Kuala Lumpur - Post Report Question and Answers
What do people who suffer from environmental or food allergies need to know?
Food allergies can be tricky here, particularly fish and peanuts as they are used so frequently in Asian cuisine. Also, if you are a strict vegetarian or vegan, you may run into problems because there is fish sauce, meat broth, or bits of meat in almost everything. If you go to the nicer sit-down restaurants and cafes they can accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions and many have special menus for vegetarians. The only places I would recommend avoiding would be smaller local restaurants and hawker stalls. - May 2018
Our daughter has a nut allergy so we are very careful. Luckily the school provides a nut-free menu so she is happy eating lots of Asian foods from the cafeteria vendors. - Apr 2017
I'm not sure how seriously restaurant staff take it when you tell them about food allergies. I react to shellfish, so tend to order vegetarian a lot when out. Even doing this has no guarantees, because you'll often see vegetarian items that have scallops, shrimp, fish paste or shrimp paste as part of the ingredients. (How can this be?!!!) I took language classes for a while, and my Bahasa teacher told me that they don't have a word for "shellfish" here, so trying to explain to people who don't speak very good English that I can't eat anything with shrimp, crab, lobster or that type of thing can be a bit trying. - Apr 2017
There are no seasons here. Pollen allergies are not a big issue since most of the plant life is jungle. People with gluten issues can find options here, the larger grocery stores carry gluten-free products. Peanuts are fairly prevalent in the local cuisine. Enough options exist that you can work around pretty much anything. - May 2016
