Day 4 – 17th February 2014 – Kuala Lumpur

Preparing for Dinner on Jalan Alor

I’m getting all out of sync because I have to do last night’s dinner before I can start today, since I have been writing up my posts before we have dinner.  Last night my intrepid tour partner was feeling a bit ordinary, the exotic diet had taken its toll, so we decided to go for some run of the mill Chinese from Jalan Alor.  A craving that Giss had for sweet and sour pork was luckily able to be filled, as well as some fried rice, and braised pork ribs for me.  It was nice enough, however pretty plain by our usual standards, so I don’t think we’ll be going back. 

Detailed decorations on a building in Chinatown

Today we managed to get moving a bit earlier than yesterday, heading out around 9.30.  It’s definitely a better time of day to be out and about, as the sun hasn’t had a chance to work up the temperature too far, though after 15 minutes of walking we had a healthy sheen going.  We were tossing up where to have breaky, my Dad had suggested heading over to Chinatown as there was supposed to be a decent dim-sum place there, however it seemed a bit too far away, so the decision was made to hit a local breaky before we headed over. We ended up going for a pretty basic eggs and toast at a Singaporean joint, I think I've found that while I’m willing to get out of the comfort zone for most meals, breakfast seems to be when my appetite is at its tamest.

Petaling street is the main night market

After the feed we wandered over to the monorail and headed for Chinatown, which also hosts the major knock-off market in KL.  Everything from Gucci and Prada handbags, to the worlds cheapest Rolexes and every brand of T-Shirt can be found here, all of questionable quality, and all at bargain basement prices.  At this time of day though, it is a much less intimidating place than at night, when you can barely squeeze by as vendors harass you “Yes please sir, good price for you sir, yes miss, hello miss” and even the odd “G’day Mate!” 

A bird of unknown origin

While there were a few shops open, it seems our appetite for cheap rip off merchandise has been sated after a couple of trips, and we were happy just wandering through, and searching for this famed dim sum place.  Long story short, we couldn’t find it.  I did however find a whole lot more of the bacon vendors from yesterday, however on an even sadder note, you can’t bring any pork products back into Australia, so my plan of buying up giant bags of the stuff were also thwarted. 

So after a bit of wandering around and not finding anything particularly to our tastes it was back on the monorail and into Sungei Wang shopping centre again, our favourite haunt. 

Gender equality in action

This time we were on a mission for glasses.  Loaded with several pairs of specs, prescriptions and instructions, we headed into one of the shops we had used before to fill the order.  Served by a lovely Chinese man, after much explanations that no these glasses were not for us, and yes the mickey mouse frames were really for my Mum not my child, we got to where we needed to be.  I also managed to pick up a new pair of sunnies somewhere in the mix, and all at around a quarter of what we would pay in Aus. 

At this point we were getting ready for another meal, so we decided to head down to a local street food vendor we eat at (usually a few times) every time we come here.  The lady that works here has to be one of the nicest people we have come across in all our travels, just a genuinely lovely person and the food is pretty spectacular as well.  It is mostly Chinese fare again (KL has a huge Chinese population) with beautiful roast Duck and Pork as well. 

Lunch at Restoran Instant

Another attraction of this place is it brings back a lot of great memories, of our first ever Asian adventure with my parents to KL.  We happened to be wandering past, and I think it was the first ever restaurant we had seen that had people out the front herding you in, almost forcing you to sit down.  I think we were a bit like stunned cattle, herded into the seats that first time, but I’m really glad it happened.  The restaurant is also in a great spot, right on a busy street with plastic tables and chairs set up on the footpath (another story is the time the police raided the place while we were there, and confiscated every table and chair, except the ones we were sitting on, or the ones the staff managed to snatch back inside the restaurant). 

Giss, Swee Ping, and her Mum

Dan, Swee Ping and her Mum

So we arrived and found our friend Swee Ping, who amazingly remembered us straight away!  Pretty impressive since it has been at least 3 years since we have been to KL, apparently Giss hasn’t changed a bit, but I have gotten taller.   We were still a bit filled from the last meal (seems to be a perpetual situation here) so decided to take it a bit easy, and just ordered a fried chicken dish, some “salad sauce” chicken for Giss, and a proper “sausage fried rice” with Lap Cheong (not that easy to find here because of the no pork thing). 

Current Location - Movida bar

What we didn’t count on was Swee Ping buying us a few special dishes as well, so we ended up with crispy skin pork,  BBQ pork, and some duck, plus a chicken dish which I have no idea of but it was nice.  The problem with these dishes is that there was no way we could refuse them, but there was also no way we could eat them.  In the end we opted for the old take away container, which covered our guilt as well as clearing the plates.  So with a great feed in our bellies, we staggered back to the sanctuary of the hotel room, for A/C and possibly a Nana nap, depending on who you ask. 

The colourful buffet at Restoran SK Corner

So now we have wandered down to a local bar to use their wifi to take care of the blog, I’m enjoying a Carlsberg (they clearly have big shares in KL as every promotion seems to put them ahead of the local Tiger brew) while Giss has lamb chops (Kiwi to the core) since she won’t join me back at SK corner when I return for dinner again tonight.  Tomorrow, we head off to Cambodia, which I think is going to take us a long way out of our comfort zones, but I can’t wait.   

Did I mention it's 24 hours?