for the fresh seafood on display, ask for the product (sea bass, snapper, grouper, HUGE tiger prawns etc) to be either grilled or fried. Don't bother with white wine as it's too hot and the ice buckets don't keep much cool. Instead, head for something red and light like the Louis Jadot beaujolais.

For lunch, the Chapman's Bar offers great hawker type food, like banana leaf curry lunch, decent satay. Drink lots of coconut by the beach. Snorkelling is good fun too. And yeah, great burgers at Chapman's which is on Emerald Cove.

Enjoy yourself at Pangkor Laut. The Spa facilities and services are FANTASTIC!

[Tepee]

Just came back from a trip to Trengganu. Will touch on a few stops we made. Now that the Gambang highway is opened, it halves the travelling time.

Stopped at Yik Kee Restaurant at Karak for breakfast; had their regular egg tarts, Portugese egg tarts, siew pau and durian bombs (mashed durian enclosed in a deep-fried batter similar to wu kok or yam fritters). Good break. Bought their giant curry chicken bun, which measures 6 inches wide, and, zoong zi (RM6 per piece)for a quickie lunch when we arrive at Kijal. Discovered they have branches in Petaling Jaya and Gohtong Jaya under the name of Sri Karak.

The way to tackle this baby is to break it into half, you'll get a bundle of foil-wrapped chicken curry with potatoes. Sandwich the curry into your bread...mmmm...really good to eat seated on a beach chair with a lovely sea breeze blowing.

The zoong was no big deal...looked better than it tasted. Perhaps, it's not so fresh or needed refreshing with some steaming.

To wash it down, we had some delicious coconut juice. One of these can yield 1 litre of thirst-quenching juice; we only get half of this from the coconuts we buy in KL at a higher cost.

For dinner, we went to Chukai for their famous stuffed crabs. Someone recommended Restoran Tong Juan to us. At this point, hubby was getting mighty embarassed with his camera-happy wife and told me to abstain from clicking at the stuffed crab we got. After all, he said, they have a website ---> here. Well, other than their specialty, the other dishes were only so-so.

The next day, we travelled 100 miles up to Kuala Trengganu (KT) to make up for the lackadaisical (sp?) seafood dinner we had at Tong Juan. My BIL had a relative in KT and he took us to Restoran Ipoh (what's Ipoh doing in KT?) at Jalan Kampung Cina. THIS is what we call Seafood! We had the freshest grouper fish ever. The highlight was the lala (clams), the size/freshness which we've never seen/tasted before...easily double the size of what we usually get at home.

We also had Nestum prawns....deep-fried biiiiiiiig prawns smothered in toasted Nestum cereals with curry leaves. The serving was HUGE, a big mountain of it...but by the time I got to the camera, I had only one prawn model left. Here it is...in all its succulent glory. The meal cost us half the price of Tong Juan's and definitely satisfied the foodie in us.

[Shiewie]

Hi TP

Oh yum! Please do continue clicking away. Just tell your husband that they're for your greedy online friends. I also have the same complaints from whoever I'm eating with ... they're usually waiting anxiously to dig in while I'm trying to take pics of the food.

The PJ branch of Yut Kee is in PJ New Town, have seen it but haven't tried it yet.

Did you manage to get any nasi dagang while in KT?

Edited August 24, 2004 by Shiewie (log)

[spaghetttti]

TP, thanks for sharing that wonderful report and great photos. This one in particular practically jumped out of the screen, it's so vivid and very appetizing! Please keep those photos coming!

What's the dish to the left of those gorgeous clams?

[Tepee]

What's the dish to the left of those gorgeous clams?

Er...are you a Muslim? If you are, you may not be too keen about this dish. Since the majority of our group are Hakka chinese (my hubby being the lone Teochew), we ordered the Hakka kau yook, streaky pork steamed with yam. That was good too.

