[Watch] The ‘Chinese Imperial Pastry’ Taking Bazaar Ramadan By Storm

At RM8 a piece, Kung Ting Su is bringing a thousand years of imperial pastry craft to one of KL’s most beloved Ramadan traditions — and people are noticing.

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Walk through any Bazaar Ramadan and the sensory script is familiar: satay smoke, bubbling rendang, towers of kuih, the sweet pull of air bandung. It’s a ritual as much as it is a meal.

But this season, something golden and unfamiliar is drawing a second glance — a dome-shaped pastry wrapped in a yellow sleeve stamped with the words 宫廷酥.

That’s Kung Ting Su, the brand’s own localised translation of a Chinese term for flaky imperial court pastry — 酥 (sū) meaning flaky pastry, 宫廷 (gōng tíng) meaning imperial court — rendered here for the Malaysian market as Chinese Imperial Roti.

And it’s quietly becoming one of the more talked-about finds of Ramadan 2026.

Inspired by — or at least named after — the pastry traditions of the Chinese imperial court, Kung Ting Su set up a special Ramadan bazaar stall at Stadium Merdeka this season — and arrived with a product that speaks for itself.

The outer crust is laminated and aggressively flaky, the kind that crumbles the moment you commit to a bite.

Inside, a dense and fragrant filling that deepens with every chew.

A Kung Ting Su worker tends to the pastries on the griddle at their Bazaar Ramadan Stadium Merdeka stall — each batch boiled fresh, one tray at a time. (Pix: Fernando Fong)

A Menu That Knows What It Is

Five roti variants, all at RM8 per piece:

Classic Beef — the signature, rich and meaty
Classic Chicken — tender, well-seasoned
Sambal Beef — a nod to the local palate, with heat
Sambal Chicken — same fire, lighter base
Himeji Red Bean Roti — said to be inspired by the red bean traditions of Himeji, Japan; sweet, smooth, and surprisingly not out of place

Alongside the rotis, the menu offers a Honey Rice Cake (甑糕) at RM6 — a steamed glutinous rice and red date confection said to trace its roots to Xi’an street food culture — and a Sour Plum Drink (酸梅汤) at RM8 a cup, described as smoky, sweet, and tart in equal measure.

Golden and lacquered, each Kung Ting Su cooks low and slow on a flat griddle — the laminated layers crisping up one patient batch at a time. (Pix: Fernando Fong)

Set options make the math easy: the Roti + Plum Set pairs any roti with a sour plum drink for RM15, the Double Set gets you two rotis for the same price, and the Family Set delivers four rotis for RM30.

One thing worth knowing before you go: Kung Ting Su is made to order, and in limited batches.

The tray holds only a handful of pastries at a time, cooked fresh on a flat griddle until golden.

Expect a wait of around 30 minutes — and if the queue is long, it pays to order in advance; the wait, by most accounts, is part of the experience.

The technique — rolling dough thin, layering it with oil, folding and pressing by hand — is consistent whether you find it at a night market stall in Xi’an or on a griddle in Malaysia. The craft doesn’t change. Only the address does.

Halal at the Heart of It

The ingredients are kept simple and clean — no lard, no pork, no ambiguity.

Kung Ting Su explicitly markets itself as Muslim-friendly, and at a Ramadan bazaar, that’s not a footnote.

That’s the whole point.

Break it open, and the architecture reveals itself: shatteringly flaky crust giving way to a dense, fragrant filling that deepens with every chew. (Pix: Fernando Fong)

What makes the brand’s presence here genuinely interesting is the cultural layering it represents.

A Chinese heritage pastry, halal-certified, priced accessibly, showing up at one of Kuala Lumpur’s most communal Ramadan spaces — and doing so without compromise on either identity.

The flavours bridge the gap naturally: beef and sambal for the familiar, red bean and sour plum for the curious.