"Eyes and cheeks are the best bit..."
Artfully tucked into an alley, Big Tree Lin Kee is not the easiest place to find. Right after you drive past the turn-off into Jalan Waras 3, you’ll see a big yellow sign written in Chinese with a big arrow pointing right into the alley. Follow it up the road and pray hard for an empty parking spot. Then grab a seat and get ready for one of the best steamed fish you’ll ever have in the Klang Valley. Big Tree Lin Kee have been around for about 7 years. Named after the matriarch of the family, Lin, their steamed haruan fish heads are the major star attraction here. Haruan has wonderfully smooth and soft flesh characteristic of river fish. It’s also relatively cheap and good for you, as it’s a popular pantang and post-op meal option.
The most popular ways to have it here are either with the brown fermented bean sauce (cheong cheng) or with minced ginger. We ordered both, along with a whole host of other dishes.
The soup arrived first, a deliciously herby watercress soup. Red dates or jujube fruit gave it textural interest, while the chunks of pork give the soup its body. The stir-fried kangkung belacan here is one of the best we’ve had – fresh, crunchy, with just the right amount of kick from the belacan and the chillies. The stir-fried sweet potato leaves were also fresh, if not a touch bland. The tofu was a quick favourite as its crunchy-on-the-outside-smooth-on-the-inside texture won us over with subtle hints of seafood and vegetables studded into the tofu.
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"Can you tell me how to get... how to get to Sesame Chook..."
Steamed or roasted are usually the two options you get when you order chicken rice. Game for something different? Get out of your comfort zone and try the fried sesame chicken sold at Gerai Ah Kow. Hailing from Perak, Uncle Ah Kow ventured into the food business by selling noodles from his bicycle around the streets of KL in 1971. It was only in 1983 that he came up with the ingenious sesame chicken recipe and decided to open up a stall at Medan Selera Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz. And the rest suffice to say is history. Now, he runs the stall with the help of his son, Eric and son in law, Kenny. Tables fill fast as soon as he starts selling his scrumptious sesame chicken at 11.45 am. He goes through 20 to 30 chickens per day so if you want a chance to sample them do come here by noon.
Sesame seeds add a wonderful nutty taste to the chicken and goes incredibly well with the kick-ass garlic chilli combo (spicier than most of the other chicken rice places I've tried). They also add more crunchiness to the golden fried skin. The rice and soup are quite decent but they act more like a supporting backdrop to the chicken that is obviously the star of the dish. The chicken slices are served on a bed of sliced cucumbers bathed in light soya sauce. I wonder how he gets the sesame seeds to stick to the skin? I suspect that he uses a thick liquid batter similar to the ones used for goreng pisang. Probably deep-fries in hot oil and drains it quickly so the skin stays grease free. It's all guess work because try as I might to pry it from him, Uncle Ah Kow will not divulged his recipe nor his cooking technique to me.
He also serves the regular roasted and steamed variety here, but it's the sesame chicken that draws the crowd.
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"Sweet, Spicy and Briny!"
If you find yourself hungry after a fun night out with friends in Penang, you might want to head over to Old Green House on Burma Road. This is where you’ll find an array of tasty treats with one famous stall in particular selling hokkien mee.
Penang Hokkien Mee has always been a favourite of mine. I adore slurping up the spicy red broth with briny prawns and slippery noodles. This could be because it was what my mom ate quite frequently when she was pregnant with me. It was one of her ‘can’t say no to’ cravings!
When I first ordered Hokkien Mee in KL I got a shock when a plate of black sauced noodles appeared. I soon learnt that Penang Hokkien Mee is referred to as Prawn Mee outside of the island. Which is why it is a treat to return to my hometown and simply ask for Hokkien Mee without having to specify which kind I meant.
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"A heavenly, salty Chinese surf and turf..."
LSY Pot just opened this Puchong branch in January this year, after opening an outlet in Bercham, Perak five years ago. It was a little more modern than I expected it to be, none of the usual grimy white tiles of your typical coffee shop but shiny wooden tables and good lighting. Tired from the day’s work and completely famished, we ordered quite a bit of food for three people and played the silently-staring-into-space game that hungry people play while waiting for food to arrive.
First to arrive was the clay pot lo shu fun. Of the soupy variety, it was a hearty concoction of rats’ tails noodles slithering about in a thick eggy soup with prawns, fishcakes and pork liver. The small portion was a lot larger than we expected it to be, but our hungry selves wolfed it down without issues.
The bitter gourd soup and stir-fried baby lettuce came next. I usually love bitter gourd soup so this was a right treat, with fish cake slices to make it a good meal on its own. The bitter aftertaste lingered pleasantly as we drank up more soup.
The vegetables were done just nicely, retaining a great crunch and not wilted through at all. We also ordered a bowl of vinegar pork knuckles, a deliciously tangy hit that balances the creamy fattiness of the knuckles wonderfully.
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"Freshly fried fritters make my day..."
When my stomach craves for a late afternoon munch, the first thing on my mind is a fresh fried pisang goreng. Here in SS2, Madame Ong still mans the giant wok at the back of her little truck, frying batches of pisang goreng for her eager customers. The amount of oil in that wok is pretty scary but amazingly, her pisang goreng are not greasy at all. Through her years of experience, she knows the exact moment when the oil is ready for frying. When oil reaches a certain temperature it will fry the batter first, which will then allow the bananas to be cooked without absorbing too much oil.
