A small team that has eaten its way across every street, market, and neighbourhood worth knowing in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. No one here learned Malaysian food from a textbook.
Maarten started Simply Enak in 2018 after years of exploring Malaysia's food scene on his own — riding motorbikes to roadside stalls, striking up conversations with hawkers, eating at places that did not show up on any map. That instinct for finding the places others miss is still what drives the business.
He builds vendor relationships personally. Every new restaurant, market stall, home kitchen, or cooking class that goes into a CTE programme has been tested by Maarten first. He eats there multiple times, talks to the owner, watches the kitchen, checks consistency. If it is not good enough for him to bring friends, it does not make the list.
Maarten handles programme design and vendor curation. When a trade partner asks for something specific — a halal-only Penang itinerary, a vegetarian KL programme, a high-end corporate dinner — he builds it from the ground up.
Pauline runs operations and client experience. She is the one who makes sure the guide shows up at the right time, the restaurant has the table reserved, and the dietary requirements actually reach the kitchen. It is less glamorous than programme design, and far more important.
She is the first point of contact for trade partners. When a hotel concierge reaches out, when a DMC sends a group profile, when a food organiser needs a quote — Pauline handles the brief, asks the right follow-up questions, and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Her standard is simple: every trip runs as promised. If something changes on the ground — a stall closes, a vendor is sick, rain changes the plan — Pauline already has a backup ready before the guide calls it in.
Every CTE guide is a local food expert. Not a general tour guide who learned a food script. Not a university student between semesters. A person who has been eating in this city their whole life, who knows the neighbourhoods and the people who cook in them, and who was trained by Maarten and Pauline to communicate that knowledge clearly to visitors.
Our guides are multilingual — English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and several Chinese dialects depending on the region. They know how to read a room: when to explain the history of Nyonya cuisine, when to let the guest just eat in peace, and when to intervene because a guest is about to order the wrong thing.
They are trained to handle dietary restrictions, allergies, and cultural considerations without making it awkward. Halal-only itineraries, vegetarian routes, no-shellfish alternatives — they have done it all before.
Talk to Pauline about your next group. We will come back with a programme and pricing within 48 hours.