Madam Kwan’s, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Malaysia being a predominantly Muslim country has the perk that everything is Halal – literally, pretty much everything you see is Halal! It’s like the opposite of living in the UK, as here you have to look for a symbol on the restaurant door saying that the food is Halal for you to eat there, but in Malaysia it’s the opposite, as for them to serve non-Halal meat they have to make it clear at the entrance to the restaurant.

As with every country I visit, I wanted to give some authentic Malaysian food a try, and most of the locals recommended me to give Madam Kwan’s a visit! Madam Kwan is a Malay woman who’s been serving food to the population and it’s tourists since 1977 – and we had the pleasure of meeting her at the restaurant. Unfortunately, her English wasn’t great so the only exchange of words was a hello, and a thumbs up to the food, but still – great to meet a woman who pretty much the whole city of Kuala Lumpur knows of!

As the menu made close to no sense to me, we figured a safe bet would be to order the selection starter platter. This came with Chicken Satay, Fried Chicken, and I would try and guess what the others are but to be honest I had no idea what I was eating – but they were all very tasty!

For our mains, we tried a Banana leaf based dish – Nasi Lemak, one of the popular Malay dishes that we had read about before visiting the country. On my plate I have – Fried Chicken, Rice, Beef and Prawns, all sitting nicely on a Banana Leaf.

This is a Signature dish by Madam Kwan, and I can totally see why! To me, this was a very strange combination, as I could have never imagined putting Fried Chicken with Rice, and then to throw some more meat and prawns into the mix, I just wasn’t sure – but the Malaysian’s have really got this one spot on as it was a real winner!

I found that the Malaysian’s aren’t massive on spice, so even I could enjoy all the food!

Definitely one to add to your lists if you’ve visiting KL!