Dish finder in Kuala Lumpur

Rice cooked in coconut milk with sambal, fried anchovies, peanuts, egg and cucumber, often wrapped in a banana leaf. Add fried chicken or rendang.

Flaky flatbread slapped thin and griddled, with dhal and curry to dip. Order it at a mamak stall with a teh tarik, at almost any hour.

South Indian rice served on a banana leaf with vegetables, pickles and curries ladled over, eaten by hand. Fold the leaf towards you when you have finished.

Flat rice noodles fried over a fierce flame with prawns, cockles, egg, bean sprouts and chives.

Thick yellow noodles braised in dark soy with pork, prawns and crisp lard. KL's version is black and glossy, a late-night hawker classic.

Noodles in a coconut curry broth with tofu puffs, prawns and cockles. Called curry mee at many stalls.

Hand-torn or flat noodles in anchovy broth, or dry with chilli, minced pork and a poached egg. A KL Hakka favourite.

Pork ribs simmered in a herbal, peppery broth, with rice, fried dough sticks and Chinese tea. Klang, just outside the city, is its home.

Poached or roast chicken on rice cooked in stock, with chilli-ginger sauce.

Skewers of chicken or beef grilled over charcoal and dipped in peanut sauce, with rice cakes and cucumber.

Stingray or other fish smothered in sambal and grilled in a banana leaf at night markets and hawker centres. Pick the fish, then the sauce.

Rice with a choice of curries and fried dishes, all the sauces 'flooded' (banjir) over the top. Point at what you want.

Pick tofu, vegetables and fish-paste pieces from a counter; they come back in a clear soup or dry with sauce.

A thin, crisp fermented rice and lentil crêpe with coconut chutney and sambar. Vegetarian at Indian restaurants and mamak stalls.

Shaved ice with green rice-flour jelly, coconut milk and dark palm sugar syrup. The thing to want at three in the afternoon.

A thick, crisp-edged pancake folded over crushed peanuts, sugar and sweetcorn, from night-market stalls.