Makan!

‘Makan’ means ‘eat’ in Malay.

Food in Malaysia is influenced by the different populations that make up this multicultural/multiethnic country: Malay, Chinese, Indian and Indigenous influences. In my opinion, this is what makes the food so good!

My mother is Malay-Chinese, and we often go back to Malaysia to visit family. I love going back to Malaysia because I LOVE the food. When I'm with family I am never hungry, they make sure of it. A big part of our culture is centered around eating. Dishes are meant to be shared, the 'lazy susan' is your best friend, and aunties are always trying to force you to eat more.

Over my years growing up on Malaysian cuisine, I will share with you some must-try dishes. I'll provide recommendations for restaurants/hawker stalls in both Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and London, UK, because the London scene is pretty good at satisfying my cravings when I'm home.

A word of advise, food is highly rated in Malaysia, and as such locals have pretty high expectations on taste and can be quite harsh critics. Don’t be put off by 3-star restaurant reviews in Malaysia, they’re more like 4-star reviews in the UK. If you are lucky enough to find a restaurant with close to 5 stars, definitely go. If locals are rating it that high then it’s got to be amazing!

This is going to be a looooonng list. Enjoy!

Main dishes and street food

Roti canai
Roti means bread, canai means rolled thinly. A fried Indian flatbread that is commonly served with a side of curry and eaten for breakfast or lunch. It can also be served filled with sweet (kaya/coconut jam, banana) or savoury (ground meat, cheese and spinach) fillings. This is one of my favourite dishes.
In Malaysia look out for Indian restaurants, including banana leaf restaurants to eat this. You may come across the odd hawker stall, but they can be quite hard to come by.
In London, Roti King is where it’s at. Freshly made and authentic. Their original restaurant is a small basement room in Euston, but they have since opened branches in Battersea and Waterloo. There is often a pretty long queue to get in, but trust me it’s well worth the wait.

Nasi Lemak
The national dish of Malaysia. The dish is made up of coconut rice, curry chicken, boiled egg, dried anchovies, peanuts, cucumber, and sambal (chilli paste, more on that in the next section). Spin-offs of the dish would swap the curry chicken for a different curry such as fish, or beef rendang.
You can find this dish everywhere, from old family restaurants with plastic chairs to Instagram famous cafes. If you fly with Malaysia Airlines this is always served as a breakfast option and I highly recommend selecting it.
In London, Roti King also does a great Nasi Lemak. Mamak Don also does a version but with fried chicken wings.

Curry laksa
Another quintessentially Malaysian dish. Laksa is a curry coconut noodle soup. It is absolutely delicious, packed with flavour. Often served with chicken meat, fried tofu, fish tofu and vegetables. They aren’t often too spicy.
Claypot chicken rice
Rice is cooked in a claypot with meat marinated in sticky sweet soy sauce, Chinese sausage, mushroom and vegetables. It can take some time for this to cook as the claypot is laid upon hot coals. What results is a delicious and rich dish with tender meat and rice in the centre, and crispy rice on the edges. It’s good.
In Kuala Lumpur there are a handful of restaurants that specialise in claypot rice that are highly rated. I ate at Heun Kee Claypot Chicken Rice which has outlets in Pudu and Taman Connaught. Wei Ji Claypot Chicken Rice is another popular option.

Hainanese chicken rice
A different style of chicken rice which my family often refer to as white chicken rice, as opposed to the brown chicken rice of claypot rice. Hainanese chicken is a whole chicken poached until just cooked. Because the chicken isn’t left to boil, but instead lowered into just boiled water, it produces a really soft and tender chicken. This is served with flavoured rice, where the rice grains are first fried in chicken stock and then cooked to give it an extra flavourful taste, and served with a side of clear broth. Chilli ginger paste, and soy sauce are served with the dish and sometimes a side of beansprouts and/or cucumber. The chicken is supposed to be at room temperature because of the way it is cooked and left tender. This is a really nourishing and tasty meal. On appearance, it looks like a simple meal but a lot of time and effort goes into creating this dish perfectly.
In Kuala Lumpur there are a number of restaurants and hawker stalls serving this dish. I recommend Nam Heong Chicken Rice which has outlets at hawker stalls as well as in mall food courts, and 1977 New Ipoh Chicken Rice.
In London, Mamak Don makes a fair attempt on this dish.

