Kuala Lumpur Food Tour: Sampling Malaysia’s Culinary Delights
Malaysia’s vibrant capital city, Kuala Lumpur is a melting pot of both cultures and cuisine. You can find a wide variety of delicious dishes in Kuala Lumpur from Chinese street food to Indian style satay cooking over charcoal. One of the best ways to eat like a local and sample some of the cities best foods is by doing a Kuala Lumpur food tour.
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If you are like me, I visited Kuala Lumpur not knowing much about this magnificent city. I barely knew anything about Kuala Lumpur’s cuisine or food scene.
Lately, when I travel to a new destination, I like to book a food tour on the first day or two depending on time. This way, I am more confident when ordering at food stalls or restaurants and have a brief understanding of that country’s particular food.
Our first night in Kuala Lumpur, we arrived to our hotel later in the evening, so both Jill and I walked around a local market basically clueless. We found something that looked familiar, a local sat us down, and we were really unsure of the process, quality of food, and even how to pay.
But after taking a food tour, my confidence levels are boosted, I know what type of restaurants to look for, and how to pay without looking like I am completely lost.
Recommended Food Tours
I always book food tours online prior to my trip through either Viator or Get Your Guide.
Once you enter in your destination, you can see there are many food tour options available. I tend to look at the description and read a few of the latest reviews and have yet to be let down!
Here are a few recommended Kuala Lumpur Food Tours.:
- Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour with 15 + Tastings
- Laksa Lanse Kuala Lumpur Food Tour with 14 + Tastings
- Kuala Lumpur: Local Street Food Night Tour
- Kuala Lumpur by Night and Malaysian Food Tour
Our favorite food tour, honestly one of the best we’ve ever done was the Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour with 15 + Tastings.
Our guide was so informative, flexible, and gave us many options of foods to try while on our Kuala Lumpur food tour.
What to Expect on a Kuala Lumpur Food Tour
For most food tours in Kuala Lumpur, you will explore a lot of the street food scene and pop into a few restaurants for specific dishes.
In my experience, food tours generally take you to places where locals go to eat and make it a goal to get you to try local food that is both popular and some dishes that are unknown to outsiders.
I really didn’t have any expectations when visiting Kuala Lumpur in regards to the cuisine. I booked the Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour with 15 + Tastings through Viator and had such a memorable time and had the opportunity to try so many fabulous dishes that Kuala Lumpur is known for.
We met our guide for the Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour along with six other visitors. Our guide was from Kuala Lumpur. She was super knowledgeable, friendly, and understanding.
The food tour lasted about 4 – 4.5 hours and we really did sample at least 15 dishes.
Our food tour in Kuala Lumpur started at the Chow Kit Road Market and ended at the base of the famous Petronas Towers.
The Various Food and Dishes we Sampled
The first stop along our Kuala Lumpur Food Tour was at a local restaurant called Najas Maju. Here we had Limau Ais. Limau Ais is a refreshing drink that is made with small limes and carbonated water. To go along with the Limau Ais we got to try Mee Goreng Mamak. Mee Goreng Mamak is a noodle stir fry dish.
Afterwards, we had the opportunity to make our own Roti Canai and eat it afterwards. Roti Canai is an Indian flatbread that you can dunk in curry sauces. Making the Roti Canai looks easy but after attempting to flatten the bread it was much more difficult then expected but tasted delicious!
After sampling three different Malaysian favorites we tried a few fruits from a stall.
First we tried Salak also known as the snake skin fruit. We tried Salak in Bali and I love it. The skin does look like snake skin, the fruit is a bit bitter at first but has a wonderfully refreshing taste afterwards.
We tried Rambutan, which I’ve had before in Hawaii. This is a reddish/furry looking fruit. You peel the skin and eat the inside. It’s refreshing and juicy.
The main event at least for sampling fruits was the Durian. I know we’ve all heard nightmare stories of Durian. It’s stench, flavor, and texture is very off putting. Our guide assured us that Durian in Malaysia is the best of the best and much better then other parts of the world.
Not really excited to try Durian again, I gave it a try and although I didn’t love it, I managed to take three bites and told myself it wasn’t that bad.
Along with the Durian we tried Cendol, an dessert dish with shaved ice and rice flour jelly. This dish was very refreshing and was nice to slurp down after eating the Durian.
We walked further into the Chow Kit Road in Kuala Lumpur and tried Putu Bambu from another local vendor.
Honestly, Putu Bambu was my least favorite dish of the tour. It’s a steamed rice cake with palm sugar. I found it to be bland and sugary.
After a somewhat disappointing Putu Bambu, we were surprised by two delicious soups at a nearby restaurant, Bihun Sup and Mi Kari. Bihun Sup is a beef noodle soup while Mi Kari is more of a spicy curry soup. We also tried a variety of Sambal. Sambal is a very popular chili sauce in the region.
This food tour was no joke, you think we’d be done by now but we were about half way through.
Next, we tried Ikan Bakar. Ikan Bakar is a fish dish where the fish is cooked in a traditional way over charcoal.
On our way to the grand finale, we tried Satay Padang and Satay Malaysia, both served fresh from a local food cart. Satay is usually seasoned meat on a skewer and cooked over a grill or fire. These make for great snacks!
The grand final and largest meal was of course at the very end. We ate Nasi Lemak and drank a Mango Smoothie at a well known restaurant in Kuala Lumpur called Wanjo.
The Nasi Lemak at Wanjo was definitely the best for last! This dish consists of rice cooked in coconut milk paired with a juicy chunk of chicken.
Summary of What we Ate During our Food Tour
Fruits
Salak
Rambutan
Longan
Durian
Dishes and Meals
Roti Canai
Mee Goreng Mamak
Putu Bamboo
Chendol
Mihun Soup
Mi Kari
Otak Otak
Nasi Lemak
Ikan Bakar
Satay Padang and Satay Malaysia
Conclusion
In the end, the Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour was a highlight of our vacation in Kuala Lumpur. Not only did we sample amazing local dishes in Kuala Lumpur, but we learned about the history, culture, and traditions of this vibrant city. I highly recommend booking a food tour in Kuala Lumpur on your first day or two. A food tour is a great way to learn and try local dishes and build confidence for the set of your trip!
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Plan Your Trip: 🗺️✈️ 🇲🇾
Booking Accommodations ⛺️🛖
For booking recommendations on the best deals and locations, check out Agoda or Booking.com
Activities and Tours 🏖️🚁
Find fun activities and things to do through Tripadvisor. If you are looking for tours and day trips, Viator and Get Your Guide have a lot of great options.
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