Visited August 28 – Sept 5, 2024
Embracing the Comforts of a Big City
From Semporna, we took a shuttle bus to the airport in Tawau which took about 1.5-hr. Then took a 3-hr flight direct to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We arrived in KL around 2pm and then took an hour long Grab to our Airbnb in the city center. We had booked an apartment in a fancy high-rise building in KL city center, so we were very excited to have an entire apartment for the three of us.
We squealed as we entered the Airbnb and saw how nice and spacious it was compared to all the hostels where we had stayed. We then went to the rooftop to check out the infinity pool and city views. This would do!
For dinner, we went to the landmark Pavilion Mall just a couple blocks away. This mall is absolutely amazing – massive and shiny with endless stores and restaurants. The high-end malls of Southeast Asia blow American malls out of the water. We walked around in excitement and wonder with everything in this behemoth collection of buildings. We eventually settled on eating at a Sichuan restaurant that specialized in a fish dish with pickled mustard greens, Suan Cai Yu. Once I caught a whiff and saw how popular the restaurant was, I had to go. I really love Sichuan food but hadn’t tried this dish before.
Over our four days in KL, we went to this mall every day for food. It definitely wasn’t the cheapest, but the convenience and sparkliness of it all was hard to beat for us weary travelers. Taiwanese noodles, Japanese food, Malaysia food, fancy baked goods, bubble tea, Korean shaved ice — it had it all.
Exploring Street Food in KL
On our second day in KL, Maddie and I went out to explore Chinatown for lunch. Nate wanted to relax and lounge in the apartment so he stayed behind. We took a Grab to our first stop, REXKL, a building that is home to hipster clothing and vintage stores, a theatre, art exhibitions, and a famous labyrinth-like bookstore. It was fun to explore the various shops and my favorite part was weaving through the shelves in the bookstore.
We were hungry so we walked to the nearby Petaling Street Market for lunch. Petaling was bustling with vendors and customers. It was a mixed market of vendors selling everything from clothes and accessories to food. We ordered a dried shrimp popiah (looks like a spring roll but the wrap was a drier texture than rice paper) and Xian cold chili noodles. It was my first time trying both and they were both delicious — particularly the popiah! While we were eating at the market, Nate went back to our favorite mall for lunch.
We were sufficiently full, but we walked by a fresh mochi vendor, so we of course had to try that as well. We got a small sampler of mochi covered with the OG peanut powder, pandas, black sesame, and mango. The mochi was so soft and chewy. My favorite was the OG peanut powder.
Then we walked through the small, artsy streets full of street art and tried an egg tart. I love Portuguese egg tarts and have been craving them since I went to Portugal years ago. Unfortunately, these egg tarts were not very good and because I was full, I ended up not even finishing mine.
We then walked to the Central Market, which is a larger indoor market of various shops and food. Being indoors, I was hoping that it would be nice and air-conditioned like the mall as I was hot and tired from walking around outside. Unfortunately, it was not. I was feeling exhausted and overheated, so after drinking a cold 100 Plus (a Malaysian electrolyte drink), I called a Grab back to our apartment. Maddie was still feeling good so she stayed out to explore another nearby neighborhood known as the growing artsy district.
That evening, we went to the famous Jalan Alor Night Market for dinner. It was absolutely packed with people. To be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment. I had imagined streets full of food carts. However, it was a long street lined primarily with restaurants hawking passerby’s to come in and some food carts. We ate some dim sum and takoyaki which were both fine, but nothing special. We couldn’t find decent pescatarian options for Maddie, so we eventually made our way back to the mall for dinner part 2 and ended up going to the Taiwanese noodle restaurant that Nate went to for lunch.
A Walking Tour of KL and Night CIty Views
On our third day in KL, the three of us went on a morning free walking tour of the city. We started at Merdeka Square where we learned about Malaysian history and had a nice walk along the Klang River, aka River of Life, which looked recently developed into a nice area. We then went to Chinatown again, including Central Market and Petaling Market. But it was still enjoyable with our guide as we tried new things like visiting a Taoist temple, tried durian (absolutely horrible in my opinion) and mangosteen (delicious!).
We then took the KL metro to see the Petronus Towers. The KL metro is very modern and nice and we reached the Towers in about 20 minutes. In-person, the Petronus Towers are very impressive. The area around it is a nice park with many locals and tourists hanging out. The tour ended here and as we were hungry, we directly went to the mall food court in the Towers for lunch. We all got food from different places and it was fine. I did though, finally get my first bubble tea at Chatime and it was very good!
We went back to our apartment and after resting for a bit, Maddie and I went shopping at the mall. After having worn the same few sets of clothes for months, I got excited and bought several new items from a local store called Brands Outlet and Uniqlo. It felt so nice to have new clothes!