Steamboat/hotpot
This is more of a sharing meal, although there are ways you can do this solo. For this meal, a large boiling broth is centred at the table over an adjustable flame. Food items are then cooked in the broth and eaten. Items you can cook include vegetables, finely sliced meats, seafood, tofu, noodles etc. You order what you want. In general it’s good practice to add items to the broth, wait for it all to cook, and then eat/remove all the items before adding in new items to cook. That way you never cross-contaminate raw foods and you keep ontop of over-cooking.
If you’re travelling solo and don’t want to order a whole broth pot for yourself, you can go to lok lok stalls at night markets and food markets. Here there is a communal broth, and you buy skewers of your choice to cook into the broth. Some stalls will cook the items for you and bring them over to your table, other stalls let you sit at the broth bar so to speak and cook yourself.
In Kuala Lumpur some good hotpot restaurants include Beauty in the Pot, Haidilao (offer guests a unique waiting experience including nail bar, beauty bar, soft-serve ice-cream), and Harbour Ed’s Steamboat Restaurant (they make many of their fish and tofu items themselves).
In London, Haidilao also has outlets. There are also plenty of hotpot restaurants around, and everyone I speak to has their own favourite. Personally, this is a dish my family often do at home. It’s very easy to buy the soup paste, and we have a hotpot machine which makes its outing every Chinese New Year as an easy dish to serve many people.
Congee
Rice porridge. Rice is cooked in a broth to give it some flavour, but most of the flavour will come from toppings you add such as sesame oil, soy sauce, chilli oil, spring onions, dried chillis etc. It is commonly served with you tiao (more below) which are fried dough sticks. A breakfast and lunch dish.

Chee cheung fun
Translates as rice noodle rolls. Rice noodles, that haven’t been sliced into thin noodle strips, but instead remain as one large sheet that is rolled up and then sliced and served. The sheets are cooked fresh and can have spring onion, dried shrimp, or other toppings added to the mixture and cooked into the noodle. Once rolled up and chopped it is usually served with a sweetish soy sauce, sesame seeds and a chilli paste on the side. Often eaten as a breakfast dish, but you’ll be able to find these at hawkers stalls all throughout the day.
In Kuala Lumpur, try Yooi Kee Chee Cheong Fun in Chinatown.
Chicken satay
Skewered chicken, with curry flavourings, cooked over a flame grill and served with a peanut sauce. Satay is often served with cucumbers, onions and rice cake (rice that had been compacted and cubed). The idea is that you use your satay sticks to spear the rice and veg and also dip that into the satay sauce. You can also get beef satay and sometimes offal.
For a more authentic dish try hawker stalls. Restaurants will often do a more modern take on satay and skip out on the chunks of onion, cucumber and rice.
Char kway teow / kak stir-fried rice noodles
Translates as stir-fried rice noodles / rice cakes. Think of the rice cake as thick pieces of noodle. This is a Chinese dish where rice noodles / rice cake are stir-fried in dark soy sauce, garlic and chilli paste with the addition of vegetables and protein of choice. It’s salty and delicious and can be found at many hawker stalls.
Ikan bakar / Fried fish
When I come to Malaysia I always want to make sure I eat a whole fried fish. This is more of an Indonesian dish, where a whole fish is smothered in sambal (chilli paste) and then fried. Usually charcoal grilled, sometimes shallow fried. Either way, you get this delicious crispy skin and soft fish meat. Put that ontop of some rice and pour a little chilli-infused soy sauce and you’re done. Yum.
This is more of a restaurant dish. In some places, they will let you choose your fish from the tank and cook you a real fresh one.

Beef Rendang
Caramalised beef curry slow-cooked in coconut milk and spices. Often served as a dry curry, but some will serve you a bit more sauce.
In Malacca, Atlantic Nyonya serves a delicious curry among other great dishes.
Chili pan mee
Translates as chilli flat noodles. A dry noodle dish where noodles are tossed in a sambal chilli paste and topped with minced pork, fried egg and vegetables. This is a salty and spicy one, so definitely have some spice tolerance before committing to a whole bowl.
Wat tan hor
Flat rice noodles in egg gravy. It doesn’t sound all that appealing, but Malaysians use the word gravy like the UK uses the word sauce. What it is are flat rice noodles topped with a rich thick sauce that has had an egg cracked and mixed into it (kinda like a carbonara if we are really going to Europeanise it). Served with seafood and veg mixed in, this is my sister’s favourite dish. It’s a little too rich for me and I prefer to take a couple bites of someone else’s dish than order a whole plate to myself. It’s something different and unique to try, and again it’s salty and tasty.
In London, C&R Cafe in Chinatown do a great plate of this.
Wan tan mee
Wonton noodles. So so good. The wonton noodles are fresh noodles cooked in boiling water to an al dente texture. They are then often served with char siu pork (BBQ pork), and a side of soup. This is so delicious, and I have yet to find any restaurants in London that can mimic these.
You will find the dish at hawker stalls and are served for breakfast and lunch.

