[Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia] Malacca-style Nyonya dishes from Nyonya.love, Puchong

This inconspicuous little eatery on the outer fringes of Kuala Lumpur’s city limits serves up perhaps the most authentic Malacca-style Nyonya dishes to be found outside of Malacca itself.

Run by the Malaccan-born mother-and-daughter team of Irene Ho and Sheryl Bito, Nyonya.love opened its doors late last November. Due to its location, well outside the more well-patronised dining precincts and areas with high pedestrian traffic, Nyonya.love has pretty much escaped the notice of KL’s trend-following food-bloggers and foodie community, and its faithful patrons are mainly KL’s close-knit Malaccan Baba-Nyonya community.

My own Malaccan-Nyonya aunt, who’s a long-time KL resident, but who always kept her ears close to the ground for any new Malaccan eatery to open in the KL, brought me here yesterday for lunch. What we had:

  1. Kueh Pai Tee - these are wafer-thin, crisp pastry shells filled with stewed, shredded jicama and chopped shrimps, with a distinct touch of “taucheo” (fermented bean paste) that sets it apart from the Penang-Nyonya version. The rendition here is the simple, Malaccan street snack version, no fancy large shrimps, nor diced tofu or shredded egg omelette topping.

  2. Mee Nyonya, served with Sambal Rojak - another Malaccan classic done very well here, basically fried yellow Hokkien wheat noodles with shrimps, fish balls, and beansprouts, again flavoured with “taucheo” (fermented bean paste), giving the noodle dish its distinctive Malaccan-Nyonya identity.
    The noodles was served with sambal rojak, basically diced fresh cucumber & pineapple in spicy chili-vinegar dressing.

  3. Nyonya Laksa - Malaccan-Nyonya laksa is the the predecessor the Singapore’s Katong laksa, but much, much creamier with the addition of generous lashings of coconut milk during the preparation of the gravy. The one here, garnished with shrimps, fishballs, hard-boiled egg and tofu puffs, sprinkled with finely-chopped Vietnamese coriander was delicious. It verged on being cloyingly-rich, but a dollop of spicy sambal (chili paste) cuts into the creamy gravy and gave it a sharp heat.

  4. Chicken Rendang with Steamed Rice - a dry chicken curry, also coconut milk-rich, so we opted to have it with steamed white rice.

Desserts
5) Apom Berkuah - one of my fave desserts: delicately light crumpets served with caramelised banana in palm sugar-coconut milk sauce.

  1. Pulut Hitam - this is another classic Malaccan sweet dessert porridge of black glutinous rice slow-simmered in coconut milk, with pandan leaves (for its fragrance) and palm sugar.

Definitely the best Malaccan-Nyonya dishes, albeit simple street snack items, I’d ever had here in Kuala Lumpur. Worth a drive out to the boondocks, if one is willing to face the daunting KL traffic.

Address
Nyonya.love
B-LG-5, Eight Kinrara, Jalan BK 5A/1
Bandar Kinrara, 47180 Puchong
Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: +6018-989 9223
Opening hours: 11am-8pm daily

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Interesting. Wouldn’t mind trying the Malaccan version.

Was in Malacca for a couple of days, on the way to Singapore. I need to return to Malaysia and eat it properly.

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Yes, you just need to come back soon!