Being a Penangite living in KL, one of the many hawker foods that we always miss is the famous Char Kueh Teow. When I first came down to this part of the country many years ago, this is the dish that I always avoid when fixing my stomach at various kopitiams. On the rare occasions that I gave it a try, the experience was usually quite horrid.
note: this stall has now moved to the kopitiam next to UOB, read updated blog post here!
yeh, that’s the size of prawn i love
However, recently I have started to experiment with the various “Penang” char kueh teow places in KL again, thinking that there must be a few good stalls around. I now employ a standard litmus test before I make my order. It is very simple, I will order in Hokkien, and if the hawker answers in anything other than a perfect Penang version of Hokkien, I simply excuse myself and go for my second choice. The test has proven to be very useful thus far.
now you see it, now you don’t
I have actually heard of this place from FA before decided to give it a try. The kopitiam is nameless and is located at the other end of the same row of shops that has the famous kopitiam with loh ngap (duck), very good roti bakar, and seafood porridge, among other things.
The char kueh teow was surprising good, not as great as the two famous Penang stalls, but plenty close enough to warrant a trip for anyone who loves this dish. The prawns are pretty big, and the dish comes complete with cockles and Chinese sausage too. I usually like to have mine extra spicy for some extra kicks. I finished the plate in no more than 5 minutes.
the unnamed kopitiam housing this char kueh teow stall is situated by MBPJ building
Upon looking at me snapping pictures, the stall owner actually came up to me for a chat. Apparently he is the 2nd generation owner of the stall, handed over from his mother and the stall has been in operation for some 20 years.
As usual, there will be people who are quick to point out that it used to be better, and the son isn’t as good as the mom’s char kueh teow. To me, I think most of us don’t realize that char kueh teow is not something like great art works, where Picasso’s son wouldn’t do better. Our taste buds are getting less by the days, and most often than not, we would have been exposed to wider variety of good food since 5 years ago. Don’t commit the fallacy, just give it a good honest try, I think you’ll like it.
Address:
Jalan Tengah,
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS:3.099046, 101.644467
The reason this blog hasn’t been updated for the past few days is a sound one. I was at Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam again, and the hotel wanted to charge something like US $17 per day for internet access, I guess I could live without going online for a few days. I had the chance to walk around the city a bit and take a few pictures from the street.
not going to school
There are still many under privileged children in this city, selling various items such as chewing gums, or like in this case, providing a shoe shining service.
buy from me?
This lady kept asking me to buy a coconut from her. I had no idea how much one would cost, and she doesn’t speak English either.
i want a bike
It seems like this guy, who appears to be a rat trapper, would very much love to be able to own a motorbike one day. Ho Chi Minh City has a very high concentration of motorbikes, pretty much like Penang in the 80s, except maybe 5x as busy.
breakfast?
A white lady is trying to figure out what’s for breakfast. I guess it wasn’t too attractive as she just walked past the mobile restaurant. You can find these sort of hawkers all over HCMC.
I went to this place in Chow Yang area of SS2 thanks to my house mate Kerol having to spend Jack, who has helped fixing her computer numerous times thanks to her attraction to the world of spyware, worm, and computer virus. Being hungry at the same time, I accidentally got a free meal too.
a standard kopitiam “tai chao” set up
After deliberating for a few minutes, we decided to go to Restaurant Shanky, a tai chao (大炒) place on the same row as KAYU Nasi Kandar at the SS2 Chow Yang area. The restaurant is of a typical kopitiam set up but kept rather clean and hygienic looking.
We ordered 3 dishes for, well, 3 of us. A Thai style deep fried fish with Siakap, spinach, and pork belly with salted fish (咸鱼花腩). All these to go with steamed rice.
Thai style fish, spinach, and pork belly with salted fish
Food came after about 15-20 minutes, pretty standard waiting time for a tai chao place. The Thai style fish was really good, the fish deep fried to a crispy texture, and it came with Thai chili sauce and plenty of garnish such as parsley, shallots, and red chili. The combination of the sweet and spicy sauce with the crispy fish meat was pretty addictive.
The spinach is topped with some “silver fish” just like the one from Ah Leong’s fried rice at the nearby mamak square. An interesting combination. Lastly, the pork belly with salted fish is just as good as I’ve tasted from any other places, a very sinful dish that will nullify 3 hours of intense badminton.
restaurant shanky is situated on the same row as Kayu Nasi Kandar
The bill came to around RM 50 for the 3 dishes. Pretty reasonable, I’d say it is inline with the nearby new Chow Yhang restaurant in terms of food quality and price.
Address:
20, Jalan SS2/10
47300, Petaling Jaya
Selangor
GPS: 3.115850, 101.617012
It’s been a while since I posted anything regarding the home-made koi pond, so I’ve decided to take some pictures on the big fat koi fish swimming in it. It turned out that focusing fish under water isn’t exactly trivial, but I think I’ve managed to captured some decent photos anyhow.
As usual, the fatter ones are most likely female, while the more skinny and graceful kois are males. These kois are approaching 2 feet in length, and getting pretty heavy too. It’s been a little less than two years since the completion of the koi pond project and thankfully the fish are growing healthy and fat. Shouldn’t you build a pond too?
More photos at my flickr set.
two kohaku (red and white koi)
tancho (white koi with a red dot on its head, in this case not a perfect tancho)
showa (red, white, and black koi with some black color on its head)
chagoi (olive koi)
yamabuki ogon (metallic yellow koi)
We were running around figuring out what to eat a couple Fridays ago (it’s harder than hell to get agreement from 2 girls on what’s for dinner), Kerol suddenly just decided to started driving with a purpose and said she’ll just surprise us.
15 minutes later, we arrived at Ah Foong Bak Kut Teh (阿峰肉骨茶), which was just as well since I never shy away from this uniquely Malaysian Chinese food. After all, this is the 10th time I blogged about a bak kut teh place. 
note: from 1/7/2008 to 31/12/2008, get a 10% discount by saying “KY Discount” at this place!
friendly kopitiam setting
For the 3 of us, we ordered a portion of traditional soup bak kut teh, a portion of dried bak kut teh, sour and spicy vegetable (酸辣菜), a bowl of tofu pok (tofu with thicker skin), and some yau char kuai (油炸鬼). We also have extra string mushroom in the soup bak kut teh too, since the girls love that thing.
wet and dry bak kut teh, sour and spicy vegetable, tofu pok
Service was very good in this place, the boss made sure that we had a good experience, and gave us extra soup in bowls to avoid the customer running out of those very delicious herbal soup (unlike Ah Sang, who are too stingy and will ignore your 3rd soup request). The sour and spicy vegetable was very good too, it gives a contrasting taste and texture to the meat from bak kut teh.
The yau char kuai too, was still crunchy. Same can’t be said for most bak kut teh places, most of the time I get soggy yau char kuai instead. Ah Foong also has red chili, chili padi, chopped garlic, and fried shallots with soya sauce and dark soya sauce available on every table, nice. As for drinks, choose they have several types of Chinese tea to choose from.
chili, garlic, tea, and yau char kuai
The dinner only costs around RM30 for the three of us. Very reasonable and above all, very delicious. The soup was thick and full of flavor, and the meat well cooked tasted just the way they should. I’ll definitely go there again and again. This place is opened for lunch and dinner.
Ah Foong Bak Kut Teh is just opposite Sunway Pyramid
Address:
446, Jln PJS 10/11
47800 Bandar Sunway
Selangor
GPS: 3.076715, 101.604368