Belachan chicken wings
Basically deep-fried chicken wings. Belachan is a shrimp paste that the chicken wings are smothered in and then fried. The shrimp paste adds to the salty umami taste, adding a bit more depth to the chicken. It’s very good and you often get a crispy outer and moist inner chicken meat.
Otak otak
Not the most handsome thing on the menu, but it is very flavourful and tasty. It’s made up of fish, that is ground down or minced and mixed with spices like lemongrass, chilli and turmeric. It’s then packaged up into a banana leaf and steamed. Think of it as a spiced and seasoned fish cake (not actually spicy). This is a Nyonya dish, where Nyonya cuisine refers to Chinese ingredients with Malay and Indonesian influences (spices and cooking techniques).

Banana leaf
An Indian dish where rice and accompanying side dishes are served on a banana leaf and eaten with your hands. Side dishes are usually curries, grilled meats, chutneys, breads, etc. This is a very popular meal for lunch times and restaurants will be their busiest during that time.
In Kuala Lumpur, some recommendations include Bala’s Banana Leaf in Bangsar and Maya Mess @ Brickfields.
Chili crab
I’m not a big shellfish fan, but I have to admit this is delicious. The chilli sauce that the crab is drenched in tastes so good, and can be mopped up with the sweet bread rolls that can be ordered alongside. It is a sweet chilli sort of sauce that can sometimes carry a bit of heat.
In Kuala Lumpur I ate a delicious chilli crab at Siu Siu Restaurant near the Thean Hou Temple.

Roti canai from ABC Bistro, Brickfields

Claypots cooking on hot coals

Hawker stall wan tan mee with char siu pork

Otak otak, Nyonya laksa, and belachan chicken wings

 from Ai Jiak

 Chilli crab from Siu Siu Restaurant

Heun Kee claypot chicken rice

Nam Heong chicken rice, set menu

Steamboat at Harbour Ed’s Steamboat Restaurant

Chee cheung fun

Chicken satay

Modern take on ikan bakar at Dancing Fish

Beef rendang and ikan baka at Atlantic Nyonya

Snacks and sides

Curry puff
Flaky, crispy pastry filled with chicken and potato curry. Perfect for a packed lunch.
Pisang goreng
Translates as fried banana. Battered banana, deep fried. Sold as is from hawker stalls. You can also get deep-fried sweet jackfruit, called cempedak goreng.
In Kuala Lumpur, Brickfields Pisang Goreng hawker stall is pretty good.
Youtiao
Butterfly sticks of deep-fried dough. Savoury and a little salty, they are light and airy and my fave. Typically served as a breakfast dish alone or chopped up and topped over congee. There is also a sesame version that is sweeter.
You usually find these at hawker stalls, but there is a chain restaurant called I Love Yoo! that does some great ones.

Pao / bao
White doughy buns are often filled with sweet or savoury fillings like char siu pork, kaya, dried coconut, salted egg etc. Rather than the taco-shaped bao you find sold in the UK, bao or pao in Malaysia are round buns, still of the same dough, just a little lighter in texture.
In Malaysia, you will find these sold everywhere from hawker stalls, cafes, corner shops, sellers on the side of the highway, restaurants, markets etc.
In London, you can find authentic bao/pao buns in Chinatown bakeries. Those taco-shaped buns have become increasingly popular over the years and you will find restaurants and food trucks dedicated to them. I’m personally not a fan. Their texture isn’t as light and fluffy, and they are priced crazily high.

Rojak
Rojak is a sort of salad with a sweet, salty, spicy dressing. It’s typically made up of fruits like cucumber, pineapple, unripe mango, turnip and deep-fried puff tofu. The dressing is made up of palm sugar, chilli shrimp paste, lime juice and sometimes tamarind. It’s then sprinkled with crushed peanuts.

Bakkwa / BBQ meat jerky
You’ll see bakkwa as square sheets of caramelised jerky meat. Like candied bacon, it has a sweet and sticky exterior coating the dried salty meat.
Typically pork, you can also find chicken alternatives. I like to eat these as is, or warmed slightly in-between two slices of soft white bread. You will often see bakkwa sandwiches being sold with cucumber, egg, and meat floss (dried meat processed to produce a light fluffy floss).
Sambal
Sort of like hot sauce in Central America, sambal is served everywhere, and everyone will tell you that their recipe is best. It has a deep umami flavour, with some heat from the chillis and Made up of a mixture of chilli, shrimp paste, ginger, garlic, onion, palm sugar and lime juice. What suits you will be down to personal preference, and different dishes will suit different sambal favours.
Try it mixed with fried rice, topped on a fried egg, basted on fish.

