17 May 2012

Kuala Lumpur Tour Day 4



High tea, low tea & mee.





Off into the steamy KL morning.



We trek over to Pudu, via taxi with the most entertaining cab driver on the face of the planet, Shawn has to steer the taxi at one point as the driver needed his hands for telling jokes. On arrival we're given a royal Malaysian greeting by Mr Kuching Pudu.



Brunch time in Pudu.



Another fine kuching of Pudu.



Ladies who lunch.



Pudu market - it's not huge but it's an interesting place, and easy to get to from Bukit Bintang. It's not a long way off the tourist trail but it's far enough so locals don't have tourist fatigue, we meet some very friendly folks.



This tops lady breaks us off some pandan leaf to sniff. It smells and tastes like leaf.



On the edge of Pudu market we find this Indian stall making roti: breakfast sorted.



Fellow diners.



Dosai telor (egg) for breakfast: perfectly cooked flat bread with three dipping sauces.



The a thin layer of googie inside the dosai.



Good Morning Malaysia.



Breakfast roti, of course.



The groovy dude in the mirror shades stopped for a chat. You meet some dang friendly folks around here. He tells us he visited Australia as a jockey many many moons ago.



The great kibble incident of 2012. Don't worry, Mr Pussycat is fine, just sleeping on his back.



Chinese medicine shop. There's beautiful old Chinese shops all over Malaysia.



Diners at a random stall, Pudu market.



Random stall.



Doin' the dishes Pudu style.



Market stall kitchen.



Chinese breadsticks under construction.



Covered section at Pudu market. The outdoors section was a bit more pleasant (that is, less smelly).



Random street, Pudu. We just like saying 'Pudu'. Don't you?



We return to the first place we found in Pudu, Restoran Ee Fatt, which specialises in bah kut teh - "pork bone soup" with tea. We've booked 'high tea' in a posh hotel later in the afternoon, so we guess this is 'low tea'.



Our bah kut teh under construction.



We get the works.



The soup is the star of the show. The broth is very porky with strong herbal flavours, there's a bitter medicinal flavour in the back of the throat as it goes down.

This is quite hardcore compared to the bah kut teh we had in Singapore not so long ago. We read in The End of Char Kway Teow by Dr Leslie Tay that there's a couple of styles of bah kut teh. The Malaysian\Cantonese hawkers go for strong herb flavours while the Singaporean Teochew hawkers' version is gentler, flavoured with pepper and garlic. We prefer the lighter, sweeter Singaporean version.



Fried bread for dunkies.



We think this was tofu, can't quite remember, but it tasted good.



Sitting back and taking your time over bah kut teh is a sublime pleasure. The best way to deal with the heat is to take it easy, these old fellas are masters of it. The fella in the pink shirt was very friendly. He recommended bah kuh teh once a week for health. If we lived in KL, we'd follow his advice for sure.



Random street by Pudu market.



We love the random stairs of mystery in these old Chinese areas. We're told a barber's pole sign can mean a couple of different things in these parts...



Random restaurant.



Random street, Pudu.



Later in the day we hit the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel for high tea.



It's a little different to this morning's 'low tea'.



The cakes and sandwiches were truly five star, made by some fancy pants German chef. Even an innocent looking piece of carrot cake was rich and luscious. The plush surrounds, garden view and cocktails gave us the colonial, Somerset Maugham fantasy we were seeking. We ordered the menu above by 2 for 4 people and we were truly, truly stuffed.



Later we wander around Imbi looking for dinner. This looks right up our alley but we feel like a sit-down joint.



This joint looks great - Soo Kee's Son (Meng Chuan) Prawn & Beef Noodles. We give it a whirl.



After reading this blurb we thought we'd better give the prawn noodles and beef noodles a shot.



Open air kitchen.



After the diabetes inducing high tea we're all keen for a veggie hit.



A mound of kangkong, tasty with a little spicy kick, the slick of oil does it's best to counter the goodness of the greens.



Prawn noodles in gravy - prawnies and noodles in a thick sauce, quite plain. The prawns tasted a bit funny to us, we wondered if they were river prawns. The signature dish has jumbo prawns instead of these ones, but they came in the shell, we like our prawnies in the nuddy.



Beef noodles - another plain dish, simple but settling, the perfect foil for our sugar psychosis from this afternoon's high tea.



Wokstation.



We love Malaysia.





12 comments:

  1. Hey guys,
    I would like to complain about your blog. The thing is, I read your posts late at night, and the multiple photos u hv induce a drooling fit. Not only that, one cannot drive out n in 5 mins time, get a fix of roti or Soo Kee Prawn noodles which I am partial too.
    Seriously guys, good work. I enjoy all yr posts n yr bravery in attempting 2 order/eat in places where u dont know the language....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We suffer the same late night pains. It's just not fair we can't get a roti when we need one without having to queue at the one place that does them late.

      Language in KL wasn't really an issue for us. China on the other hand was totally different, that really was a hard one.

      Delete
  2. One of the criteria for my dream home...not more than 5 mins walk to all night roti/noodle joints....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We can find some fairly good Malaysian food in Sydney but it's a world of difference when it's on tap everywhere like KL.

      Delete
  3. I am entering Homer state of mind....urghhhhhhhh....drooling over keyboard!
    Man I want some Bak Ku Teh now....Will make a nice request to mom for some when i get home. 10 more sleeps to kaya toasts with half boiled eggs, roti and many many other yummies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought of you Eve when they brought out the bowl of pig bits. Yum!

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  4. On your next eating extravaganza to KL, instead of hitting the super-posh-but-generic-ish Mandarin Oriental for afternoon tea, you should head to Carcosa Seri Negara instead. Carcosa was the Governor's residence during British colonial days, now an hotel. The afternoon tea is brilliant, along with the 'colonial days' type service - yes, its all theatre, but tres enjoyable nonetheless. Gobsmack'd

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the hint. We'll look that up next time we are feeling a bit colonial!

      Delete
  5. I LOVE MALAYSIA! These photos bring back so many happy food memories...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love your blog entry about Pudu - you really captured the essence of the place. Hope you don't mind me mentioning a book I did recently about Pudu - basically a bit of a history of the early years of Kuala Lumpur. It's available for purchase at Blurb (a 'print on demand' internet service for authors):-

    http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4789693-the-good-brothers-of-pudu-a-chinese-malaysian-comm

    The Star newspaper did an article about it a few months ago:-

    http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Books/News/2014/02/02/Digging-into-Pudus-past/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were sad to see recently that the whole complex has now been demolished. Apartments I suppose now for that valuable land. Such a loss of history, which is much the story fro KL these days.

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    2. I mean the Pudu gaol, not the whole suburb!

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Thanks for your comment joy - please keep your musings happy - if you want to complain about a restaurant please do it on a restaurant review site (or your own blog) - we're all about celebrating cultural diversity and the great eats that come along with it :-)

Our ethics: We pay for all our own meals and travel (though sometimes Mum shouts us).