[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 4 June 2017]
This February, I took a short trip to Kuala Lumpur to celebrate mum’s birthday. I had gone to KL as recently as last year but mum and dad haven’t been there for about 10 years, so they were keen to revisit the city again.
One of the benefits of being an Amex Ascend Krisflyer cardmember is that every year, I am entitled to one free night’s stay at any Millennium Copthorne hotels worldwide. I haven’t been utilising the voucher for the past few years so I decided it’s high time I made use of it. There happened to be one in KL, the Grand Millennium Hotel Kuala Lumpur, and it is located in the heart of Bukit Bintang, so it was perfect. The room voucher is meant for two persons so I had to top up RM116.60 (S$37.60) for an extra bed for the first night. For the second night, I paid S$166.78 for the room, for the three of us. So in total, we paid S$204.40 for the two nights, which is cheap, considering it is a 5-star hotel.
For our transport to KL, we decided to take a coach instead of a plane. If you take a plane, you will need to check in at the airport two hours prior to departure, and after arriving at the airport, you will still need to take a long taxi ride to the city. So even though it may work out to be faster (the plane ride is only 1 hour), I felt taking a plane was more of a hassle. We booked our coach with Transtar and the 2-way tickets cost about S$60 per person.
(Exchange rate: S$1 approx. equivalent to RM3.10)
Day 1 – 11 February, Saturday
We went to Golden Mile Complex at Beach Road to catch our Transtar coach to KL. There were only six of us on board, so we pretty much had most of the coach to ourselves. We left Beach Road at 8am and entered Malaysia via the Second Link at Tuas. Traffic was mostly smooth and we arrived at KL and dropped off at Berjaya Times Square at 2pm. From there, we walked for just 10 minutes to our hotel. Upon checking in, apparently, they upgraded us to a Grand Deluxe Room, which was a nice surprise. Our room was on the 16th floor and it was very spacious.
Grand Millennium Hotel Kuala Lumpur
Address: 160 Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, 55100, Malaysia
Tel: 60-3-211-74888
Website: https://www.millenniumhotels.com/en/kuala-lumpur/grand-millennium-hotel-kuala-lumpur/
The hotel location was even better than I imagined. It was really in the heart of Bukit Bintang, right smack of the so-called “Golden Triangle” comprising the area north of Jalan Pudu, south of Jalan Ampang and west of Jalan Imbi and Jalan Tun Razak. It is just beside the Pavilion shopping mall and opposite Fahrenheit shopping mall. You couldn’t ask for a more convenient location.
After settling down, the first thing we did was to head to the bazaar sale at the function room of our hotel. There was a sale for Fred Perry, Under Armour, Polo and other brands, but my eyes were set on Fred Perry. We each bought a few pieces of the polo T-shirts as they were well priced. After that, we went to Pavilion to have a late lunch. I was craving for some ramen so we went to Ippudo for my ramen fix.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening shopping at the malls around our hotel – Pavilion, Fahrenheit, Lot 10 and Sungei Wang Plaza.
One of my favourite bakeries is The Loaf, located at levels 3 and 4 of Pavilion. They sell premium breads and pastries inspired by the finest Japanese techniques. Whenever I visit, I will always buy the chocolate croissant. It is shaped like a Portuguese egg tart and it comes in a flaky crust with a generous filling of chocolate. It’s very yummy.
At the basement of Pavilion is a huge food court with many stalls and also snack and confectionary outlets like Famous Amos, Lavender, Gindaco, Boost Juice Bar, Llao Llao, Garrett Popcorn, Auntie Anne’s and much more.
I was happy to see Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tarts there. We bought the durian flavour and the chocolate ones to try. However, as they were massed produced and there was no queue – basically, supply exceeding demand – the tarts were cold and not as good as when they are freshly produced. They are best eaten piping hot and fresh from the oven.
We then called it a day and went back to our hotel to rest. With that, it’s the end of Day 1!
Day 2 – 12 February, Sunday
It’s mum’s birthday today. Happy birthday mum! To celebrate, we went to Greyhound Café for breakfast. It is located at the ground floor of Ansa Kuala Lumpur hotel, in between the Fahrenheit and Lot 10 shopping malls. The café originated from Bangkok and it has since expanded to KL and also Singapore, with the Paragon branch opening earlier this year. The café décor is very chic, with grey, white and black as the main themes. They are famous for their Thai dishes but we ordered the All Day Breakfast as it was still early in the morning. I had the full breakfast set comprising sausage, bacon, ham, mushroom, scrambled eggs, tomato, orange juice and coffee. It tasted good, like what you would expect at any decent café.
After breakfast, we walked to Suria KLCC shopping mall. There is an elevated covered walkway that links Pavilion all the way to KLCC and the walk takes around 20 to 25 minutes. It is also air-conditioned so it is pretty comfortable. There is only one stretch between the convention centre and the shopping mall that is not covered, but otherwise, you are sheltered from the rain and sun for most part.
