kapitan - georgetown, malaysia

Rating:  8 / 10

It is tantamount to criminality if you spend more than a few days in Georgetown and do not hit up Kapitan. Sure, you might think visitors to Malaysia should be eating "Malay" food, but then you'd be sadly misinformed. This great country has three distinct ethnicities making up the numbers: Malay, Chinese and Indian. Of that Indian minority, the families that made it over surely didn't leave all the best cooks at home.

This humble open air restaurant has been serving delectable tandoori chicken and naan to eager punters for decades. The air thick with smells of charred poultry and freshly made naan. With the price of a tray of dal, mint chutney, "salad", garlic naan and 1/4 chicken (RM9.50) hardly likely to put a dent in anyones daily budget, there really are no excuses.

Succulent, beautifully cooked chicken laying atop a crispy but fluffy naan. The dal and mint sauce are skippable, but you don't come here for them anyway.

Though I knew about this place long before I ever watched a Mark Wiens video, some people need extra convincing so take a look as he lays into a stack of food at this wonderful Georgetown institution.

These recommendations are just personal opinions based on my palate, things change, chefs get fired or replaced, places open-close, relocate, so take it all with a pinch of MSG  and discover your own gems too. But please do try a few of these, they have been researched exhaustively.