Restoran Lian Bee — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

We really wanted to give this a go, in operation since 1940s it must be good! There were raves on it, social media videos recommending it (ughh, the number of times i go to a place because of socmed reccs only to be disappointed! 😪）

The place was well, a bit eek. Like there was an annoying fly, the tables were a tad sticky and the hygiene questionable. But we braved it all in our search for the best hokkien mee in town. We ordered one hokkien mee, one hokkie bihun, one moon kauy teow and a fish cake.

Ther were quite a lot of patrons, old locals there, and we thought yep, this is definitely going to be the bomb. When our food arrived (which yook quite awhile) we were onstantly disappointed. Our hokkien mee looked comparitively pale to the other plates we saw dished out. Nevertheless we dug in. It was... just alright. There were hardly any crisp pork in it , i guess they wanted to caputalise on that since they do sell then in jars at the counter. And the umami flavour was just...not there. It was quite flat just salty noodled in dark sauce, a little wok hei but not much. The bihun was worse, it wasnt wok hei in the bihun but "long hei"... as in our noodles tasted so burnt it was bitter.

The moon kuay teow was a bit better but again, paled in comparison to many other places.

We also had sea coconut drink to wash the grease all down. The drink too, tastes... watered down. Like a drink you left too long in ice.

The only good thing was the fish cake, which isnt even house made.

Once again, we fell for the thirst traps set by social media food influencers. I honestly dont know how they get so much following with the bad rec they dish out.

Would i come again? No. Would i recommend? No.

Its not entirely bad if youre in the area and just want a simple dish of noodles. But definitely not somewhere I'll purposedly travel...

No matter how adventurous one can be, you will definitely think twice about eating at Lian Bee. If you gave this place a miss before, that's because you probably didn't even realise it existed! The stall is situated at the backlane of all backlanes and I was about to turn back when I saw the condition - stagnant water, hovering flies. This place is only second to Pudu market in terms of ambiance. Yet...there are still customers. So, I took a step of faith and proceeded to try it, also because the cook saw me trying to chicken out. I ordered one serving of hokkien mee and veggies as a side. The other patrons who were already eating slurped and ate really fast, I would too if you are competing with flies for food. But I have to say I was momentarily distracted when the mee arrived. It was dry, the way I like it and the smell of sweet lard comforted me a while. Lian Bee used less soy sauce in their mee, so it couldn't cover the alkali taste at times. But, those huge chunks of lard which can be easily mistaken for meat pieces readily makes up for it. As I finished my plate, streaks of cold grease were left on it, a sign of good hokkien mee. Surprisingly, I still find it better cooked than many other stalls and I enjoyed it. But the sambal belacan was a waste of dead dried shrimp. It was burnt, and devoid of taste. I tried from a different container and it was still bad. And all is forgiven when you discover the price is way cheaper than the other hokkien mee specialty shops. I might come back again, but with my own bottle of sambal belacan. As I am submitting this review, more and more customers walked in...how we tolerated this place...

This is an old institution for KL hokkien mee at the old location, opposite china town entrance. Used to be fried by an old man who made the flame rise higher than his head during frying. This resulted in a very bitter wok hei which kept die hard fans to come back again and again. Guess his son has taken over. It was a dead end alley then and hygiene was a big question then. Now it has shifted to its own shop. I can still taste a bit of the bitter wok hei but it is still a notch lower than the old location. Maybe the saying less hygiene resulted in tastier food rings true. The lor mee is just normal. Parking is ok if you are willing to walk a bit. Service is acceptable. The son who does the cooking is still the same clearing tables when not cooking. Hard working. Maybe not coming back since a bit far and there are others who can fry better. Total price RM 35 for 2 noddles and 2 glasses of...