First tastes of KL

Disclaimer: So far I'm basically always lost and just wander the streets looking for anything tasty that catches my eye. So I doubt I'll be posting many addresses. Some of these places just pop up in the night and move on.

Soong Kee's Beef Ball Noodles, below, isn't like that. It's just outside the Petaling Street Market, and you can't miss its crazy-quilt exterior.

Spinach and black bean paste on top of very dry, exceptional noodles. Mix well. The beef balls (also containing minced pork) have a firm fishball texture, not a lot of flavor. Maybe it was the tripe or the beef slices, but the broth made me feel better, I swear. I was battling a scratchy throat all day, probably from touching too many handrails, and after consuming this, I haven't had any issues. Bullet dodged!

Not too far away I found a stall cooking up char kuey teow ― flat noodles fried up with chive and shrimp, some unknowable spices and broth, thickened with a quarter-teaspoon of corn starch perhaps? and topped with a fried egg. It's not always a "wet" dish, but in this case it was very much like a stew.

I was invited to sit behind the stall with the family who runs it. They kept looking over at me, nodding and giving a questioning thumbs up. "It's great!" I said, a little too loudly. They had a baby and a toddler, and took turns watching after them while tending to customers on the street. At one point a song came on the radio with the chorus "ho, gai, lo gay!" and they sang along with it, pumping their fists.