You don't judge a book by its cover, and you don't judge a popular Kuala Lumpur food outlet by its main entrance. So don't judge Madras Lane's excellent Malaysian street food experience by the wet-market section you have to wade through first to get to them.
Madras Lane, by its first impression, was terribly off-putting to this traveler - what was that live cat doing in the birdcage, next to the vegetable display*?


It had also freshly finished its "business" in its confined quarters, so I had lost a good deal of my appetite by the time we reached the line of hawker stalls at the end of the lane.

I'd forgotten about the cat by the time the first bowl of yong tau foo arrived, though, and that was good enough to encourage me to soldier ahead and taste more of what this small, out-of-the-way hawker center had to offer.

The Cinema is Gone, But the Name Remains

I would not have found my way into Madras Lane if it weren't for Pauline Lee, chief Simply Enak food experience captain in Malaysia and my guide for the day. As we waded into the market from its nondescript entrance facing the Petaling Street pedestrianized shopping area, Pauline explained the history behind the name.

"In the old days, there was a Madras Cinema here, near a Sri Mariamman Temple," Pauline told me as we negotiated our way through the narrow walkway, past stalls selling vegetables, fish and chicken. "Devotees would go there to watch a movie, before it was burned [in 1979].

This lane here was connected to the theater, hence Madras Lane."

About 200 yards in from the entrance, the market stalls gave way to food stalls, and the closed-in feel of the market ended with the sight of an open parking lot beyond a dining space filled with tables and chairs. This is what Pauline and I came for.

Madras Lane's Famous Yong Tau Foo

The dish above all dishes at Madras Lane is the yong tau foo: a bowl of clear soup garnished with bite-size pieces of vegetables stuffed with surimi (fish paste). In its raw form, the paste is crammed into different waiting receptacles: bitter gourd, okra, eggplant, and soft white tofu, which are then simmered in fish bouillon and served in a bowl with its broth.

Some sides aren't simmered, but fried - this is the case with the tau pok, or bean-curd skins stuffed with fish paste. Fried yong tau foo sides aren't served in the broth, but on the side. Fried or simmered, your choice of yong tau foo should go well with chee cheong fun, a rice noodle roll topped with soy sauce and sesame seeds.

As yong tau foo uses no pork, it's commonly held to be "halal" (declared safe for consumption by Muslims), leading to its immense popularity among all locals, not just those from the Malaysian Chinese community. "On a Sunday, you see a lot of families coming here with a lot of kids," Pauline says.

Madras Lane's Unique Assam Laksa

Another stall at Madras Lane sells an awesome assam laksa - a sour noodle soup with unique versions in almost every city in Malaysia. "Kuala Lumpur has curry laksa, there's Johor Laksa, Sarawak Laksa," Pauline tells me. "You go to Kelantan, there's probably a different kind of laksa there, too." (Read more about laksa noodles.)

Each version of laksa rebalances a variety of native flavors in one direction or another - " Sardine, [specifically] Spanish mackerel, so it's very fishy; it's spicy with the chili, sweet savory from the shrimp paste, and to balance off everything, there's shredded pineapples for sweetness and cucumber, mint, and shallots [to fight] the fishiness," Pauline tells me.

With plenty of room for variation, no two laksa-loving Malaysians can agree on which version is the ultimate unsurpassable number one. "Every person has a different palate; some person wants it sweeter or spicier - that's why if you ask any Malaysian, they will not be able to give you a single straightforward answer what is the best laksa."

Madras Lane's laksa, however, has a special place in Pauline's heart: "For me, this is my favorite," she says. "It has the right amount of sourness, not too spicy, a balanced amount of sweetness. And you don't feel full eating it - you can go on and on and on!"

Getting to Madras Lane

I wouldn't have found Madras Lane if it weren't part of Simply Enak's food tour of Petaling Street - chances are you won't find it on your own, either, hidden as it is inside a grimy market lane in  Chinatown Kuala Lumpur. You can hire Pauline to take you there... or you can triangulate from the coordinates below and try to get there by yourself.

It's easier to get in through the Petaling Street entrance - Petaling Street itself is accessible by train (nearest station: Pasar Seni; read about Kuala Lumpur Trains) or by riding Kuala Lumpur's Free Go KL City Bus that terminates at the Pasar Seni Station.

Once you're in, and once you see the cats in the cages, you know you're getting close.

• Address: City Center (old) Jalan Sultan, Kuala Lumpur (Location on Google Maps)
• Phone: +60 19 336 7893
• Opening hours: 6:30am to 3pm (or while supplies last), Tuesdays to Sundays (closed on Mondays)

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*It was not for sale, neither was it for slaughter. Malaysian market sellers often keep cats with them for company. The sight of the cat in the cage did remind me of unkind (and untrue) rumors I had heard in my childhood, about what a certain food entrepreneur put in their steamed meat buns.