Guerilla Durian Garden at Little Yum Yum Cafe in Kota Damansara

Like most people I know these days, I met Dan because durian. Dan regularly posts on Facebook groups for durian lovers (yes, these exist) but it took me a little while to figure out that not only was Dan eating durian, he also sources and sells them at his tidy little restaurant in Kota Damansara, on the outskirts of KL, and even has a guerilla durian garden.

Dan was born into the restaurant business. His brothers and parents still own and operate Yum Yum Restaurant in Ipoh, but Dan had some original ideas he wanted to implement. So in 2010 Little Yum Yum was born.

I’m sure there are many ways Little Yum Yum is distinct from its parent, but the way that caught my attention is that Dan grows a lot of his own ingredients in an urban food garden right there in the parking lot.

That includes his own durian tree. No joke.

That, my activist friends, is probably the world’s first Food Not Lawns to include durian bombs.

Actually, Dan assured me that they plan to tie the fruits to the trees, so no one’s car will ever be damaged.

It’s an orchard carpark, which I have to say is pretty genius.

He also grows lemongrass and other herbs, and a few pineapples in the meridian between the concrete desert.

The greens for the veggie dishes grow in pots along one side of the outdoor seating area.

I love this idea, as a consumer, to be able to walk up and see my food growing, watch them chop it off the plant, and then eat it just minutes later.

Those greens looked so good, I was really tempted to order them. Although Little Yum Yum is not vegan or vegetarian, the menu is surprisingly vegan-friendly.

My eye was drawn to the page of greenness, most of which was either vegan or could easily be made vegan, since Dan is pretty hip and is pretty clued in to the meaning of “vegan.”

But on that particular day, all we had stomach for was Dan’s premium durian cendol.

It was hot. And we’d been eating durian all day in Hulu Langat. All we really wanted was something cold and liquidy, and the durian offered with the cendol sounded pretty good.

You’d think it’d be hard to go wrong with a durian cendol, but too often the durian topping is not very good.

For example, the durian cendol I had in Malacca tasted like the durian was mixed with sugar and possibly rubber and frozen before being added to my cendol.

The one at Durian Cafe in KL was better, but the durian was also kind of a secondary afterthought.

In Dan’s cendol, the durian is the main feature. He serves it with whole fresh durian of various varieties, depending on what’s in season. Mine came with D2.

Overall, I give this cendol a thumbs up. It had plenty of ice, soft slurpy cendol noodles, and some beautiful D to go on top.

I can’t wait until Dan is serving his cendol with durian harvested in the carpark!