Best Street Food in Kuala Lumpur — 10 Must-Try Dishes (+ How to Find Them

If you want to know what are the must-try dishes when you're in Kuala Lumpur, this video is exactly what you're looking for. Hi, I'm Chanel and I'm Lonely Planet's correspondent for Sri Lanka. But right now, I'm on holiday in KL. And if there's one way that I love to explore a country and get to know its history, it is by eating my way through it. And I'm also going to be showing you the best and most fun ways to get around KL. Creamy, gooey, gooey. If you're wrong, you need to have this. It is time to try Nasi Kandar. Guys, look at this dish. It looks phenomenal. We are having this dish at Hamidia's, which is a restaurant right opposite Kavilian. You can't miss it. It has a history of 120 years. And this is a fabulous dish which looks like it has a lot of flavor. The way you have this is you come in and you decide what kind of rice you want. You get three to four varieties of rice. We went with biryani and ghee rice. And then you get a huge buffet of meat selections and vegetable selections and sambal selections. What makes it different from any other kind of biryani or rice and curry that I have had is the fact that they drench this in seven types of curries. The reason why they do that, they want to include all the flavors of salty, sweet, sour, all of that to give you the perfect mouthful. That's something I've seen a lot in South Indian cooking. I've seen that in Jaffna, Tamil food. So I'm very excited to dig in. So the reason why Nasi Kandar is a must-have dish in Malaysia is because the demographic of Malaysia is made by 70% Malays. The two minority demographics are the Chinese as well as the Indians. Now the Indians are Hindu Indians as well as Muslim Indians. And same goes for the Chinese. There's a Muslim Chinese community as well. And this is exactly what directly injects this amazing flavor into Malaysian cuisine. It gives you the variety of food that you're seeing here. And that is what makes Malaysia so special and one of the best places, I think in my opinion, to eat because you get such a variety. It's the perfect example of how diversity really adds into the culture and flavor of a country, just like in Sri Lanka. Let's go for a bite of that chicken. Oh my goodness. I swear to God, I'm not over-exaggerating. I love eating rice because it's drenched, absolutely drenched. And this has so much flavor. And you can just shovel the rice into your mouth just by itself. The chicken has a tiny bit of sweetness to it. And it has a crunchy, crispy skin. It's tender inside. It's juicy. It's not dry, even though it looks like it's very crispy. I can't believe I waited this long to try Nasi Kandar. In fact, I missed trying Nasi Kandar the last time I was in Malaysia and I didn't think much of it. I was like, oh, let's try some curry. I've had that before. Wrong. You need to have this. One of my favorite ways of getting around KL has to be the scooter. The Beam, specifically. It's a super simple app. You download it. You put in your card. Scan the QR on the scooter. And then you're ready to go. Basically, you drive it on the footpaths only. But I do see people riding it on the road. I don't suggest that. People drive here really fast, but you can do that if you want to. You can park it here. We are right outside the MRT, which is great. Which means you can ride the scooters and these e-bikes. If you get the app as well, that's a different app. To the MRT, you can get in. You can go wherever you want. And then when you come back, you can just walk a little bit. Find yourself a Beam, hop on, and then you can ride to your accommodation. Very easy. I love it. It's great to get around when there's a lot of traffic. You can squeeze in, but please do be careful. And of course, it's a great way to explore the city. It's a must-have experience, I think, when you come to KL. All right, now we are trying Chilli Pan Mee. This dish was invented in the 1980s by a gentleman who ran this very restaurant. We are here at Kin Kin Restaurant in Chowkid. So this is the original restaurant where this dish was invented by the man you see behind me. He's apparently the owner, so he's still around at his own shop. But basically, this restaurant used to serve Pan Mee as a hand-broken noodle in a clear broth until he decided to serve it one day with this kind of a chilli paste. And it became an instant hit. Essentially, it's a dish that is comprised of an al dente noodle and some minced meat. And it is also topped with a nice soft-boiled egg, some chives, and of course, crispy anchovies. So the way you're supposed to have this is you're supposed to take the chilli. And mind you, this chilli is quite spicy, so you don't want to go too crazy on it. And essentially, you want to mix it all up. And what happens is that the egg yolk and the chilli paste kind of mix together to make this creamy sauce that's so tasty. And the crispy anchovies really come in to back up the dish. And you can go in with a little bit of soy sauce. Okay, so I felt like my egg was a little bit too done. And I really like it when the yolk gets all creamy and coats the noodles. So I asked for another one. As you can see, there you go. You can see it kind of coating the yellow of the yolk, coating the noodles and getting all mixed up with the chilli paste. And boom! Creamy, ooey, gooey. All that flavour is delivered by the chilli paste. And it's so good. For some reason, this pan mee reminds me of the instant noodles I used to have