Petaling Street: Chinese is the second largest ethnic group in Kuala Lumpur (~43%, Malay is ~46%), so it should come as no surprise that the city has an epic Chinatown. Our apartment was close to Petaling Street (KL’s Chinatown), so we roamed through this area a few times. The market had tons of knock-off luxury goods (we assume mostly from China) and an infinite number of places to eat. We found the architecture here to be unique with older, shorter buildings compared to the towering skyscrapers in other neighborhoods

REXKL: We thought this place looked awesome from the outside so we unknowingly wandered in. After walking through a super hip food hall, we decided we had to come back and eat here at some point (we had just had lunch). Later, we met someone who mentioned they had been to a super awesome place that used to be a movie theater but was converted into a bookstore/food hall – REXKL! We came back the next day, had a delicious meal, and walked through the bookstore that was a super cool converted movie theater. It was an awesome place that we wish was in the US. Had we stayed longer in KL, we almost definitely would have returned to see live music or comedy here

KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) Park: KLCC is an expansive, shady park situated right in the middle of city center. We came here in the middle of the day and found the park nearly empty outside of an area with a great view of the Petronas Towers. After sweating buckets and talking to a few locals, we learned why the park / streets tend to be emptier during the day – it’s unbearably hot so people stay inside. Despite the heat, we really enjoyed strolling through the park and marveling at the Petronas Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world) from different angles

Chow Kit street food tour: We hadn’t been in a great street food country since Vietnam, so we were very pleasantly surprised to learn that Malaysia had a strong street food culture and even more excited to see a plethora of options for street food tours in KL. We booked a tour for our first night in KL, hoping that it would give us the lay of the Malaysian street food land. And it most certainly did. We had a fantastic evening with our intriguing, sociable guide, Kiran, and four other travelers that included a lovely Swiss-German couple, Adrian and Lena, on the last two weeks of their own year-long trip. We spent several hours walking through the Chow Kit neighborhood with our Motley Crue and loved almost everything we tried, including:

• Local fruits: Our first stop was a fruit stand where we tried a bunch of fruits – some old, some new. The new ones for us were snakeskin fruit (Doug’s favorite) – a fruit with an exterior that feels and looks like snakeskin – mangosteen, durian, and rambutan

• Apam balik: This was one of our favorite things we ate during our time in Malaysia – so much so that we tried to find it every place that we went (but were unfortunately unsuccessful). It is a delicious layered pancake cooked with peanuts, palm sugar, and sweet corn. It tastes much better that it sounds and looks

• Roti canai: There is a sizable Indian population in KL/Malaysia in general which has had a wonderful influence on Malaysian cuisine. We stopped at a no-frills joint run by South Indians where we got to try our hand at making roti canai and eating it. The making-it part is quite complicated, even for two people that love to cook! Unsurprisingly, Doug was much more successful than Jessie at gently flip-twirling the roti until it stretched out into round, thin, dough. The roti was delicious – it had coconut milk and Sprite (yes the soda) in it to make it sweet and flaky, distinct from any roti we tried in India

• Mee goreng: Mee goreng translates to fried noodles and is one of the staple dishes in Malaysia and Indonesia (though the flavors are different). While being psychologically profiled by Kiran (we got away with the benign distinction of ‘happy-go-lucky’) who is training to be a psychologist, we had our favorite mee goreng of the trip at the South Indian joint

• Teh tarik ais: To wash down the roti canai and mee goreng, we had to try the local drink – pulled iced tea. To us, it tasted like Indian chai meets Thai tea. Sweet and refreshing in the KL heat

• Curry mee: This dish exemplifies the melting pot of Malaysian cuisine – Southeast Asian noodles soaked in an Indian-style curry with Malay flavors. The curry mee that Doug tried (it wasn’t veg) was slightly spicy and incredibly delicious. We were lucky to find a vegan version for Jessie the next day 🙂