Suria KLCC is the shopping mall forming part of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) development area, which also includes the convention centre, aquarium, Petronas Twin Towers, the surrounding hotels and KLCC Park. The shopping mall comprises of 6 levels of retail outlets with anchor tenants Parkson Grand, Isetan and Tanjong Golden Village cinemas among others. Before Pavilion opened in 2007, Suria KLCC was the premier shopping destination in KL but I would say that Pavilion has since surpassed it. Almost all of the shops in Suria KLCC can be found in Pavilion. Nevertheless, it was nice to take a walk over to Suria KLCC, if not for the shopping, then just for the opportunity to view the Petronas Towers up close.
In all my visits to KL, I have never been up the Petronas Twin Towers before and this trip was no exception. Somehow, I never had the urge to the top to see the view. At 451.9m tall, they were once the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004, until Taipei 101 was built. Of course, the record is currently held by the mighty Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 828m, but that record is set to be toppled by the upcoming Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia. It is expected to be completed by 2020 and projected to stand at 1,008m tall, becoming the first structure in the world to reach the one-kilometre-high mark. I wouldn’t mind going up that one.
At 1:15pm, we took a taxi from Suria KLCC to Berjaya Times Square, about a 10-min ride away. The mall opened in 2003 but it has aged terribly. The shops are more low-end and you probably won’t spend much time here. The only interesting thing that happened was seeing former Manchester United legend Teddy Sheringham hosting an autograph signing session. It was organised by Astro TV channel and there was a long queue of fans waiting to get his autograph and picture. I didn’t have anything to be autographed so I didn’t join the queue.
After the short stint at Berjaya Times Square, we went to Sungei Wang Plaza for another round because we were bored and had run out of places to go. Unfortunately, Sungei Wang is also quite a rundown, has-been mall that offers nothing much interesting. We then headed back to Pavilion to buy some snacks to fill the stomach.
Yesterday, I had eyed two snack stalls at the basement of Pavilion so today, we came back here to buy them. The first one is Eggette Lab, selling egg waffles, a type of street snack popular in Hong Kong. It is a spherical egg-based waffle that looks like giant bubble wrap but tastes heavenly. I first tried this in Hong Kong many years ago and fell in love with it. Like the Hokkaido baked cheese tart, it is best eaten when it is freshly made and served hot, when it is still crispy. Eggette Lab sells them in many different flavours but I bought the original flavour, which is always the best. It was so good.
The other stall that I was eyeing on was called Croissant Taiyaki. It sells, well, croissant taiyaki, which is a hybrid product of croissant and taiyaki. Taiyaki are fish-shaped pancakes usually filled with azuki red beans and they are a popular street snack in Japan. I love those. The croissant taiyaki combines the flaky, buttery crust of croissant with the aromatic red bean filling of taiyaki, while retaining the taiyaki’s distinctive fish shape, so you get the best of both worlds! There are also sugar crystals sprinkled on it so it quite sweet. I bought the azuki red bean one and it was very nice. It also comes in other variations: ham & cheese, chocolate, vanilla custard or green tea and red bean & matcha ice cream. They all look very appetising and I sure would like to try them next time.
Mum’s ex-colleague who lives in KL brought us out for dinner, along with her family. It was nice to have someone take us to their favourite restaurant because they are locals and they know where the good stuff is at. They brought us to a restaurant called S.Wine, located inside the Ben’s Independent Grocer (B.I.G.) at Publika mall. S.Wine is only accessible through supermarket and there are no signboards anywhere outside pointing to it, so it is really like a hidden gem that only the most seasoned locals will know about.
S.Wine (pronounced as “swine”) specialises in wine and pork dishes. Quite smart because “swine” means “pig”. However, the word “swine” also has a derogatory meaning and it is used to describe a person who is extremely unpleasant or unkind. In some cases, “swine” is also used as a swear word.
Anyway, the restaurant allowed BYO (Bring Your Own) so mum’s ex-colleague’s husband went to B.I.G. to buy a bottle of wine. They then ordered several dishes of pasta, ribs, salads and desserts to share. Even the desserts were not spared the swine treatment – the crème brûlée and sundae came with a strip of crispy bacon each. The food was very good indeed and it was an enjoyable dinner. After that, we shopped around at the mall before they sent us back to our hotel.
Day 3 – 13 February, Monday
This morning, we went to Pavilion for breakfast before doing one last round of window shopping and checking out of our hotel.
We then walked to the Transtar office at Jalan Imbi to catch our 3pm bus back to Singapore. The return bus was a first-class Solitaire bus, which was double-decked and only had two seats in one row. It was very spacious and luxurious, but you could also see that the bus was getting old and hasn’t been maintained well. Nevertheless, it was a comfortable ride home, probably even better than an airplane ride.
With our strong exchange rate now, it is definitely a good time to visit Malaysia and I think a short weekend trip to KL is very doable and enjoyable – just eat and shop and eat and shop. The best time to go is during the mid-year and year-end sale period, but that is also when hotels are likely to be expensive because of the school holidays. Nevertheless, if you’re feeling bored and have run out of places to visit for a short getaway, consider making KL your next destination!