in my childhood and the flavour that it used to have. Obviously, the noodles are much better. They've got a nice bite to them. The anchovies really add in to the flavour of the chilli paste. Oh my goodness. I'll really miss this dish when I go back home. One thing you mustn't underestimate is the Malaysian sun and heat. It is hot out here. And you will find yourself walking out at noon from train stations to bus stops to malls. So make sure you always have a hat on hand. Carry some water with you. And also be aware that in the evening, sometimes you can have a tropical downpour. So maybe it might be good to carry a small umbrella or even one of those raincoats that you can just quickly put on. It'll be super helpful. Malaysian breakfast has quickly moved its way to the top of my favourite breakfast list. And we are here at Haukau Kopitiam. This is a very popular kopitiam or Malaysian coffee shop that has been around since 1956, since the colonial time. And it is four generations deep in its management. So this place definitely has this nostalgic vibe to it. And it has great food. Let's go in and let me show you a Malaysian breakfast. This place is super popular. So you want to get here on time. They open at 7.30. There are often queues. They even have this numbering system. So we've got a number as we arrive. We're waiting for it to be called in. And then we can be seated. So almost all of our dishes are here. And I'm going to take you through them one by one. So this is a Malaysian breakfast staple. Onsen-style half-boiled egg. I mean, I've tried this at home. I'm going to tell you how difficult it is to get it so perfectly. Beautiful. You then want to add some soy sauce and white pepper. Mix it up. Now, most people will have this straight. But this is where the next big thing in Malaysian breakfast comes in. This is the kaya toast. Essentially, it's two slices of bread. And in between, you have kaya, which is their pandan coconut jam. With some blocks of butter. And then you want to kind of dip this in. That's when the magic really happens. Because what you end up with is a salty, sweet, delicious breakfast straight. Next up, we have curry chee cheong fun. Essentially, chee cheong fun is just the rolled white rice noodles that's been rolled up and it creates something like this. And incredibly delicious, savoury flavour. So good. Literally tastes like a chicken curry. It's amazing. And of course, you can't forget the drinks. This is their iced coffee. Absolutely delicious. And this is cham. It is a mix of coffee and tea and evaporated milk. And a bit of condensed milk, I think. Very strong. If you love to be caffeinated, this is the drink for you. And it is so tasty. I would have thought mixing coffee and tea is a scam, but it's not. Tastes delicious. Now we're taking the light railway. And this is pretty simple. We put down where we want to go on Google Maps. And it actually shows you which line you should be taking. Very helpful. And beyond that, it's very simple. Just a straightforward thing. You go in, you get your token, you come up to the platform. And here we are, waiting for our train to KLCC. We specifically like this because we get to burn a few calories by walking to the LRT as opposed to just hopping on a cab and hopping off again. So, plus points for steps. All right, it is roti canai time. Another must-have dish when you're in Malaysia. Definitely influenced by the Indian community. We have something that looks like a paratha. So you can have roti canai with a variety of different curries. We're having it today with mutton. And I'm having a very specific type of roti canai, which has an egg in the middle. And this is a bit of a new dish. I haven't had this one before. This is essentially a lamb shank, a leg of lamb. And there's roti canai underneath and two half-boiled eggs on top. It looks absolutely amazing. Let's do a taste test. Break up the egg. Take a piece of mutton. Here we go. Oh my god, the mutton gravy is perfect. Not too spicy. The egg yolk is perfect. And then the roti canai comes through as crispy and crunchy and warm. So it's overall such a good meal. Since I haven't tried this dish before, I'm going to give this one a try as well. Start by cracking open our egg, lamb shank, and we've got some roti. How do I eat this? Oh my god, hold on. That's so tasty. Yum. All right, post-meal thoughts. This sauce has a little bit of a sweetness compared to the mutton curries that we've had. I didn't eat this by myself, I promise. But you can definitely share this with at least three people. But the trick to enjoying this meal is you need to get your rotis hot hot and you need to eat them fast while they're crunchy because that textural feeling is really what makes this flavor bomb amazing. First disposable camera. So exciting. But what I like about this is that you can't actually see what you take and you have 27 shots. That's all you get. You can't say, oh, I don't like that. Take another photo, you know. You just have to go home and see what you have. So when you go home, you get a little surprise, a little package with memories from your trip. How nice. For our next dish, we are here at Lot 10 on Bukit Bintang. This is the basement food court of a big mall here, a Japanese mall if I'm not mistaken. And what's special about this is that they have taken all of the apparently famous popular hawker stalls from around Malaysia and KL and they have brought them all here and given them a stall here. So if you're short on time, if