Curry puff and youtiao from I Love Yoo!

Steamed bao at SS2 pasar malam

Rojak

Loon Kee bakkwa stand in Chinatown

Desserts and drinks

Asam boi / lime and sour plum juice
My favourite drink - sweet, sour and a little salty. It’s a lime juice with dried salted sour plums dropped in to give it that tangy flavour. Definitely give this drink a try. You will find it everywhere from restaurants to hawker stalls.
Potong
Basically traditional ice lollies, but they have great go to flavours very different from the west. Now much harder to come by, these flavours are traditionally red bean (kidney bean), taro, durian, sweetcorn, jackfruit, yam and cendol (pandan). They sound savoury, but the flavours are sweet, just not as sweet as a typical ‘vanilla’ or ‘chocolate’ flavour.

Tau foo fah
Silken tofu dessert served with a light syrup (clear, dark, or ginger syrup). Silken tofu is very soft and I’d compare this to eating thick yoghurt in terms of texture, there is no need for chewing at all.
You will find these served for dessert in restaurants, but also from many hawker stalls and food markets. It’s very satisfying to watch them use a spoon to slice layers of silken tofy out and into a plastic container before pouring over a sweet syrup.
In recent years there have been a lot of soy dessert chains pop up that specialise in soy puddings and tau fu fah, but also serve other desserts or meals. Some brands to try include Bean Jr, Snowflake, and The Soybean Factory.

Sago pudding
Sago pearls are similar to tapioca pearls but less tough and with very little flavour. Sago pudding is traditionally served with palm sugar syrup and coconut milk, sort of the same way that chia pudding is made. More often then not you will see it served with a creamy mango and coconut pudding and topped with fresh mango.
In Kuala Lumpur, Bean Jr does a killer mango sago pudding called Mango Heaven. It’s huge but it tastes so good I’m sure you’ll finish it just fine.

Ais kacang
Shaved ice dessert served with syrup, condensed milk and toppings like sweetcorn, red bean, cendol, grass jelly, and peanut. A refreshing snack/drink for the hot and humid weather.

Cendol
This refers to the cendol pieces which are pandan-flavoured rice jelly, but is in essence like an ais kacang in that it is shaved ice with syrup and condensed milk, topped with cendol. Eaten both as a dessert and as a drink/starter in Nyonya tradition.
Durian
On the outside it looks like a jackfruit, but with thicker spikes. A fruit native to Malaysia it is well known for its smell. A bad smell mixed with warm humidity is never a great combo for me but honestly, you get pretty used to the smell and it doesn’t feel so pungent whilst walking the streets of KL. The fruit itself it rich and creamy. Again, not my thing, for me fruit shouldn’t be creamy and I’m no avocado fan. My understanding is that it takes a couple goes to really get into durian. But like Marmite, you either love it or hate it.
In Malaysia you will find durian stands selling fresh durian which they will open for you. You may even come across durian cafes, like Durian Man, where you have rows of different durian varieties to pick from which you then take to your table and eat.
The public favourite variety is Musang King.
There are strict rules about where durian can be eaten, given it’s smell. So public transport and many hotels and accommodations will be a no for durian.

Kuih
Pronounced qway. Colourful dessert cakes mostly made from glutinous rice. There are many different types and this article by TimeOut does a good job of showcasing them.
My personal recommendations to try are kuih lapis (a white, pink and green layered kuih), seri muka (glutoinous rice with a layer of pandan), and kuih talam (a layer of pandan and a layer of fluffly coconut).

Mango sticky rice
Glutinous sticky rice. Ripe mango. Coconut milk sauce. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and delicious. It is often served as a dessert in restaurants but you will find many food stands and night markets selling small plastic takaway boxes of this.
Egg tart
Really a custard tart, a 2nd or 3rd cousin to the Portuguese tart. Shortcrust pastry, custard filling. Many now sell flavoured custards too.
In Kuala Lumpur, my favourite bakery to get them from is Hokkaido.

Asam boi / lime and sour plum juice

'Mango Heaven' from Bean Jr

Ais kacang

Nyonya cendol

Pulut panggang and ang ku kuih

Mango sticky rice

Need to knows

A lot of the food will be salty and oily, which is why Chinese tea is often served alongside meals to give you a clean warm drink to help wash it down and aid with digestion. If the idea of a hot drink doesn’t appeal, Chrysanthemum tea has cooling properties.