Typical meals in Malaysia

Written by Mayumi Shinozuka

A typical meal in Malaysia varies a lot because of the 3 main cultures we have – Chinese, Malay, and Indian. 

For breakfast, locals will go to a coffee house also known as kopitiam or mamak. This is where you have small hawker stalls within the kopitiam (shown in the picture) 

You have various options from kaya toasts, half boiled eggs, and coffee, to noodles and rice as a typical breakfast meal.  

Mamak stores normally offer the same meals across all stores. A typical go-to at a mamak is roti canai. This is a meal rooted from the Indian culture. They serve this with curry or dhal. They have various types of roti (bread) as well. Some examples are roti Bom, roti tissue, tossai.  

Mamak stores run 24 hours a day and constantly offers the same items. They are known as somewhere you can go to when you are out late at night but all other restaurants are closed.  A popular order at a mamak is indomie or Maggie mee goreng, which is basically just stir fried instant noodles, but better.  

 A famous meal in Malaysia is nasi lemak, it directly translates to “ fat rice”. It is a fragrant rice with sambal (spicy sauce), anchovies, peanuts, cucumbers and boiled egg wrapped in a banana leaf. It can also be served with various types of chicken (fried, rendang – a type of sauce, etc). This is a meal rooted form the Malay culture.  

A famous drink in Malaysia is called teh tarik. It directly translates to pulled tea. This is basically tea with condensed milk, where the person making it will pour it into two metal cups to aerate the tea to make it taste better.  

What we have for a typical lunch also varies. You can have the same type of meal you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, lunches and dinners are “heavier”meals and people normally will opt for various rice or noodle dishes like hor fun (chicken noodles), pan mee (handmade noodles), wonton mee, (shown in pictures respectively) 

Malaysia and Indian cultures love different spices and so the meals in their culture gravitates more towards rice and curry. You get to choose your own, sort of buffet-style and you bring it to the cashier where they will calculate the price based on what you have on your plate 

Malaysia is also a Muslim country, which means that people who are muslin do not eat pork, so they would go to halal restaurants where the food are prepared differently and will not serve pork. This is where the different cultures differ, because the majority of Chinese meals contains pork and malay/Indian food do not. However, there are also multiple restaurants who make Chinese meals but cook it in a halal way and don’t include pork. 

My personal favorite would have to be asam laksa, which is a type of noodle, and I also really like wantan mee. For breakfast or even a big snack, I really like kaya toasts or roti canai. There are so many more types of food Malaysia offers.