After our shopping spree, we went to a nearby rooftop bar that our guide had recommended for sunset. The views from Vertigo were outstanding. We went when the bar opened and it was a good thing we did because the bar soon became packed. We enjoyed our cocktails and beautiful views of the city. We were also stunned by the city views from the bathroom!
For dinner, we went to try Nasi Kandar, an Indian influenced Malay dish, which is an assortment of various curries and fish/meat with rice. We went to Hamideeyah, another recommendation from our guide, and found it was cafeteria style where you tell the servers what you want. There were so many options we were overwhelmed and did not know what we should be doing. We ended up just pointing and random things we wanted and went upstairs waiting for our food to be served. We all ended up with massive plates with too much food. But it was all so delicious! It was the perfect way to end the day.
Visiting Batu Caves
On our last full day in KL, we woke up early to visit Batu Caves to beat the crowds. We arrived before 8am and indeed, there were not many people. The cave entrance was very striking and impressive with the giant statue of the Hindu God, Murugan, and the colorful stairs. At 147-ft tall, it is the tallest statue in Malaysia!
We climbed the 272 color steps to the entrance of the caves. Inside the caves are multiple small Hindu temples. In the morning, there was a good mix of tourists and locals there to worship. It was beautiful inside. I had never seen temples built inside of a cave so it was such a unique experience.
There are also temples outside of the main cave and other caves around the area. Maddie and I also went into the Ramayana Cave which has an exhibit telling the story of Ramayana. I had trouble following the story, even after a kind woman told us the story, but it was still beautiful and cool to see.
Getting back to the apartment turned into an odyssey. We first tried to take the metro back, but found out that the next train wasn’t coming for over an hour. So then we ordered a Grab, but the Grabs kept getting delayed or canceled on us. We waited and walked back and forth on the grounds trying to meet our Grab, but nothing worked out. Eventually, we realized over an hour had passed, and the train was coming in a few minutes. We ran up to the station and barely made it in time to take the train back.
We were exhausted when we got back so we spent the afternoon resting and finally going up to the rooftop to enjoy the infinity pool. I also squeezed in a short workout in the gym. It always feels so nice to run and workout when I have the chance.
For our last night in KL, we went back to the Pavillion Mall for dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant. Nate and Maddie were very happy with their orders. Unfortunately, mine was not that good. But I cheered myself up by getting my favorite Korean shaved ice, Sulbing, for dessert. Then we spent even more time at the mall getting snacks and pastries for the next day of travel. There is no better way we could have spent our last night in KL than at our favorite mall.
The next morning, we said our sad good-byes to Maddie and KL. Maddie was leaving us to fly back to the US and we were heading to the city of George Town in Penang. We headed to the bus terminal to catch our bus to George Town, our final destination in Malaysia.
George Town, Penang: The Food Capital of Malaysia
Penang is known as the foodie destination of Malaysia so we were excited to spend our days eating to our heart’s content. We stayed in a hotel in the heart of Old George Town with narrow streets and old buildings. We did even less sightseeing in George Town and spent the majority of our time walking the streets of Old Town looking for food and resting at the hotel. So rather than a day by day account of George Town, I’ll make this section a food journal and the next section an overview of the city and sightseeing.
Once we arrived in George Town, we went straight to lunch at a traditional kopitam style restaurant. Nate had shrimp char-kee-taw noodles (stir-fried flat noodles) and I had a noodle soup (unfortunately I don’t remember the name). Then we got gelato from a hip looking shop down the street. I got boring but always good vanilla while Nate went for the premium pistachio. Pistachio was good, but not not worth the hefty price.
For dinner, we walked around Kimberley Street Market which was around the corner from our hotel. We bought shrimp cheung fun (thin rolled rice noodles) and a marinated pork dish. I wanted to try cheung fun for so long I was quite excited, but it wasn’t all I had built up in my head. I loved the texture, but felt the flavor was a bit lacking. So day one, I was a bit disappointed by the food so far. We ended the day with a beer on our hotel rooftop bar.
Because we had a very late breakfast at lunchtime, we didn’t have a real lunch. However, trying Penang laksa was a high priority as we wanted to compare how it tasted to Sarawak laksa which we had loved in Kuching. So in the afternoon, we went to a popular laksa place and Nate tried a bowl. We were disappointed. It is a very different type of broth from Sarawak laksa that is very fishy. Then we had cheap soft serve ice cream at a chain called WeDrink. Honestly, incredible ice cream for 50 cents.
