Foods

Updated: 2024-09-18

This section can be endlessly long, so I will just explain the metagame instead of showing you any places.

1. If you know any Malaysian friends, just ask them for recommendations, follow your friends’ anecdotal experiences and personal opinions before following the bloggers or “best of category” recommendations. From my experience, the “best of category” usually means the foods prepared differently but not are not something the locals eat daily.
2. Be willing to Grab out of the downtown. Malaysians don’t really live in the Golden Triangle and hence there aren’t a lot of authentic Malaysian foods to eat downtown. So be willing to go to neighbouring towns in Ampang, Cheras, Petaling Jaya etc to find good foods.
3. Look out for weekly night markets (pasar malam) in the neighbourhoods, you can sample lots of lots of foods there. Search ‘pasar malam’ in Google Maps and check their opening hours.
   1. Taman Connaught every Wednesday the longest night market in KL.
   2. Taman Segar every Friday is the most accessible from MRT.
   3. Jalan Alor is a tourist trap and hardly sells legitimate Malaysian foods.

If you want a bingo card to truly experience Malaysia hawker fares:

1. Eat at an Indian mamak restaurant. They are usually 24/7, have TVs that play football and cricket matches.
2. Eat at a Chinese coffee shop (kopitiam). Not the ones in shopping malls, go to neighbourhoods and find the corner shops with lots of stalls and plastic chairs & tables.
3. Eat at a Malay tomyam shop. They are usually roadside establishments with colourful fluorescent light tubes.
4. Durian (seasonal) — Go to SS 2 famous hawker center district. Be prepared to pay RM 60+ per durian though.
5. Buy the cheap nasi lemak wrapped in brown paper and banana leaves, they are sold roadside or in the mamak as breakfast.
6. Drive/Grab up to Jalan Taman Saga in the evening, eat at Saga Highland steakhouse/Rani’s Corner/any malay restaurant along the road, take a picture of the city at night.