Taste – 7.2
Atmosphere – 6.0
Service – 8.3
Value – 8.0 (26rm)
Chicken feet – 7.6
The bobbly, tea-stained chicken feet, flopping like a dead arm. Liver, heart, thigh, breast, ovary, now feet! I’ve got the whole anatomy of a chicken in me now.
I wanted to do something new. Something that would make my family squirm, judge me, and ask “why?” Moving to the other side of the world had already given them plenty to question, but there is nothing more pleasing than sending them a video of me flopping a chicken foot in front of my face before sucking the toe right off.
Chicken feet are everywhere here in Malaysia. Always put out, with no disguise.
I chose a very local spot in San Peng in Pudu to try them. I could have gone somewhere more upmarket, like the Mandarin Oriental, where they hide their chicken feet in vegetables and spices and fry them. But I just wanted feet. The authentic stuff. It helped that this place also served Hainanese chicken rice and hor fun, so if the feet turned out to be too real for me, I had something to fall back on.
The restaurant sits under a towering tropical tree. Its branches arch over the tables and its roots sprawl through the concrete, bringing a mossy green to the buildings around it. The whole place had a mystical look, like something out of Tomb Raider.
I approached a staff member confidently and asked for a seat. She gave me a blank look and a smirk, then held up that “wait” finger, and I stood awkwardly in the middle of the restaurant until a lovely gentleman, all smiles, came over. He asked almost instantly what I’d like. I panicked, glanced at the barley water on the table next to me, then at what was signposted on the hawker stall: chicken rice, hor fun and chicken feet.
The barley water was slightly sweet and warming. It tasted like the milk left at the bottom of a cereal bowl, if you’d combined the cereal with water.
The feet came first, with the gentleman announcing “STARTER” before sniggering. They were droopy and dark, drenched in a sweet Asian marinade that had seeped into every pore and made each one shine. After a quick YouTube tutorial on how to eat a foot, I grabbed my chopsticks, hoisted one up to my mouth and bit a toe clean off. I expected a crunch. Instead, I got a soft, melting bite with a strong sweetness. Sucking the cartilage and fat from around the tiny toe bone was like eating bone marrow, only wetter. The flavour was softer than I expected, nothing like chicken, but indulgent and rich with the marinade it had soaked up.
It felt wrong to bite off a toe and eat it. My brain froze, confused about why I was enjoying it and why there was more to it than bone. I carried on through the rest: five feet, four toes each, twenty toes in total. I was pleased with myself, but the more I ate, the more psychologically damaging it became. My face was going greyer, not from disgust but from worry. What if I turn into a foot?
Thankfully the chicken rice arrived and I could give the feet a rest. The chicken came on the bone and at room temperature, as Hainanese chicken usually does. On the bone wasn’t the option I’d have gone for, and it reminded me of the feet, but the meat was soft and moist. The skin was stringy and stretchy, a bit overcooked. Paired with the lightly seasoned rice and hot sauce, though, it made a great palate cleanser before I went back to the feet.
I’d been saving the plump palm, expecting more meat, but it was exactly the same as the toes: more collagen and fat. Disappointing, but I’m not complaining. I polished off the rest of the alien feet.
Then came dessert: the hor fun. Silky noodles in a rich, deeply simmered broth, with shredded chicken and prawns. It was warming, soothing and delicate, the kind of bowl that would clear the worst brain fog, and a good way to end a meal that had mostly been an experiment.
Would I eat chicken feet again? Yes. The fear of turning into one has mostly worn off. It isn’t something you ease into, though. Biting the first toe off takes real effort, because your brain spends the whole time reminding you what you’re eating. Get past that and it’s genuinely good: soft, rich and soaked in that sweet marinade. Five feet in one sitting was probably ambitious for a first go.
Where: San Peng, Pudu, Kuala Lumpur, next to LRT Pudu Station – 823/9, Jalan San Peng, Pudu, 55200 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
Cost:RM26 (about £5)