Ah, I'll take this opportunity to add something I missed in my original post. We tried another restaurant called River Bend a few doors away from the infamous Tong Juan the following night. This was also recommended to us, but we dismissed it the first night as it looked comparatively empty. Fortunately, we decided to try them out because we found that their food and pricing were much better than Tong Juan's. Hmmm, makes you suspicious of establishments with hyped-up websites, doesn't it?

[Tepee]

Did you manage to get any nasi dagang while in KT?

The hotel stay included breakfast, and, yes, we had our happy share of nasi dagang with kuah ikan tongkol. There's also some interesting rice and coconut wrapped in little triangular cones; had that with beef serunding. Went back for seconds and thirds....you get the picture.

[Shiewie]

Am inspired by TP's post on Terengganu so will get off my butt and post about my short day trip to Ipoh a couple of weekends ago - this was was solely a trip to eat. Unfortunately there aren't enough hours in day to eat all that we had planned so we'll be making some return trips shortly .

Ipoh is a 2-hour drive to the north of KL - it's a sleepy town full of faded colonial buildings that was once the center of tin-mining boom in Malaysia.

Ipoh Railway Station

Ipoh Town Hall

We started off early in the morning so that we could reach Ipoh for a dim sum breakfast. There were lots of Hong Kong style dim-sum shops in the Greentown are of Ipoh - we went to one called Ming Court. It was pretty good - we were there at about 9-ish and it was packed with local families. We had planned to delicately savour a few dishes only so that we'd have space to eat at other places later on...but we soon forgot about our plans once we saw the food. Here's some of the dim-sum we ate.

We then moved on to a tau foo far (sweet bean curd) stall - it was quite a novelty to us as this was a "drive-in" tau foo far stall - no pictures though as it was kinda difficult trying to snap pictures holding a bowl of tau foo far in one hand and fiddling with the camera in the other.

Next it was on to Nam Heong for some Ipoh Old Town White Coffee.

It's called white coffee coz the coffee beans are roasted in butter - you can see a layer of oil on top if you have it black. Most normally have it tarik (pulled) with some condensed milk - it's frothy like a cuppacino. We also tried a plate of char kuay teow there - slightly different from what we get in KL as there was a dollop of chilli sauce on it.

Lunch was at Then Chun which is famed for its Ipoh Sar Hor Fun (flat rice noodles in a chicken and prawn broth with shredded chciken, prawns and chives) and Creme Caramel.

We also had some deep-fried stuffed chicken wings, sweet potato balls and popiah (no pics of the popiah as it looked kinda of messy)

There was no time for dinner at Ipoh this trip as some of us had dinner appointments in KL. We did however buy a few (12 actually but they're just little ayam kampung) yim guk gai (Salt baked chicken) to take home with us - but we got kind of hungry on the drive back and so we dug into one at a highway stop on the way home .

[PCL]

Great post on Ipoh, Shiwie. The guy who owns the Tien Chun hor fun stall is an old friend of the family. I was born in Ipoh and grew up on food like that. Should note that the satay guy at Tien Chun does a great pork liver and intestine satay. Chee-yun, tai-cheung. Strictly non-halal.

The pics of Ipoh also made me very homesick. Great work. Will be pestering my aunt to make hor-fun very soon. Hope to be in KL and Ipoh later this year.

[Phish]

The last time i was at the airport, i saw that they just opened a Burger King there. The thing you MUST try is the *Double Mushroom Swiss* Burger. It's only available in Malaysia and no other country has anything more devine than this burger. It's the ONLY fast food i eat. But if fast food is not your thing, there's DeliFrance (sp?), *over priced* cafes' and seriously BAD food.

Hope that helps!

[JC]

Phish,

You're right. That Double Mushroom Swiss burger is something else.

But it's not unique to Malaysia. They have it in Australia as well (where Burger King is called Hungry Jacks).

[Shiewie]

Hi PCL

The satay guy at Tien Chun used to slap a plate of satay on each table whether one asked for it or not . And once it's there ... you just can't help but eat it . This no longer seems to be the case though as he now asks tables whether they would like some satay.

