In planning our trip, I compiled a list of places where I wanted to eat. A couple of short email interviews with people who've been to Kuala Lumpur before and a lot of internet research resulted in a rather lengthy list.

Alas, due to a husband who wanted only western food, we were able to eat at just one place. Since Malaysian cuisine is almost identical to Singaporean food, which he eats everyday for lunch at work, Earl wanted something else. Thus, it took a bit of cajoling for us to get here:

I tried to pick out the most "neutral" looking dish for him - no curry, no chili, not too "Chinese" - and came up with this:

Aromatic Chicken Set - MYR 15.00
Coke - MYR 3.80

This consisted of chicken cooked in dark soya sauce and mushrooms, Kerabu Bok Nee and Ju Hu Char. Earl was not too fond of the chicken but liked everything else.

On the other hand, I picked out a popular breakfast dish:

Chicken Nasi Lemak - MYR 11.30
Sugar Cane Juice - MYR 3.50

This was served with chicken curry hantu, fried ikan bilis (anchovies), groundnuts and an egg. It was okay, but nothing out of the ordinary. This is more of a lunch or dinner meal for me as I still prefer bacon and eggs for breakfast. Maybe I should have tried something else? Hopefully during the next trip.

The restaurant is conveniently located at the 4th floor of the Suria KLCC Shopping Mall, so it's easy to go to after visiting the Petronas Twin Towers if you want a try a local meal.

Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur

I must say that I had high hopes for this hotel, and while the overall service was great I was not too fond of the decor. Red is, unfortunately, not my favorite color.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with check-in which was a breeze, though I wonder if they do an x-ray scan on our luggage prior to delivering them to our room. Unpacking would have been much faster had we brought our bags up with us instead of handing them over to the bellhop.

As per my last post, we decided to transfer here from One World Hotel in Petaling Jaya to be closer to the city. While moving was definitely a good idea, we could not help but make a comparison. This room seemed smaller and the bathroom was definitely more cramped. Also they had less cable TV channels than at the other hotel.

The bathroom though was cleaner. Please note that the bathroom at One World was also clean, but there were fewer mold spots at Shangri-La.

Breakfast was also better than at One World - maybe it was the chocolate fountain, but somehow despite the smaller size of the dining area, it seemed that the layout and the options were much nicer. Still no bacon though.

As to getting around, rail stations are walkable but they are quite far from the hotel. It's a good thing that there's a shuttle service to some of the malls in Bukit Bintang and to the Petronas Towers (which is approximately a 10 minute walk from the hotel).

On the second day of our visit, we went back to our room after lunch and found that the bed was a bit haphazardly done. We're not that picky, but both Earl and I have stayed in enough hotel rooms to know when something was done in a hurry. I guess I was just expecting more out of Shangri-La.

I was impressed with the check-out service though. When the front desk agent found out we were leaving for the airport already, he immediately called to reserve a cab without being asked. As mentioned earlier, we've been to quite a few hotels but that was the first time anyone did that for us.