Kuala Lumpur 1 - Misc Fast Food and Street Food

Random eating around KL

That last portion of my holiday was spent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We stayed in Traders Hotel, right opposite the Petronas Towers. On our first walk exploring the city, we found ourselves at Suria, the giant shopping complex at the foot of the Towers. Over the next few days, this quickly developed into my go-to spot for shopping and food.

I've separated the eating in KL into 'misc' (which is what you're reading now) and individual posts specific to restaurants that we went to. Marc and I got into a bit of a time lapse once we reached KL (because we weren't forced to be up at the same times as we were on tour). I wake up very early and he... doesn't. As a result, I spent a number of lunches/mornings wandering solo through the shopping centre, picking up small treats and spending a lot of money.

This post will cover some of the things I tasted, as well as a couple of meals we had at streetside eateries late at night.

The first thing we ate at Suria was done out of desperation because we were hungry, unfamiliar with the shopping centre and just really wanted to eat something. I spotted a hotdog shop and went in without hesitation.

I only eat NASA-approved

The place was called 1901 Hotdogs and claim to be 'healthy' and indeed even 'NASA-approved'. If it's good enough for the astronauts, it's good enough for me.

Hot dog

It wasn't bad but I did think it had that 'healthy' taste to it that you get with junk food that's lacking oil/fat.

Popular pretzel joint

While we were walking around I spotted a pretzel store called Auntie Anne's Pretzels that smelt amazing. Every time I walked past, there was a huge queue so I surmised that it was good.

I challenge you to resist after watching fresh batches being brought out

One time I couldn't take it anymore and jumped in line with everyone else. There are tonnes of different flavors to chose from, both sweet and savory, but I went for the cinnamon sugar pretzel.

Cinnamon sugar pretzel

It was a fat, light puff of dough (like a donut with the chewiness of a bagel) tied in a knot and coated with cinnamon and sugar crystals. There was a bit too much sugar crusted on mine for my liking but it didn't distract from the deliciousness. These pretzels are amazing! They're extra good because they're fresh and piping hot when you get your hands on them.

One other day that I was wandering I spotted Gong Cha, a bubble tea shop that looked busy. Applying similar principles that applied to Auntie Anne's, I figured that it must be popular because it's good. It may have also been popular due to a lack of competition because the next day, when I was trying to find it, I didn't see one other bubble tea shop.

Pearl milk tea

I spent some time in the queue, during which I tried to figure out what everyone else was ordering. A lot of the drinks that were coming out looked layered? A layer of white (presumably milk of some kind) and a layer of something else? Anyway, maybe I'll never know because I just asked for a pearl milk tea and it came out uniform with pearls, as per usual. I asked for 1/4 sugar and the tea was good. It has a strong tea flavoring, attributed to it's use of real tea (rather than syrup). There were too many pearls in mine - maybe that's not something people normally complain about but I found it annoying.

By this time in our trip, we weren't as keen on standard Malaysian food because we'd had so much of it. I woke up one morning with this huge craving for a sandwich... just a plain sandwich. That's harder to come by in Asian than you'd think because more often than not they use sweet bread instead of regular bread and put tonnes of mayo in the middle with fillings like pork floss or spam. What I really wanted was the kind of thing I'd get from a cafe in Australia.

Sandwich store, a sight for Western food-deprived sore eyes

Luckily I spotted the Norwegian Sandwich Company in the Suria foodcourt. I didn't know Norwegians were famous for their sandwiches but whatever.

 Salmon and caper sandwich

I asked for a salmon and caper sandwich on wholegrain and got exactly what I wanted. The only Asiany thing they did to it was cut off the crusts. I'm not averse to crust-ingestion but Asians seem to hate it??

The last Suria food experience I'll put up is just some stuff we got from the foodcourt after a really big night out. I bumped into Marc and our Swiss friend at the foodcourt. This was a relief because I hadn't been able to find them in the nightclub the night before and was starting to get this feeling of de ja vu at not seeing them in Suria when I finally spotted them.

Marc ordered some pizza thing that was kind of fast food but kind of not because they cook them fresh on site (from dough-form to cooked form). 

Lamb and chicken skewers with cheese naan

I picked up some meat skewers from an Indian place and also got a cheese naan that was well-received by all. It had a Kraft processed cheese-like filling that seemed cheap and tacky but also very tasty.

Now that my shopping centre food's eating has been shared, I'll move onto the street food. 

KL has a street called Jalan Alor that's just lined with eateries. There's more than you can get your head around. The street is located in the Bukit Bintang district and hence walking distance from some of the biggest, most awesome shopping centres in the city.

Dishes that the others ate while I was preoccupied trying not to puke onto the table

I don't remember much of our first meal at Jalan Alor because I was drunk as a skunk and barely conscious. I did however, miraculously manage to get a photo of the meal! Wow. Even inebriated Cora can do food blogging tasks. I vaguely remember the boys force-feeding me nuggets of sweet chicken and the thought 'yum' permeated my hazy mind.

A lot of chooks died in the making of this meal :( - lemon chicken, chicken satay and ginger soy chicken

The next meal we had was sort of around the corner and was eaten on our last night in town. Marc and I ordered some chicken satay skewers, lemon chicken and ginger and shallot pork (one of the few restaurants we saw on our trip that served pork). Someone misheard us so we got ginger and shallot chicken instead, making it an all-chicken affair. The food was still nice though.

Irrelevant but cute monkey snap from the Batu caves

I think this post should prove one thing first and foremost: you won't starve in KL. There are so many food options from fast food to street food and as you'll see in my later posts, a multitude of proper restaurants to choose from. Enough to keep this food blogger satisfied.