Noodle shop (minced beef noodles) in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur

Soong Kee Beef Noodles

Minced Beef Since the Pushcart

3.5 of 5

Soong Kee started in 1945 as a pushcart. Eight decades on it sits on a corner of Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, has branches in Bukit Bintang and Petaling Jaya, and still does the one thing it was born to do. Locals call it the original for minced beef noodles in this city, and nobody has managed to make the charge stick to anyone else.

Order the noodles dry. They come tossed in dark sauce and buried under minced beef that clings to every strand, with a bowl of brown broth on the side, simmered for hours on bones, spices and the bits of the cow that do the real work. The broth is clean and beefy, a little sweet, the sort of thing you drink straight from the bowl when nobody is looking. Add beef balls, firm and springy, and if you are brave, tripe. The menu has grown chicken rice and porridge over the years. Ignore them.

The room is plain, bright and loud with slurping. Two generations have run it, and it shows in the speed: you sit, you order, you eat, you leave so someone else can. The queue at the original shop builds toward noon, so come before half past eleven. Bring an appetite and a napkin.

Order this

Dry noodles with minced beef, A bowl of the brown beef broth on the side, Beef balls, Tripe and tenderloin in the soup

The damage

$

Go

Before 11.30 a.m., ahead of the lunch queue at the original shop

Find it

86 Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, 50000 Kuala Lumpur

Website

thesmartlocal.my