48 Hours in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Best Kuala Lumpur Travel Itinerary

Today I want to share my guide to spending 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur with you. The capital of Malaysia is famous for the Petronas Towers and other landmarks, but there’s a lot more to discover. From food to sightseeing, this guide will show you the highlights of spending two days in Kuala Lumpur.

48 Hours in Kuala Lumpur

“You’ve eaten lunch?” she asks. She’s not actually wondering whether I’ve consumed my afternoon meal.

Rather, she’s greeting me in the traditional Malaysian manner. And this simple salutation speaks volumes about the culture here. The food culture. The food obsession.

Malaysians won’t hesitate to tell you they’re preoccupied with food. “At breakfast, we talk about what we’re going to eat for lunch,” one says. “And at lunch, we discuss what we’re going to have for dinner.”

And at dinner? “We talk about what we’re going to eat during the weekend,” they laugh. I can already tell my 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur are going to be delicious.

Where to Eat in Kuala Lumpur

The good thing about a country excited about all things culinary is that there’s not only a lot of good food in Malaysia, but also a lot of great variety.

Owing to its multiethnic culture—mainly Malay, Indian, and Chinese—and colonial history—the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and Japanese all spent stints occupying various parts of the country— Malaysia has an amazing array of traditional dishes.

I learn this firsthand during my 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur. My guide, Danny, wrote a book called Train 2 E@t. It’s about the best street food in Kuala Lumpur near each train station.

But it might as well be a guide to how to expand one’s stomach so that six full sit-down meals become a normal daily routine.

Danny meets my group at Sentral station, the main rail hub in Kuala Lumpur. From there we take the metro one stop, where we walk through Chinatown to get to Madras Lane.

The small covered market buzzes with street food stalls, and we settle in at a red plastic table behind one of them.

Soon Danny returns to the table followed by trays of Assam laksa with tamarind, coconut curry laksa, and chee cheong fun rice noodles. We devour them, hungry for the intensity of the flavors.

From there, we continue our 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur by walking through the Petaling Street Market in Chinatown.

There we pick up sweet mata kucing to drink from a vendor sandwiched between stalls selling faux luxury goods. It’s made from longan, a relative of the lychee, and it’s just as sweet.

Leaving Chinatown, we continue our street food tour of Kuala Lumpur with a stop at a restaurant called Anuja.

Heading up the stairs, we eat heaping portions of rice, curry, egg, chicken, poppadoms, fried fish, and other Muslim Indian food. Our plates are banana leaves, our utensils our hands. It’s cheap, cheerful, and delicious.

Back on the train, we we continue our 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur by heading to Masjid Jamek to tour the Masjid India bazaar.

Weaving through stalls of colorful fabric and fake watches, we pick up goreng pisang banana fritters and keropok lekor fish fingers from a street food vendor. The former are crispy and delicious, the latter a bit fishy, but good with chili sauce.

Just when we think we can’t eat anything more, we leave Kuala Lumpur’s street food stalls to experience its fine dining scene.

First on the list is Bijan restaurant, a famous Malay establishment that’s been voted the best of its kind many times over.

The beautiful dining room is low-lit, the cuisine fresh, and the ingredients high-quality. Standout dishes include ayam masak kuzi, a dish with chicken, tomatoes, almonds, and raisins in coconut sauce.

Afterwards we walk to our hotel through bustling hawker stalls selling all kinds of street food and busy bars along Jalan Nagasari.

Other restaurants we experience during our 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur include the JP teres restaurant at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur hotel, our home for two nights in the city.

The restaurant serves a feast of pan-Malaysian dishes that include spicy coconut-based curry laksa, traditional nasi goreng fried rice, and murgh makhani, a tandoori chicken dish with creamy tomato sauce. There’s excellent cake for dessert, too.

Elsewhere, we tour the Malaysia Airlines chef-on-call facility at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We’re in the country as guests of the airline, and it’s only fair we give their award-winning in-flight food its due.

Malaysia Airlines flew us all the way from London to Kuala Lumpur on one of their A380s, which had power outlets, USB ports, private TV screens, and surprisingly far-reclining seats even in economy class.

And that’s to say nothing of the Golden Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 4, which has great views of the planes out the windows, lots of champagne, and award-winning cuisine.

Speaking of food, the Malaysian meal on my flight was outstanding and incredibly flavorful for plane food (the omelette I ate for breakfast less so, but it serves me right for not eating local).

What to See in 48 Hours in Kuala Lumpur

But food isn’t the only focus of our 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur. There’s more to see than just markets and restaurants. One way to do it is to take a hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city.

Ours starts at the Malaysia Tourism Center. Over the course of six hours, we visit the Kuala Lumpur City Gallery and ride past landmarks like Petaling Street and the Federal Territory Mosque.

It also takes us out to the famous Batu Caves, where a giant golden Hindu god welcomes us as we climb the steep steps to the entrance.

Our animated guide, Joe, tells us all about the city and adds a nice dose of humor to what’s a long evening of sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur.

But we can’t escape food entirely on our tour. It includes a dinner at Satay Station, a restaurant specializing in—you guessed it—satay.

Skewers of chicken and beef are piled high on platters, accompanied by bowls of peanut sauce. The meat is incredibly fresh, having come straight off the grill.

The big bowls of mee rebus—egg noodles with potato sauce, shrimp, peanut, and chili—are equally good, and I have to tear myself away to stop eating.

Where to Stay in Kuala Lumpur

When we’re not sightseeing or eating in Kuala Lumpur, we’re snatching whatever minutes of rest we can get in the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur.

It’s not hard to do given our rooms are enormous, modern, full of amenities—loofahs in the shower and the bath—and offer stunning views over the city and its famous twin Petronas Towers.

But we’re not in Malaysia to sit in hotel rooms all day. After our 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur are over, we’re going to spend 2 days in Malacca.

Naturally, we have to eat on the way there, so we stop at one last restaurant in Kuala Lumpur: an Indian mamak restaurant.

Open 24 hours, it serves excellent cone-shaped sweet roti tissu flatbread, as well as roti kosong and roti telur, both of which are great with dipping sauces.

And let’s not forget the famous teh tarik, or pulled milk tea. We’re mesmerized by the man pouring it in long streams from pitcher to mug.