Kuala Lumpur - Roti Canai at Pak Hassan

Kampung Baru is such a great place for breakfast. On this morning we opted for roti canai.

And this place was all about the roti canai - they were busily cooking them up one after another.

While we usually like our eggs soft-cooked alongside roti, this morning we went with the egg cooked in.

The house "gravy" was a big cauldron of curry sauce with chicken back bones and chicken feet cooking in it - very tasty.

Perfect breakfast in a very pleasant and friendly setting.

Kuala Lumpur - Heun Kee Claypot Chicken Rice

One evening we went out to the Pudu neighborhood of KL to have dinner at Heun Kee Claypot Chicken Rice.

The place was busy, but we only had to wait briefly - the wait was actually fun, since you can watch the guys cooking the clay pots over coals out in front of the restaurant.

We shared their standard clay pot chicken, which came with pieces of chicken, chinese sausage, and a tiny bowl of salted fish that you could add to your taste (it was very salty).

The chicken was very good, and while I don't usually particularly like chinese sausage, I enjoyed these ones - they weren't too sweet.

We also got a big plate of gai lan (yay vegetables!).

Everything cooks in the clay pot, and they add a savory sweet-soy sauce to it. The bottom part of the pot gets crispy and caramelized from the heat.

It was a tasty and satisfying meal, but definitely a big part of what makes it a go-to spot is the spectacle of them cooking the pots.

Malacca - Hotel breakfasts and snacks

Our hotel in Malacca (Heeren Palm Suites) put on a very nice breakfast spread. They did eggs to order, and most mornings one or both of us had some half-cooked eggs with white pepper and seasoned soy sauce. We first had eggs this way in a kopitam in Singapore, and it has been a breakfast favorite of ours ever since.

They also had a small buffet of interesting dishes that varied each morning we were there. They also had some sort of rice poridge each morning. The first day, we both loaded up on veg since our recent diet had been a bit lacking in that department. They also had a chicken curry and a mee goreng.

Another morning they had a different kind of chicken dish and a squid and fish cake dish that was delicious.

And yet another morning, they had nasi lemak (coconut rice) with peanuts, ikan bilis and sambal.

Each day they also had other snack items which we took to go. The first morning was a plate of various local kuih treats.

One was sticky rice stuffed with a palm sugar filling.

The pretty stamped one was probably the least interesting tasting. Not sure what the filling was.

The fried one was, I think, a kuih bakul - though very different tasting from the one we had in KL.

The cone-shaped one was a kind of pulut tai tai (blue glutinous rice cake) - very traditional in the region. It was very light and laced with coconut. Probably our favorite of the bunch.

Malacca - Pak Putra

One evening in Malacca, tandoori chicken sounded good, so we walked over to Pak Putra - a Pakistani restaurant.

They had a number of tandoor ovens in action out front, with both chicken and naan on the go.

We ordered a couple a naan breads and some tandoori chicken - with some butter chicken and a veg dish for good measure.

The naans were good, and the tandoori chicken was flavorful and tender. The dipping sauce that came with it was really good - it had a nice brightness to it.

The butter chicken was also good, but the real star of the dish was the sauce, which was perfect for dipping the naan in.

The veg was potato, cauliflower and peas. Fairly mushy texture and not a lot going on flavorwise.

Apart from the somewhat boring veg, a very good meal in a nice setting.

Malacca - Tengkera Duck Noodle

We stopped into Tengkera Duck Noodle for lunch one day in Malacca.

The setup was choose your duck bits and your type of noodle. We both got kuey teow (wide rice noodles). I had mine with an egg. Sherry got hers with a side of duck feet.

Mixed up with some chili flake on top, it was savory, slippery, and delicious.

It was served with some extra broth on the side - deep duck flavor with a bit of five-spice.

The place was not too busy when we arrived, but quickly picked up with a lunch crowd as we ate.

Malacca - Bunga Raya Wan Tan Mee

On our first night in Malacca, we were walking along Jalan Bunga Raya looking for a place that had cockles.

We were getting hungry, and we passed an inviting looking stall selling wonton mee. A lady waiting in line assured us that it was very good, and we were sold.

It turned out to be a good choice. I don't consider myself an expert on wanton mee, but this was definitely the best version I've had so far.

There was nothing particularly notable about it, but the noodles were cooked perfectly, there was a nice amount of flavorful char shui pork, the broth was nice and savory, and the wontons were succulent and delicious.

There was a nice seating area run by a lady selling drinks (a pretty common setup). We sat at a table with a friendly couple from Singapore who had just been to the cockle place we'd been looking for and gave it the thumbs up - we ended up visiting it the next night.

While we were eating, we saw people bringing in paper-wrapped packages of some sort of mixture with chillies and eggs in it.

It turned out to be from the alley arround the corner, where a guy was making oyster omelete in a big wok. We tried oyster omelette in Taipei and really didn't like it. This version looked a lot more appealing.

Malacca - Capitol Seafood

We had dinner one night at Capitol Seafood - one of several seafood stalls down an alley off of Jalan Bunga Raya in Malacca.

The speciality is small shellfish (cockles, clams, snails).

Our favorites of the shellfish were the cockles - dark-fleshed and nice and strong flavored. Even better dipped in the provided sauce which had a mixture of saltiness, acidity, umami and heat.

We also really like the smal clams - nice, clean flavor.

The snails were quite pretty, and they were fun to eat (you suck on one end to loosen it, and then on the other end to pull them out). They didn't taste like much, though.

We weren't huge fans of the squid (sotong). It mostly just was a textural component, without much actual flavor.

We also ordered a small plate of rojak. It was our first time having this dish, and we really enjoyed it. This version had tofu skin, fish cakes, and pinapple topped with a couple of sauces (one sweet and one savory) with a splash of sambal on the side.

Another vendor came by selling otak-otak (fish cakes steamed in banana leaves) and we couldn't resist getting a couple. They were very good.