Bananas are fried whole here. Madam Ong uses pisang raja because the flesh holds its shape even after frying. The taste is sweet and rich. I love the crunchy bits caused by the bubbling batter during frying. This is a fritter that stays firm which makes it convenient to hold and easy to snack on. The luscious flavour of the pisang goreng is also brought upon by the condition of the bananas she used. She only uses ones with skin that has started to brown. Browning of the skin indicates that the banana has ripened and this produces the sugary sweet pisang goreng that we love.
Pisang raja all ready for frying... More »
"Tongue tingling!"
If you ask any chilli pan mee fanatic where they can find the best bowl of the stuff you will always hear two names, Kin Kin and Super Kitchen. It’s been a battle that has gone on for years. If you ask me though, I will say that they both have a different taste overall and I pick between the two depending on my mood.
Super Kitchen has many outlets around the city, which makes it very convenient. The way they keep the standards of their pan mee up is to produce the specialty chilli in one central location and send it out to the other outlets daily. With quality control like this it’s no wonder that they have a delicious product.
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"Pure gula Melaka is key!"
There seems to be a lack of good putu piring in the world today. I scour Pasar Ramadhans and all I see is the same tired popia's and yellow stacks of tepung talam plastic containers. The one or two lone stalls I uncover are a study in puny, stodgy morsels with too little gula Melaka- one tasted like sweetened dust. Dust… anyone? Anyone…dust…?
“Would you pay 90 sen for putu piring?” I asked around. Most say they would if it were the real deal. Good putu piring to me is soft, a little moist with generous gula Melaka within. Not all of it is melted; there should be chunks that you can still chew for a moment before it happily dissolves on your tongue. Beneath it the grated coconut must be fresh, dewy not dry adding a jolt of saltiness to the sweetness.
Alas KL-ites, I’m afraid this putu piring is in Melaka. And I am having urges to drive there after buka. This is the putu piring that I want right now, anytime, any day. I want to hold the hot steamy little things in my palm. I want to feel it between my teeth, in my mouth, down my throat.
Mr. Pang who runs this barely there stall with his wife and family has been doing this for 33 years. And it’s good business. The house behind he keeps as a base to sell his kuih while his family now stays elsewhere. They open about 7.30 and by 10pm you'd be lucky to get any.
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"Get your assam laksa fix!"
O&S is a bit of an institution in Petaling Jaya. It’s got all the requisites of a corner kopitiam - chicken rice, pork rice, prawn wantan, prawn mee, and of course, assam laksa - and they’re all pretty top notch offerings. Some of these stalls have been here for about 20 years, like Mr Ooi who runs the assam laksa stall.
Hailing from Pulau Tikus, Mr Ooi and his family run a pretty tight ship. Serving bowls upon bowls of curry laksa and assam laksa in this nameless stall (just look for the stall next to the chicken rice near the front), he barely takes a break preparing ingredients as his wife readies the noodles and his son rushes about filling orders.
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"Moist like chocolate cake!"
“It’s like chocolate cake but savoury,” my friend explained
“I’m sorry but how can char siu be anything like chocolate cake? It’s like night and day. I don’t get it!” I responded.
Once I bit down into that first piece of char siu though, I knew exactly what he meant.
The meat is smoky sweet with a glazed charred crisp exterior. Once you bite down it is every bit as rich and decadent as chocolate cake. The thick fatty layer lends the meat a tender moist quality much like the dessert. It melts without much resistance when you bite down and the flavours burst in your mouth. This delightful experience is not one for the health conscious or the weak minded. With just one taste you will throw any diet out the window and beg that your body forgive you of this sin. This char siu will invade your dreams and strong cravings will lead you to drive out of your way just for a plate. Be warned, you will become an addict. Ask for the half fat half lean cut, for this succulent experience.
Apart from this amazing char siu, there is the salty siew yoke to be had. It pales in comparison to the char siu but makes for an excellent bite should you want some of that crisp salty pork belly. The crackling has a great crunch that reveals a succulent fatty layer atop the lean meat. Delish!
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"The right balance of flavours!"
Little known fact about myself: I wasn’t always obsessed about beef noodles. There was a time when I was a little younger, when I was in love with a very different kind of noodles – assam laksa. My mother made me try some on a cold rainy evening, and I was hooked. Precious few dishes, noodles or not, contained sweetness, sourness, saltiness and spiciness. Assam laksa had all of them in spades. Then one day, about ten years ago, I was famished after running errands at One Utama and spied this little shop that changed my food life.
Ten years on, Mark’s Asam Laksa is still in the same spot. The menu has expanded ever so slightly, with noodle dishes still taking centre stage. Dessert options have sprung up over time, and a daily set meal has been offered for a while. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to change my weekly order. Assam laksa it was, and assam laksa it will always be.
The broth is both earthy and fresh. The asam jawa gives an intense depth to it, providing a platform for all the other flavours to perform on. Some of the kembung fish has disintegrated into the broth, but large and sweet pieces have been rescued to steep in the sourness for a little longer. It has just the right amount of spiciness for most people, though I usually scatter some chilli padi on top.
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