• Asam laksa: Asam laksa is a very famous dish in Penang, where we were planning to go ~10 days after leaving KL. Because Jessie couldn’t have the curry mee, Kiran ordered her a bowl of Asam laksa – a fish-based, sour stew with thick rice noodles. She really didn’t try to sell us on the laksa, telling us good luck but it’s VERY fishy. The low expectations might have made the dish better – we didn’t think it was too fishy and liked how light and flavorful the broth was

• Satay: Doug tried both Malaysian satay and Indonesian satay (what the Schreiers affectionately called “chicken on a stick” growing up). He liked the Malaysian sate a lot better than the Indonesian one

• Otak otak: Otak otak is grilled mackerel and spicy sauce in banana leaf. It’s super cheap (less than 20 cents a portion) and packed a flavorful punch, but we were one and done on it

• Nasi lemak: The Malaysian national dish! Jessie had already tried it earlier in the day at lunch, but was more than happy to have it again at Nasi Lemak Wanjo (one of the most well-known places for nasi lemak in KL). The dish consists of rice cooked in coconut milk, a boiled egg, sambal, anchovies, nuts, and most often ayam goreng (fried chicken). You smother the rice in the sambal and mix all of the ingredients up so each bite is coated in delicious flavor. We’ll definitely try to make this when we get home

• Mango shake: Best smoothies we’ve ever had with delicious mango chunks at the bottom. Malaysia has awesome mango and very cheap shakes/smoothies (the words are interchangeable)

Central Market: We happened to be right around the corner from Central Market after lunch one day so we checked it out. It was a neat mix of outdoor food vendors (more upscale from what we could tell), interesting shops ranging from antiques to make your own shirts, a fun street food court inside, and various artistic types. Probably the most interesting and questionable thing we saw was a portrait artist that featured a hand-drawn portrait of Bin Laden in his storefront. Suffice it to say, we didn’t go into his store

Merdeka Square: Strolling through the city, we thankfully happened upon Merdeka Square which turned out to be a really interesting part of the city. The buildings in and around the square have fascinatingly different architectural styles and include an expansive Mughal-inspired mosque, British colonial architecture and towering modern skyscrapers. The square marks where Malaysia first hoisted the Malaysian flag (inspired by the American flag), upon lowering the Union Jack to mark the end of British colonialism in 1957

Board games at Upper Room: We had an awesome afternoon and evening with our food tour friends from the night before, Lena and Adrian, that started with board games at a cafe. We spent hours chatting and playing board games, including CodeNames, Catan (Jessie cleaned up twice), and a new word game. It was super fun to play games while getting to know each other and exchanging stories about our travels. We hope to see them again somewhere in the world over a beer and more board games 

Bouldering at Camp 5: In the year leading up to our trip, we both became big fans of bouldering at local gyms. Upon learning there was a bouldering gym in KL, we got really excited about the prospect of going and living our best urban life. We went to Camp 5 which was in a massive mall (very characteristic of KL) and had a blast spending an hour bouldering. We had definitely lost our climbing muscles and callouses so it was a challenge! We’ve entertained going to climb in Singapore – the next place we’ll be that has a gym

DADI at Pavilion: Adding on to our extraordinary day of urban life, we decided to go see a movie at a new movie theater in one of KL’s upscale malls – Pavilion. The mall was so massive and confusing that it took us 30 minutes to find the movie theater… Malaysia has the benefit of getting movies from all over the world in its theaters – we had an option to choose movies from the US, China, India, and Malaysia amongst other countries. We settled on seeing “A Guilty Conscience” – a Cantonese dramedie set in Hong Kong. We bought two tickets and a box of popcorn (they only had kettle corn) for $8 – a total steal. Before the movie, we saw an advertisement for free rose in a Kroenenburg lounge – odd, but why not? It turned out to be a hilarious experience having a free rose beer (especially given drinks in KL are so expensive) in a semi-abandoned, but very nice lounge. After downing the last of our “rose”, we settled into the nearly-empty theater and enjoyed the movie. One of the funnier things was the timing when others in the theater laughed. We were watching the movie through the lens of English subtitles while everyone else appeared to speak Cantonese. There must have been humor in the language/delivery because when other people laughed, we weren’t laughing, and vice versa