For dinner, we went to Little India to eat at a highly rated restaurant called D’Sakra. This was the best meal yet! We ordered puri pani (crispy balls filled with more crunch and pour in a sweet yogurt) as an appetizer which was absolutely delicious. We had never tried it before but it was such a flavorful mouthful of sweet and savory. We also ordered their special biryani which was mind blowing. There was so much depth to the flavor. The last entree was a chicken curry dish which was a bit disappointing considering how good the other two were. We felt this curry was lacking in depth and flavor. Overall, we enjoyed this meal so much we decided to come back again.
On Day 3, we headed out earlier, determined to eat roti canai. We succeeded in finding an open roti canai street vendor. We ordered basic rotis — Nate with Kaya jam (a coconut butter/jam) and mine with butter and cheese — both which came with a small side of a curry sauce. For such a simple dish, it was so good! The roti was freshly made and was perfectly thin but dense in texture and was so flavorful. We understood why this was a popular breakfast food. To top it off, it was very cheap at less than a dollar for each. I also ordered my first Teh Tarik, the national tea drink, which was delicious. It tastes like sweet milk tea.
We then went to a hip cafe to eat a chocolate waffle dish which was very satisfying. For dinner, we went to a local restaurant to try Nasi Ulam, a dish with rice and various vegetables and sambal. We were enticed by the 4.9 star ratings on Google and were very excited to try. Sadly, we left confused by the rave reviews. The dishes were very clean and fresh tasting, but neither of us thought they were outstanding. Definitely not worth the price considering portion size and taste. But this wasn’t the first time that we felt our opinion did not match reviews. For dessert, we went back to WeDrink for a passionfruit shake with boba.
Day 4, we started our day looking for roti canai again. We went to a random stall nearby which was a mistake. It wasn’t nearly as good as the first place and it made me miss the good roti canai so much. Honestly, it was surprising to me that something as seemingly simple as roti could vary so much in taste. For dinner, we were feeling sichuan food so went to another highly rated restaurant in the area. This place was quite good and hit the spot. We got dumplings, each a noodle dish, and a garlic vegetable dish. I didn’t like the dumplings, but my spicy noodle dish was delicious and garlicky greens were a perfect counterbalance. I was craving something sweet after the salty and spicy meal so I got a black sesame crepe cake, made of many layers of thin crepes, for dessert. It was my first time trying a crepe cake and it was very light and fluffy. I’m glad I tried it, but I think I will stick to traditional cakes going forward.
On our last day (Day 5), we went to a sourdough bagel shop for brunch. It was some of the best bagels we had ever had! The sourdough bagel was fluffy but still had the density necessary for a bagel. Their homemade cream cheeses (we had garlic and jalapeño) were also delicious and perfectly complemented the bagel. It was so good that Nate had a second bagel. For our last dinner, we went back to D’Sakra. We had to have the pani puri and biryani again. We tried a different chicken curry this time and felt similarly that it wasn’t that good. Our verdict is that curries, at least chicken curries, are not their strong point. But the pani puri and biryani were as good as the first time and made us very happy. For dessert, we went back to our favorite budget ice cream store, WeDrink.
On Day 6, we had to head back to KL to catch our flight to Hawaii for our friends’ Joyce and Ronnie’s wedding! In the morning, we went back to the bagel shop to get bagels to go. We needed to have these bagels one more time.
Overall, we had a lot of fun trying so many different foods in George Town. Eating in Malaysia is great because of the diversity and fusion of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cuisines, along with the abundant western restaurants. Honestly, we weren’t blown away by the food like we thought we would be and were disappointed multiple times. Still, even when I describe foods as being disappointing, generally most foods were pretty good. I think we may have just built up the George Town food scene too much in our minds. I still think Malaysia has the best food of all the countries we’ve visited so far!
The Sights of George Town
As mentioned earlier, we did not do much sightseeing in George Town. Most of the “sights” in George Town are outside of the city and require traveling an hour or so and it was too hot, and we were too tired, to move around a lot. So we stayed in Old Town and mostly walked around.
One attraction we did visit are the Clan Jetties of George Town. These are historic residential jetties established by Chinese families (clans) starting in the late 19th Century that exist and are inhabited to this day by members of each clan. So each jetty has a name like Lee, Tan, or Yeoh Jetty. It was really interesting to see homes built on the jetty and walk on them.
We also went to the Esplanade along the water at night. It was a nice place to walk through with a park and a busy food court.
Otherwise, we walked through Old Town admiring the street art which is everywhere. This is one of the top things to do in George Town. We also went to the local mall and got massages. On our last day, I also ran around the local mall getting my hair and nails done before heading to Hawaii.
To leave George Town, we took the ferry across the bay to the train station. Then we took a nice, fast train to KL. From the KL Sentral train station, we took the express airport train to the airport. Then we boarded our flight to Hawaii!
Leave a Reply