Little Eat Stall on Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur

Have you ever heard of what the Chinese refer to as Big Eat or Little (Small) Eat? Well, Big Eat would refer to a street side restaurant focused on cooking up a variety dishes to be eaten with rice. Some of these dishes might be a specialty of the restaurant. Little Eat would refer to individual stalls on the street or a cafe focused on single dishes such as fried noodles, roast chicken with rice or spring rolls.

The 'white knight' Chef and wifey

One of the hidden gems in Pudu that we like to visit, is known simply as the Little Eats Stall. While most food stalls would focus or specialize in one dish, the Little Eats Stall has 5 different specialties offered on different days of the week. Here is what's on offer, each day of the week. On Mondays and Thursdays they serve, Ipoh Kway Teow and Lam Mee. On Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays they serve Meehoon Fish Head and Fish Paste Noodles, and finally on Wednesday, they serve Pork Mee and Porridge/Congee.

The ideal time to arrive for your meal here, would be at around 11am or earlier. Be sure to keep your schedule open as the wait can be long. There is no other person cooking except the chef, brightly clad in white.

Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays they serve Meehoon Fish Head and Fish Paste Noodles. The Little Eat Stall where an old tree provides additional shading on top of the zinc, tarpaulin and ceramic roof.

The fish head noodles are fab. The soup is murky, rich and sweet - sufficient to envelop any noodle you choose to go with the dish. They do not add any evaporated milk in the soup - a common ingredient of this dish - so you can imagine how natural this tastes, as the murkiness is caused by all the pure fish stock alone (or whatever secret ingredients added). The broth has a terrific hint of chinese wine flavouring to it. Afficiandoes of this dish require the kick of the chinese wine.

Looking around the place, we spotted this larder, where regular patrons are allowed to keep their Chinese wine bottles - they take their own respective bottle (all numbered or signed for easy recognition) and add the wine to the soup. This adds potency to the soup but for us, just the regular wine in the broth will suffice as this is already pretty strong tasting - we were a little hesitant about getting "high" during lunchtime!

Now the Lam Mee might be the most popular of all Little Eat Stall's dishes. There are times we would arrive to find it is completely sold out before noon. If you do get there early, it can be a long wait but it is worth it.

Lam Mee isn't at the top of our favourite street food list but the one cooked up here might be one of the best we have eaten.

The Lam Mee here, employs the thick yellow egg noodles (Tai lok mee) that people used to use to stir up Fried Hokkien Mee. It's actually starchier and heavier than your regular thin yellow egg noodles. These noodles are doused in a gravy made of prawns and pork ribs and chicken stock with eggs stirred in at the end. The translucent gravy resembles a thick, brown, viscous sauce. It is then served with toppings of bean sprouts, shallots crisps, chives, deep fried pork lard and massive chunks of sweet chicken breast or thigh meat. You can also have an order of chopped chicken on a separate plate - which was the preferred order of the regulars.

Finally, there are the pork noodles which are delicious as well. A meaty, sweet and clear broth of pork with deep fried pork lard and a trace of Chinese wine to flavour it. The intestines are scarce, and I may have to ask for more offal the next time. Be sure also to ask for the egg, if you like a yolk in your noodles. We did not realize that we had to request for this. No worries. We will be back again, soon enough I think, and there is plenty of time to get it right.

All the dishes here start at RM5 each. Super affordable, quality stuff. It's getting harder to find such good 'little eats' in city these days. This place is indeed a gem in the heart of bustling Kuala Lumpur.