Best food road trips outside of KL

Itik Salai Masthar has generated plenty of buzz on social media – and it’s not undeserved too. Finding the place can be quite tricky; the restaurant is hidden within a food court in the middle of Kampung Sungai Ramal Dalam between Kajang and Bangi. Don’t worry though, due to its popularity with out-of-towners, they’ve added their own makeshift signboards in the kampung to lead you to them.

Itik Salai Masthar’s specialty is the itik salai masak cili api – duck meat sliced and smoked on the spot with their makeshift grill and served with rice. Grab some ulam (they offer fresh spinach, winged bean, leaf mustard and more) for a balanced meal. Make sure you order plenty of water before you eat; they don’t play with the cili padi here.


Photo: Eijas Ariffin

Medan Selera Adikku, Kampung Sungai Ramal Dalam, Bangi (fb.com/bangisalai). Daily, 11am-10pm.

Instead of sitting down to a farm-to-table meal at a KL restaurant, take your dining exploits further by driving a mere 40 minutes from the city to A Little Farm On The Hill in Janda Baik, Pahang.

Its owners Pete Teo (filmmaker and musician) and wife Lisa Ngan (architect) started the farm as an extended retirement project, growing fresh organic produce that are harvested and sold to restaurants and used in their popular pre-booked seasonal lunches. All menus keep seasonings light and feature clean flavours to highlight the freshness of the produce.

You can book a slot for lunch on their website (but do it early; slots tend to be filled up very quickly and months in advance), or book the space for private events.


Photo: Daniel Chan

Lot 161 Tanarimba Janda Baik, Persiana Enderong, Bukit Tinggi, Pahang (09 233 0194/alittlefarmonthehill.com). Pre-bookings only.

You don’t have to travel great distances for fresh organic chicken; Uncle Rani Chicken Farm is located less than an hour’s drive from the city. Former mechanical engineer Abdul Rani Wahab, or Uncle Rani, built this farm from scratch in line with his vision of a clean, sustainable farm where chickens can live happily.

The chickens here live off anything that grows in the surrounding area, from leaves and vegetation to self-grown fruits and duckweed that grow on a man-made lake within the compound. Here, the chickens live for a good four months as opposed to the 40 days that commercially farmed chickens do; and because they’re allowed to grow, what you get is leaner and more flavourful meat that’s packed with nutrients.

Along with his wife and a few helpers, Uncle Rani runs a small eatery right on the farm where you can order the chicken to be cooked in a variety of styles including oven-roasted, steamed, braised in rendang, with ginger sauce, and fried. For something simple and (very) satisfying, go for the oven-roasted chicken – the poultry is simply seasoned with salt and tossed into the oven; what you get is juicy, tender and perfectly seasoned meat. Every part of the chicken is used here, including its fat, which is rendered down and used to flavour the rice that accompanies the meat

Because of its popularity and limited seating, you need to reserve your table days ahead if you’re planning a weekend visit; weekdays are less hectic, but it never hurts to call before making your way here.


Photo: Bryan Ong

Lot 1280, Lorong Dato Abu Bakar, Kampung Gombak 20, Kuang (016 227 7011). Tue-Sun, 11am-6pm. 

An hour’s drive from KL will take you to Banting, a town known for being the home of the Sidek siblings and Chelliah Toppu Banting. Located just after the Public Works Department building, the unmarked toddy shop lies behind a bungalow at the end of a dead-end road. But this is no speakeasy: owned and operated by Chelliah Navaretnasinggam and his wife, the shop has been around for close to 50 years, and is one of the state’s few licensed brewers of toddy: a traditional alcoholic drink made from the partly fermented sap of the coconut palm. The toddy comes in two sizes – in a chilled 1.5 litre bottle or a larger claypot jar – and can be drunk with Guinness or beer. We recommend having it on its own chilled and fresh: at this stage, the drink is sweet, refreshing and has a pleasant aftertaste of young coconut. Leave it for a couple of hours, however, and the drink starts to develop a tart flavour as the natural microbes convert more sugar to alcohol and acetic acid.

Aside from toddy, the place serves up several types of Indian meat curries including chicken and mutton, but the wild boar curry is its standout dish: unlike pork curry, the flavours in this curry are deeper and richer, and the kitchen doesn’t hold back on the fatty chunks of boar – just what you need to offset the alcoholic sweetness of the fresh toddy.


Photo: Vincent Paul Yong

Off Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad, Banting (03 3181 5657/fb.com/ChelliahToppuBanting). Daily, 10am-6pm.

At this unassuming warung just off the side of the road, the parking space is almost always full of cars; the soto here is that good. Finding the place itself isn’t too hard; you’ll spot their large red signboard from a mile away. Yes, you should try the soto, but since you’ve already made the trip, why not go all out and get the soto special, which comes with extra portions of begedil, chicken and noodles. While the soto is the main attraction here, we would argue that the pecel special is the best dish on the menu. The concoction of tempeh, nasi impit, long beans and bean sprouts brought together by a generous pouring of peanut sauce makes the whole trip worth it. If you’re looking for some traditional Malay dessert, try their tapai pulut hitam or apam gula hangus.