you don't have time to travel to all these individual places that do these amazing dishes, you could just come here and try a variety of them. Let's go. Another extremely popular dish that you must have is Hokkien mee noodles. This is a wok fried dark soy sauce glazed noodle. And this place, the stall here is by Kim Lian Kee Hokkien mee. And Kim Lian Kee is apparently one of the oldest restaurants that serve Hokkien mee here in Malaysia. And there are a couple of different styles. This dark soy sauce glazed one is the most popular and well known. But there is also the Cantonese style, which is like a creamy, eggy, wet rendition. Also really delicious and a must try. All right, here she is. A very old dish. Try it and see how it is. The way it's made on the wok is incredible. It gets so smoky. It's definitely got a sweet touch to it. But also you can taste that like almost a burnt charcoal taste. Very unique. I mean, it's not like any other noodle I've tried before. But I will say I like this. But I do prefer the Cantonese style. I like that creamy, eggy gravy. But this is definitely a must try. Next up is a dish that I absolutely love. This is Char Kway Teow. I hope I said that correct. Now, what's really interesting is that there are different versions of Char Kway Teow. We have the dry Penang style here, as well as there is a wet style as well. Both are really good. I've tried both. But I have really grown to like the Penang style one. It's got duck eggs, scallops, prawns, sprouts. Smells amazing. So the essential part of making Penang style dry Penang is that you have to make it on a wok. That's how you get that smoky flavor. That is so unique to this dish. I really recommend this dish. I will say Penang's Char Kway Teow is one of my favorite dishes in Malaysia. Now, when it comes to getting around, a grab is one of the easiest and most familiar ways to get around. Very straightforward. Much like Uber and many of the other services you find around the world. Super easy when you've been walking the malls all day and your feet are tired and you have a hundred bags to carry. So you just jump in a cab. The only thing you need to look out for is the peak time. Sometimes the rates fluctuate. So just keep an eye out for that. Now it's time to try Malaysia's national dish, Nasi Lemak. And we've come to Village Park, which is one of the most viral restaurants to try this dish at. So this is it, guys. The pièce de résistance. The dish you must have when you come to Malaysia. On this plate, we have the ayam goreng, which is the spicy fried chicken. We have the sambal and we have the rice that has been steamed and cooked in coconut milk. We have some cucumber to balance off the heat. It always comes with half a boiled egg. We've got some roasted peanuts here. And of course, this is the ikan bilis, also known as crispy fried anchovies. And honestly, there's not enough of this on this plate for me. So to make the perfect bite, you want to put in some sambal, get your chicken, get a crispy fried anchovy, a peanut, a little bit of your egg. There you go. The perfect bite. That is so good. Everything comes together so well. There's nothing else I can say. You just have to come and try it for yourself. The main thing for me is that it's the sambal that gives all the flavour. So if you've got a good sambal and a good chicken, you've got a good nasi lemak. But you need all the other components to be good as well. But the sambal gives that flavour. Nasi lemak is a dish that has been around for so many years. And it was a dish usually had by fishermen and other people who did heavy work. Makes sense, a lot of good carbs to fuel your work. But now it's a dish you can have at any time of the day and no one's going to bat an eyelid. And to prove that fact, it is now four o'clock and this place is still bustling. In fact, if you're coming here usually for morning or breakfast or for lunch, you have to get here early. The lunch rush finishes at 2pm. So we were able to get in and find a seat. But as you can see, it is packed. These rotis are another one of my favourites and a must try. And in Malaysia, they're a Chinese roti. Usually they're beef, but they also come in chicken. So we're having this from Mon Beef Roti, which is at Pavilion. They're also right near Lau Yat. And there's always a line, as you can see behind me. They're very popular because they're made hot, hot and fresh on the spot. And essentially, they're pastries that have been stuffed with meat and then fried right in front of you. And if you can hear it, let me hear my mic. It's so crispy. It's so hot. You have to be careful when you bite into it. But it's crispy and the inside is juicy. I'm scared. Very simple and a must try. A great snack to have in between your meals when you're tired after shopping. Now those were just some of the must try Malaysian dishes that truly represent the soul of the melting pot of culture and diversity that this country really is. There's so much more to experience when it comes to food. Like where we're at today, Nadodi, which is a fine dining restaurant that combines the flavours of South Asia and gives you an amazing experience. There's so much more to experience in terms of the levels of dining experience that you can have and it would take us quite a long time to get you through everything. However, one thing is for certain, for someone who loves to eat, Malaysia is not going to disappoint you. Now with that, I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye!