KY eats – Best Value Fusion Food at Papasan Canteen, Kuchai Lama

Many areas have that one little place that the locals wish to keep as a secret, it’s often a place with good food, more than reasonable prices, and sometimes even with very good service. Having the secrets out means an influx of people from further out, potentially spoiling that three perfect combination of factors.

For Kuchai Lama, I believe that place is Papasan Canteen.

Papasan Canteen, Kuchai Lama

Papasan Canteen is located just a stone’s throw away from SMJK Chong Wen, one of the Chinese schools by Old Klang Road. Since the area is a pretty small commercial area, parking can sometimes be a bit of a challenge.

The restaurant itself does not allow for advanced booking, but they have a very good queuing system with super fast service, so waiting time is often not something one should be too worried about.

As the name suggests, Papasan has a set up akin to many school/workplace canteen, with long tables, minimal deco, and fortunately, clean and air conditioned.

The menu is an A4 clear folder with plenty of choices accompanied with pictures, pretty helpful if you’re not familiar with their offerings. (menu at the end of article)

their famous fried chicken omu rice

Our dinner started the with probably the most popular dish in the restaurant – omu curry rice 5p (RM 22). Steamed rice wrapped with egg, with Japanese curry, and 5, yes.. 5 pieces of crispy chicken thighs. Fantastic value, and punches way above it’s price in terms of taste as well.

Then there’s the tri-color rice (RM 18), with minced chicken, smoked duck chunks, ginger juice, edamame, eggs, and white rice. A dish that tasted pretty healthy, and perhaps can use a slightly stronger flavor/seasoning.

We also had the miso mayo cauliflower (RM 10) for sharing. A salad of cauliflower with fried garlic, longan, and aonori seaweed flakes. Served cold, this proved to be a nice complement to the other dishes as well.

there’s some good sushi too

Being a Japanese fusion restaurant, Papasan Canteen does offer a few sushi rolls on the menu. We tried their Papasan roll (RM 27) with is a salmon maki with foie gras, crabmeat, cucumber, tobiko & garlic mayo, and their unagi maki (RM 24), with grilled eel, crabmeat, cucumber, & bonita flakes on top. Both were packed with umami flavor, purists may dislike the fact liberal usage of sauce (balsamic vinegar & even mayo I assumed), but I guess as a fusion place, they do get a bit of leeway.

Oh, we also ordered silverfish cold tofu (RM 11), which is a simple side dish of crispy silver fish on top of cold tofu with soy sauce and some ebiko on top. This was mainly for the baby, it was.. okay.

Overall though, Papasan Canteen is a place that serves up excellent value with certainly above average dishes. We’d be a regular visitor if we stay around the area.

Menu:

Address:
Papasan Canteen
18-G, Jalan 2/114,
Off, Jalan Kuchai Lama,
Kuchai Business Centre,
58200 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.09198, 101.67707
Tel: 012-580 0883