Illustration by Fig & Ginger, drawn from the review. The venue's own photo is on its way.
Hainanese kopitiam in Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur
Yut Kee
Dark Coffee, Old Bread, Bigger House
Yut Kee has been serving since 1928, so it predates most of the opinions about where to eat in Kuala Lumpur. It outlived its original shop on Jalan Dang Wangi, rising costs pushed it around the corner to Jalan Kamunting, and the family moved into a converted house and carried the old fixtures and photographs along. The new room seats about half again as many people as the old one. On a weekend you will still share a table. Consider it part of the price of admission.
The reason to come is the roti babi, bread stuffed and fried in egg until it forms a crust, which is the kind of dish a Hainanese kitchen invented because it had to make something wonderful out of what was around. Next to it sits the Hainanese chicken chop with brown sauce and fried potatoes, a plate of colonial leftovers that somehow outclasses most steakhouse dinners. Hailam mee is on the menu too, and so is the marble cake. The coffee is roasted dark by a relative of the family, and nobody apologizes for that.
Nothing here is modern and nothing here wants to be. Plan on a weekday morning if you can, because it opens at eight and shuts at five, and it is closed Mondays. Eat slowly, order a second thing you cannot pronounce, and leave a little curious about the other 98 years.
- Order this
- Roti babi, Hainanese chicken chop with brown sauce, Hailam mee, Marble cake
- The damage
- $$
- Go
- A weekday morning, Tuesday to Sunday, 8am to 5pm
- Find it
- Jalan Kamunting, off Jalan Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur 50100
- @yutkee1928