Kuala Lumpur's Mother of All Markets

I'm a market maniac - love, love, love a good one - but I think I've met my match in Pudu. A couple hours squeezing my way through the crowds of this gawp-inducingly huge conglomeration of permanent stalls and mobile vendors in downtown Kuala Lumpur left me feeling as if I'd run a marathon.

Pudu Market (aka Jalan Pasar Market) marks it's fiftieth birthday this year. Its Jalan Pasar entrance is deceptively tame, just a couple of vegetable stalls, a soy milk seller, a table or two full of kuih and Chinese temple offerings lining a narrow aisle. But continue on, past clothing, pet supplies, a small live poultry section, and a tabletop pyramid of miniature pineapple priced to go at 1.50 ringgit (less than 50 US cents) a piece. Take a left at the corner stall piled with vegetables and herbs reputed to possess medicinal qualities,

   

and then veer right, down an alley devoted primarily to leafy green vegetables, fruit, and fresh and dried noodles. At this point there will be no turning back, because the crowds have closed behind you and the noisy, chaotic vortex ahead is sucking you forward until it spits you out into what can only be described - on a Saturday morning at about 8 o'clock, that is - as something verging on pandemonium.

You're in a large paved area ringed by two and three-story apartment buildings and shop lots, open to the sky but almost seamlessly roofed by hundreds of red, yellow, blue, and green market umbrellas. To your left, hawkers sate the appetites of the masses with kopi, noodles, and other breakfast fare. To your right, roast pork galore.

Straight ahead, a truly frightening crush of shoppers clogging aisles that have narrowed to barely the width of two bodies. This is no once-a-week Malaysian kampung market, where chatting and ambling are as much a part of the agenda as shopping is. Pudu merket regulars are here to buy; they're surgical-strike types who've come to stock up on necessities at the stalls of their favorite vendors, maybe eat and slosh down a beverage, and leave. If you're not moving - if you're stopping to admire this, photograph that, take notes on the other, or just soak up the atmosphere - you're in their way.

The cries of hawkers are in the air and there's so much to see, but the tight crowds can induce claustrophobia. I'd love to tell you what's where, but after a few turns down this aisle and up the other, a sprint across the way for breakfast and then a blind dash back into the fray, disorientation took over. The best method of attack (I figured out, after the fact) is to plunge down an aisle and keep straight ahead - eventually you'll come to a city street where you can catch your breath before diving back in.

Much of what's on offer at Pudu can be found at other markets in KL - assuming you're willing to hit several markets in one day. It's the sheer scale of this market that boggles the mind.

Stalls specializing in assorted fishy products, like dried slices and slabs of fresh, soft belacan (shrimp paste) may be been-there, done-that,

but Pudu's fresh seafood section (its ground inch-deep in crushed cockle shells) is nothing less than astounding. Every piscene product on offer - huge red snapper, ten varieties of prawn, sting ray destined for the barbeque, mirror-skinned silver pomfret, fillets of Spanish mackerel ready for inclusion in a coconut milk curry, not to mention fish innards (maw and such) - looks and smells (that is, doesn't smell at all) just-pulled-from-sea fresh.

Soy fanciers will feel at home at Pudu, where the bean is sold in many forms: as fresh milk, dipped still warm from stainless steel jugs,

sprouted,

or as tofu -deep-fried,

with a crisped 'skin',

and in varying degrees of freshness, firm or soft. My find of the morning, these balls of silken bean curd bearing a startling resemblance to buffalo milk mozzarela, smell and taste delicately vegetal  and are as smooth as custard.

Near the center of the market, beans of another type - red, mashed into a paste, and sweetened - are folded into dough and deep-fried. There was such a run on this stall that we never managed to snag a freshly fried bun, despite lingering through a couple of batches.

Of course, no visit to a market is complete without a bit of on-the-spot noshing. We found these appam - Indian-style 'pancakes' made from slightly fermented rice flour batter and cooked on only one side - being whipped up fresh in a small area behind the market's seafood section.

Served with a saucer of thin, lightly sweetened coconut milk and, if you wish, another of smooth and soupy curry, they're just the way I like them - a large thick and chewy, slightly undercooked and tangy (in the way yogurt is_ center surrounded by a ring of almost paper-thin, crispy dough. 

At the urging of our tablemate, we also sampled the roti being griddled at a stall behind the appam seller's.

Fluffy, exceptionally flaky, and minimally greasy, this treat could only be improved upon with the addition of a spoonful of the vendor's belacan-fragrant, surprisingly spicy homemade sambal.

A fine breakfast, and a delicious way to stoke up one's energy for another go at the market, for 2.60 ringgit (about 75 cents) - two coffees included.

Pudu Market, enter off Jalan Pasar or Jalan Yew, Pudu area, Kuala Lumpur. 6am to 2pm, everyday.

Comments

[Kelvin]

those days this market had wild animals on sale (for eating) including monkey brains...

[Syafique]

I am ashamed to say that I've never been to the Pudu Market! Love the pics. It's lovely. Should visit the market some day...

[Robyn]

Kelvin - thanks for that, er, interesting tidbit of info. Safe to say we would not have been passing a Sat. a.m., and snapping pics, at Pudu in those days. How many years ago, do you suppose?

Thanks, Syafique - I was a bit embarassed that it took 11 months after moving to KL for as to get to Pudu Mkt!

[Pat Wong]

My parents did their weekly shopping at this market even though we lived in PJ at that time.I am talking about the early 60's.As a kid I distinctly remember vendors selling iguanas, slauthering and skinning them. They were not the regulars at the market but itinerant vendors who sold their wares by the side of the road.

[Ben]

I grew up in my pre-teen years in the neighborhood. When I grew up I remember how stressful it was for me walking thru the market -- the wet floors, the people, the heat, the pushing and all. But having lived in Canada for so many years, I really missed those times. Thanks for sharing the pictures. I will be making my way to KL next month and will certainly try to make a trip to Pasar Rd.

[CW]

Wow what great pictures! Almost feels like I'm there...

[RST]

Lordy! Is that an image of green caimitos (Chrysophyllum cainito) that you have in the third picture from the top? I haven't seen one in over a decade now. I dream of this fruit all the time-it's one of the fruits I love the most in the world. But the season's all wrong-unless the picture was taken earlier this year...?

[Robyn]

RST-don't know what it is ... I passed by this stall quickly while Dave stopped for a photo. The pics were taken just a couple wks ago. Googled caimitos and it sounds like a fruit we tried a couple times in Saigon (is it also known as 'milk apple'?), but didn't really care for. Only thing to do is head back to Pudu Mkt and pick up a couple samples.

[RST]

Ah wait till you try the ones from the Philippines. They should be in fruit and delicious when you get there later this
year!

I have never heard of milk apple but the description sounds correct. I have heard it called star apple.

The large purple ones are heavenly.

[yohana]

On the Pic # 6, there are a bunch of pink color flowers, what are they? They look like what Japanese people eat, I think they called it ginger flowers? Japanese usually made them into pickle .

[RST]

Torch ginger of a specific variety. Bunga kantan (and not bunga luya) I think.

[Saida]

I was in Malaysia the whole month of June. People do eat better there, fresh, fast and cheap with lots of variety. We spent about $10UD for breakfast for 7 children and 4 adults. We really stuffed ourselves with roti canai, tosai, roti tisu, and lots of tea tarik. It was heavenly. For lunch and dinner we rarely spent more than $20UD. Love those mamak restoran. It was truly a fine vacation!!!!

[treatment of hemorrhoids]

Good post, I like to leave comments because it allows bloggers to become more engaged and for the opportunity to perhaps learn from each other.