We’re on our way…

House of Annie has hopped over to Kuala Lumpur for a whirlwind trip of visiting with family and friends, all at the tables of various eating establishments around KL.

First Things First

The first thing we wanted to get was some late night mamak (eats) at Penang Original Kayu Nasi Kandar. Annie’s cousin took us to the outlet in Aman Suria where I had my favorite snack: a crispy thosai with curry sauce.

The next day, we met with Annie’s good friend, Dr. G (who had organized the Beggars Delight feast in Ijok last year). Dr G suggested the Kimchi Korean Restaurant in Tropicana City Mall (same mall as Bad Ass Coffee). We got there a little early for the lunch crowd, so were seated right away and quickly served with several bowls of panchan (side dishes). My favorite, of course, is the kimchi.

It was very hard to choose one dish from the extensive menu. But eventually I settled for the bi bim bap, a rice dish with lots of veggies and shredded beef. While it was good, Annie’s choice of naeng myun – cold noodles with shredded beef and julienned Korean pear – was tastier.

Esther, dumpling lover that she is, gobbled up the pan-fried mandu. And Daniel made short work of his share of the crispy Korean seafood pancake.

That night, another friend of Annie’s invited us to dinner at The Daily Grind in Bangsar Village. It is a burger joint that features burgers made from all freshly ground meat. Annie got a chicken sandwich with avocado slices, but my "Bollywood Burger" order, featuring ground lamb with a sweet raita and shaved red onions was tastier this time round.

Filling Up

The next day, Annie’s Dad took us to Restoran Okay in the Chow Yang neighborhood of SS2. It’s our favorite place to go for wan tan mee. The chewy egg noodles are briefly boiled, then tossed in a sweet dark sauce and topped with slices of charcoal-smoked char siu. Perfect with a little pickled chillies and shrimpy-sweet sui gow.

We were still feeling the effects from breakfast when we went to the Wan Utama Mall to meet up with Babe and Capt Hook of the popular Babe in the City food blog. They brought us to the Nyonya Colors cafe, featuring lots of popular Nyonya-style dishes and kueh kueh. I didn’t have room to eat much, so only picked up a small packet of nasi lemak with half a boiled egg.

Annie got herself a cendol dessert which was pretty good, and we all shared the roti jala. The roti jala dish was surprisingly tasty.

Even better, though, was the conversation. Annie and Babe, though never having met before, hit it right off. We talked for a quick hour before we had to split up. I do hope we get to host Babe and Capt Hook when they make it over to Kuching.

One our way out of Wan Utama, we stopped briefly in Jusco to pick up some last minute snacks. We were tempted by the delicous smelling durian stall set up inside the store:

…but decided against it. It wouldn’t be too nice to eat durian just before getting on a long plane ride. All those durian burps would not make us friends with our seat mates. 😛

What long plane ride, you ask? Well, back in our post on Ippudo Ramen in Singapore, we mentioned that we would be traveling to the land of ramen – Japan. Hopefully we’ll have time to do a little blogging about it while we’re there.

And so, after a whirlwind 2 days in KL, we’re off. Woo hoo!

Aloha, Nate