Photo: Bryan Ong

581 Jalan 5, Kampung Ujong Permatang, Kuala Selangor. Daily, 11am-11pm.

On the same stretch of road as Warong Soto Pasir Penambang lies Warung Ibu Nasi Ambeng. This shack sitting in the front yard of a large kampung house is a local favourite for lunch, providing a cosy, homey atmosphere to have your meal in. This warung specialises in the Javanese dish nasi ambeng, which usually consists of fried chicken, ayam masak kicap, fried noodles and serunding kelapa. If you’re driving down with a buddy, go for the nasi ambeng kahwin which serves two. Although the dish is somewhat a tourist novelty, the food is authentic enough. Besides, you’ll also get a great #foodporn picture – the dish is as colourful as they come with all the different elements coming together nicely. Come with an empty stomach as the portions aren’t to be messed with.


Photo: Bryan Ong

Lot 216 Batu 6, Tanjung Karang. Daily, 9am-5pm.

A halal coffee shop that’s almost always full of regulars, Yik Mun has been serving hungry Tanjung Malim folks since 1926. Their spread of Chinese-Muslim food is what people come here for, especially during breakfast and lunch. Located near the Tanjung Malim exit along the North-South Expressway, motorists frequently make detours here to sample their extensive offerings of Hainanese fare.

However, the real crowd-puller is their halal baos. They’re available in four varieties – kaya, red bean, beef and curry chicken – and if we had to pick just one, we’d go for the curry chicken bao, which has a dry spicy chicken curry filling that’s balanced out by the soft bao bun. Fresh batches of baos are constantly rolling out the kitchen and into the steamers out front, so you never leave empty-handed.


Photo: Bryan Ong

1 Jalan Slim Lama, Tanjung Malim, Perak (05 459 6006). Daily, 9am-9pm.

When you’re at the Pasar Besar Seremban wet market, the bustling atmosphere – from the sights, smells and sounds of the market and the food court upstairs – will give you a sensory overload. The old-school food court is where you’ll find a good variety of stalls peddling all sorts of hawker food. But people tend to go straight for the beef noodles from Stall 748.

What you'll get here is a small variety of beef noodles dishes that include dry and soup variants topped with a choice of beef slices, beef jerky, beef balls or radish. Each bowl is served with springy lai fun, slices of tripe and Szechuan pickles. If you want some heat, get the soup version that’s filled with peppery broth; the sweeter, dry version is served with ladles of thick, rendered-down beef gravy and comes with added roasted groundnuts and sesame seeds.


Photo: Bryan Ong

Pasar Besar Seremban, off Jalan Tun Dr Ismail, Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. Mon & Wed-Sun, 7.30am-3pm.

Yes, there’s more to Klang than bak kut teh (although pork in hearty, comforting pots of herbal broth will always be an iconic Klang dish worth the one-hour KTM ride from KL Sentral).

The intriguing fried porridge at the port town’s Taman Berkeley isn’t your usual boring white glop; instead, sautéed dried shredded squid and shrimp (sourced from Sekinchan) give the Teochew dish a rich flavour, golden pork cracklings sprinkled on top provide crunch, and yam cubes and yao char kuey add texture to the silky porridge broth.

The wok hei (from the porridge being fried and tossed) along with an extra splash of soy sauce for colour and taste result in porridge you’d want to have even if you aren’t recovering from a bout of flu. Pa sang lang tip: add a spoonful of homemade green belacan chilli for some extra zing.


Photo: Bryan Ong

32-34 Lorong Lang, Taman Berkeley, Klang. Daily, 5.30pm-1.30am.

Bak kut teh is a breakfast affair for many Klangites; come morning, you’ll see some people drenching their rice in the fragrant herbal broth, more following each spoonful with nibbles of meat, and plenty others spicing up their bak kut teh with chopped cili padi and crushed garlic in soy.

While Seng Huat (more famously known as the ‘bak kut teh under the Klang bridge’) is a media darling for good reason, Teluk Pulai Claypot Bak Kut Teh in Taman Intan gives them a run for their money (the first shop is in Teluk Pulai but the Teluk Intan outlet is the more famous of the two).

The pots here contain light and flavourful pork bone broth, and a satisfying concoction of tender meat in huge chunks and fatty portions, along with bones, tendons, spices, lettuce and tofu puffs. Also, Lee Chong Wei has paid a visit, so you know it’s legit.


Photo: Daniel Chan

32 Jalan Batai Laut 5, Taman Intan, Klang (03 3344 5196). Daily, 7am-2pm.