The Food Chapter 1 (Seremban/KL)

In the past before the kids arrived, I didn't include food search as a must-do activity while planning for a trip. In fact, we hardly planned for the itinerary nor to source for accommodation.

I guess I wasn't that interested in food when I was younger but now, I love to eat. A significant portion of time is now devoted to sourcing for must-eats and good eating places whenever I plan our trips. All these hard work are worth it as we get to savour yummy food which is often not found back home. Not only that, we don't waste precious time deciding where and what to eat, especially with hungry (and grouchy) kids in tow...

I was looking forward to try out the various food I researched on when planning for this trip since all of them were new stuff which we have yet to try. I'll cover the food places in Seremban and KL in this post.

The original intention was to arrive at KL as early as possible so that we could have lunch there. I changed the plan when I examined the map and realised that we could actually stop at Seremban on the way to KL. Seremban is famous for its siew pau (a baked pastry with barbequed pork as fillings) and I had always wanted to taste the real stuff. Since siew pau is only a snack, I researched further and discovered that Seremban is also famous for its beef noodle and Hakka mee. Coincidently, the famous stalls that sell both are located in the same food centre:

It took us a bit of time to locate the food centre and by the time we found it, it was already 12.30pm. It looks very much like the markets in Singapore. The stalls selling vegetable, seafood, poultry are at the ground floor and the food centre is on the second floor.

It wasn't difficult to locate Tow Kee hakka mee and Yee Kee Beef noodles since I had the stall numbers. We found Tow Kee first. Unfortunately, their noodles were sold out and they were in the midst of closing the stall for the day! I charged to Yee Kee immediately while fearing the worst.... It was a huge relief that they were still open. I was told that the waiting time would be long. Under normal circumstances, I wasn't the type who would queue for good food but now, I did not have much of a choice. I went ahead and ordered 4 bowls: 2 originals (dry), 1 sweet meat noodles (no idea why they call it as such) and 1 soup noodles.

While waiting, DH ordered a plate of wonton noodles as an appetizer first. The noodles were good! The noodles were springy with the right amount of sauce and the wonton was tasty too.

Yummy wonton noodles

The beef noodles finally arrived. They looked appealing and delicious. We dug in immediately but sadly, the noodles did not taste as good as they looked. I guess it was because we had tasted better versions so we found these to be so so only. In fact, the beef was pretty tough and chewy. The texture of the noodles was a bit too soft for my liking. Comparing this to our favourite stall in Singapore, the latter wins hands down.

We adjourned to Empayar Seremban Siew Pau next. According to the websites, the owners are the originators of the snack. Besides selling siew pau and other pastry, the owners diversified their business which also includes a seafood restaurant. When we were there, the tables were all taken up and the food looked yummy. I have already bookmarked it for our next trip:)

The siew pau was delicious. The fillings were generous and the taste was just nice, not too sweet nor salty. Unlike some of the siew paus I tasted in the past, the fillings were not too dry. Two thumbs up! The durian egg tarts were good too.

We had dinner at Jalan Alor, a famous food street in KL. My kids, especially my youngest, were uptight about the snatch theft warning signs they saw when we made our way to Jalan Alor. Perhaps snatch thefts are more frequent at Jalan Alor, cause I don't remember seeing the signs in other parts of KL, or perhaps, they didn't catch my attention....

These are 2 more memorable dishes that we ordered from Charn Kee:

Malaysian style Hokkien Mee in black sauce

Grilled fish (huge and tasted really good, especially with the chilli)

We had other dishes such as stir fried vegetables, fish paste noodles and carrot cake but they were nothing to shout about...

The very busy Jalan Alor