Fancy a bowl of KL-Cantonese “mai fun” alle vongole? This 12-year-old noodle stall at Lai Foong Coffeeshop by beautician-turned-food-beast, Madam Cindy Chai, serves the best rendition of what the locals call “lala beehoon soup” (丽丰上湯啦啦米粉湯 ) in Kuala Lumpur.
Her version of the noodles was chockful of “lala” (local clams, and flavoured liberally with ginger, chopped red chillis and scallions. A more than generous splash of Chinese Shaoxing wine lifted the already rich flavour of the broth a couple of notches up, before the whole thing was poured over “beehoon” (thin rice noodles).
As the saying goes, all good things come to those who wait. And one really needs to wait if one comes here at lunch-time: it can be anything between 45 minutes to an hour.
The broth are prepared in small batches - supreme chicken stock, brought to a boil with the fresh clams (all carefully cleaned and pried open one-by-one by Madam Chai’s nephew who helped out in the preparation phase) and other ingredients and condiments. Prepared bowl by bowl, the noodles were sheer deliciousness, down to the last drop.
The food stall opens at 10am sharp each day. I’d recommend that one comes around that time - whch I did last Sunday. I only had to wait 15 minutes for my bowl of noodles as I was fourth in the queue. The coffeeshop does get busy as there is also a famous beef noodles stall operating there.
Lai Foong Coffeeshop is unmissable, as it’s right across the street from Petaling Street, KL Chinatown’s main drag.
Address
Lai Foong Lala Beehoon Soup
138, Jalan Tun HS Lee
50050 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60163764928
Operating hours: 10am-8.30pm daily
