Pandan ‘gula melaka’ croissants, duck ‘pongteh’ tacos and durian carbonara: Fusion food in Malaysia is bold, local and rooted in the taste of home

COMMENTARY, Sept 16 — Every time I wander into a new eatery in Kuala Lumpur, I am reminded that Malaysian food is never just flavour. 

It is memory and identity, experiment and evolution. Our food culture has always existed in that space between preserving what was and imagining what might be. 

In the dance between tradition and fusion, the task isn’t choosing one over the other, but learning how to honour both.

So let us wander...

A croissant at Cake Jalan Tiung in Shah Alam looks, at first glance, like it could have come from a Paris pâtisserie. 

Break it open and the pale, airy crumb carries local notes — fragrant pandan and a gentle sweetness from gula Melaka — so the pastry reads as both French technique and Malaysian flavour.

The lamination is textbook French, each layer shattering with a gentle crackle, yet the flavour speaks in our own mother tongue. 

This is not about novelty for novelty’s sake; it is about acknowledging that the same buttery dough can carry the spirit of kuih seri muka too. 

Cake Jalan Tiung’s croissant becomes less about France and more about Malaysia, less about borrowing and more about belonging.

Then there is Papasan Canteen in Kuchai Lama, where fusion takes a more audacious turn. 

Their Durian Carbonara is not a joke but a genuine attempt at marrying the pungent fruit with silky pasta. 

The durian is sweet and musky, the sauce rich, and whether you recoil or rejoice, you cannot deny it sparks a reaction. 

More approachable perhaps is their Salmon Laksa Udon — thick, wheat noodles carrying the familiar tang and spice of curry laksa, the salmon adding buttery heft. 

Here, the line between Japan and Malaysia is blurred into something both surprising and strangely comforting.

Further into the city, Calle Taco in Kampung Attap takes on another translation project. 

The taco shell remains — pliant corn tortillas that fold neatly in the hand — but what they hold is unmistakably local. 

Think beef braised for long hours, paired with a deeply rich sauce that honours sambal hitam from Pahang. 

Or smoked duck imbued with Peranakan pongteh flavours. Prawn kerabu. Mexican marinated chicken paired with Malaccan pineapple satay sauce.

Every bite calls forth pasar malam smoke as much as taquería counters. Every bite demonstrates that tortillas and sambal have more in common than distance might suggest. That we all might have more in common than we realise.

What these places teach us is that fusion works best when it remembers its roots. Anchoring a dish in Malaysian tradition allows the diner to find their bearings, to recognise the taste of home even in an unfamiliar guise. 

Balance is essential, of course. Too much novelty and the flavours feel confused; too much reverence and the experiment collapses into timidity. 

Yet the risks are real. 

Sometimes sambal, curry leaves or belacan are reduced to mere tokens, tossed in without depth. Sometimes novelty overwhelms taste, leaving us with plates designed more for the camera than the palate. 

Sometimes the price tag inflates until what should be comfort food becomes inaccessible, a luxury rather than something to share. 

And sometimes, in chasing reinvention, we lose sight of the dishes that anchored us in the first place — nasi lemak, char kway teow, roti canai — food that tastes like home, that brings us back to our homeland, wherever we might go.

Food is how we remember. What we call tradition today was itself born of migration, trade and adaptation. 

Every spice, every sauce, every technique has a lineage of exchange. To innovate is natural, to transform is inevitable, but to forget our anchors is a huge loss indeed.

So when we taste a dish and feel both recognition and surprise – from kam heong lala mingling with al dente strands of spaghetti to pan mee inspired dan dan noodles seasoned with laksa leaves — we are reminded that fusion isn’t a bad thing.

Quite the contrary, it is simply how we eat today. And that cycle of discovery and rediscovery is as beautiful as our country, our beloved tanah air.