Was going to post a shot of Tien Chun to remind you of Ipoh but can't seem to find the images I had stored earlier in the newly reformatted site .

[Phish]

They have it in Australia as well (where Burger King is called Hungry Jacks).

←

You sure?? Im live in Melbourne, but i never see any mushroom swiss' in Hungry Jacks or Burger King. I only know that Hungry Jacks Australia is popular for their Bacon Deluxe.

[PCL]

You sure??   Im live in Melbourne, but i never see any mushroom swiss' in Hungry Jacks or Burger King. I only know that Hungry Jacks Australia is popular for their Bacon Deluxe.

←

dude, it was on as a special at Hungry's many years ago. It is most definitely not a standard menu item.

[Phish]

I guess i haven't been paying attention... or else i could've been in UK or Japan during the promotion. But i'm definately sure that they don't offer it anymore... or else i'll be cruising down to Hungry Jacks/ Burger King almost every day!!

[His Nibs]

They have it in singapore too! Another must try BK burger is the rendang double

[Phish]

rendang double

←

Ooh.. that sounds yum... what's in it?

[JC]

Oh, it's not at Hungry Jack's anymore? Could've been a special item like PCL said. I do remember having it in Melbourne in the early 90s when I studied there. Oh well... that is a long time ago...

The biggest burger I ever had was at Hungry Jack's. They had a special once - a triple Whopper!!!

[JC]

Yup, that satay guy at Tien Chun is such an Ipoh institution. Everybody remembers him! He used to be (20 years ago) much more boisterous, more subdued now with age but you can clearly hear his voice going around asking people if they want satay.

[Pan]

jimmyt, if you're still reading eGullet, we'd love if you'd check in and tell us how you fared during your Malaysian honeymoon.

[Sweet Willie]

I posted the following which is from Savuer Magazine Jan/Feb 2005 issue in another travel website and had a poster who lives in KL state that he was shocked that it got a mention but is happy as it is his favorite. Too bad I got my issue after I got back from KL.

The mention from Savuer:

Malaysia is the birthplace of several regional varieties of Laksa, a vibrant SE Asian noodle soup. Our favorite? The spice-rich version from Kuala Lumpur known as curry laksa or curry mee. The city's best is at Restoran Mee Kai Kee, a street stall that slings hundreds of bowls nightly of chef-owner Tony Wai's laksa. With its silken chicken and coconut milk curry, it's pure noodle nirvana.

[Pan]

Do you have a location for that stall?

[Shiewie]

See here for the address and directions.

[Laksa]

Could this cart contain the best steamboat stock in Malaysia?

We all know that the stock used for steamboat reaches its peak at the end of the meal, when the soup has acquired all the flavor from the meat and seafood that's been cooked in it. Well, imagine if that stock, instead of being consumed at the end, is saved and reused, over and over again. That could well be what's happening at Fat Boy Steamboat.

Fat Boy Steamboat is steamboat on wheels. Too lazy to go to a steamboat restaurant? Let the steamboat come to you! What looks like a converted van, which can usually be found around Jalan Bukit Bintang in downtown KL, holds a treasure trove of steamboat goodies. Patrons help themselves to a large variety of steamboat ingredients -- fishballs, meatballs, squid, cockels, veggies, you name it -- all held on bamboo skewers. To cook your selection, dunk them in the boiling stock pots built into the sides of the van.

Alas, the stock is not on the menu -- you don't get a spoon, nor a bowl, probably due to reasons of hygiene. But what I would give to get a taste of that soup, served up with some nice tang hoon.... oh.. boy! Fat boy steamboat!

[NasiLemak]

Hey all,

I promised Shewie to post some food pics from my trip to KL/Penang/Ipoh a few weeks ago. Here is one of the almost perfect plate of Char Kuey Teow from Penang Rd. There was hardly any grease the bottom of the plate after I was done eating and it had enough 'wok hei' (firepower??). The bad ones are the overly greasy ones with no ummmphh to it.

*growl" I miss it...

post some more later.