I’m a big fan of curry mee, the good old Penang curry mee. The type that comes in santan based soup with fragrant chili paste and typically ensures a few smooth trips to the loo if you have it say.. three day in a row.
In Klang Valley, you usually call it curry laksa.

Penang style curry mee at Hoi Kee kopitiam
This particular stall of curry mee was discovered accidentally when we went Hoi Kee kopitiam at Segambut for nasi lemak with pork. It was already finished for that day, I chose to try the curry mee as a substitute, and it turned out to be a brilliant accident instead.

nothing beats that fragrant sambal and raw cockles
While this version at Segambut does not come with pork’s blood (otherwise it’d be totally perfect), the chili, soup, and other ingredients did come together harmoniously to make a great bowl of curry mee. I also especially love those big juicy RAW cockles. Something that I believe people like Kim would love to have her hands on.

KY and Haze, with cendawan joining us too
So if you are a curry mee lover like me, this is definitely a place to check out. For those staying at PJ, go to Restaurant Okay, but be there before 9 a.m. But for everyone else (especially those who isn’t so keen on coagulated blood anyway, or can’t wake up before 9), this is the best place to go!
Oh, they are pet friendly too.

Address:
Kedai Kopi & Makanan Hoi Kee
No. 2, Jalan Segambut Tengah,
Segambut, 51200 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.18564, 101.67633
A few months ago Haze and I were at Segambut looking for an ATM machine, we arrived at RHB bank at Jalan Segambut Tengah and parked the car just in front of Kedai Makanan Hoi Kee.
Sitting just outside the kopitiam there was an uncle busy deep frying some sort of meat with irresistible aroma. I walked over to find out what he was doing, it was a Sunday.

restaurant Hoi Kee at Segambut
“Oh, this pork belly, for nasi lemak and we’re open from Monday to Saturday for breakfast and lunch”
And the good uncle gave us each a piece of that pork belly to chew on. The memory of that piece of pork belly deep fried with 5 spice (from what I can tell) and god knows what other spices was so awesome I knew I just had to visit the stall to taste the nasi lemak for sure.

glorious nasi lemak with pork belly
I’ve since been to the same kopitiam 2 more times but missed out the nasi lemak (finished, had very curry mee instead, will blog about that eventually). But last week, on the 3rd try, I finally got it!
The nasi lemak with pork “set” comes with 2 pieces of the pork belly, some silver fish (instead of ikan bilis), a quarter hard boiled egg, kang kung, sambal with shallots, cucumber, and of course, that fragrant coconut rice. The whole thing was about RM 5 or so.

and I finished everything, clean
Was it good? Absolutely.
Would I go back again? For sure!
Another pork nasi lemak can be found at PJ’s 6-10 Nasi Lemak and Grill, but they are very different though.

Address:
Kedai Kopi & Makanan Hoi Kee
No. 2, Jalan Segambut Tengah,
Segambut, 51200 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.18564, 101.67633
A week or so ago when I was downstairs getting ready to go for lunch, a huge Land Rover Discovery suddenly stopped right in front of me, the driver side window rolled down and the driver who turned to be my colleague yelled:
“Hey KY jump in, join us for lunch”

Restaurant Rose 911, authentic Negeri Sembilan food
So I joined 3 of them who were already in the car, and we were on the way to Restaurant Rose 911, an old school restaurant in the older part of the city that specialize in Negeri Sembilan food.
Before that day, I didn’t even know there’s a different version of Malay food from Negeri Sembilan, one of Minangkabau influence, my colleague mentioned.

fish, santan laden vegetable (rendang pegaga), and sambal
While the restaurant doesn’t look much from the outside, it actually has an air conditioned area, a semi alfresco main dining area, and curiously, another smaller dining area that appears to be empty.
According to my colleague, that area’s usually seated with drivers & such when their “bosses” dine at Rose 911. Interesting, and sure enough the clientile consists of kampung folks and high ranking business execs alike.

ikan kembung bakar, dessert (badak berendam)
As for the food, more than half of the dishes to choose from were milky yellowish in color – meaning highly laden with kuah lemak (coconut milk base), turmeric, chili and such good stuff.
I particularly love the rendang pegaga, a type of leave cooked with chicken feet, gizzard, liver, and of course, plenty of santan. The ikan kembung bakar with chili and two other small portions of vegetable were all very old-fashion-good too.

For dessert, we shared a plate of badak berendam (soaking hippo), a traditional Negeri Sembilan kuih made of glutinous rice flour, grated coconut, palm sugar, and of course, more santan. It was delicious as it was sinful.
My rice with drinks came up to RM 8, pretty reasonable. Give it a try, this is definitely different from your usual nasi kandar. Opens for lunch till about 4pm everyday except Sundays.
Address:
Restoran Kak Rose 911
No. 25, Jalan Satu
Kampung Pandan
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.143901, 101.737293
Tel: 03-9281 2996
A few weeks ago my buddy Terence called up and then passed the phone to Colin, and I was invited to a food tasting session.
At first I thought it was for TDH (Tom Dick and Harry’s), the popular watering hole at TTDI, but when I reached there with a hungry stomach a couple weeks ago, it turned out to be the restaurant right upstairs of TDH – Hoofed.

interior of Hoofed is tastefully done
To be honest, I hadn’t know there’s a restaurant above TDH despite the numerous visits there. I guess it doesn’t help that one rarely gets to leave TDH with very clear vision at the end of the night.
Hoofed is a tastefully decorated restaurant, with an ambiance that rivals many a five star hotels. I particularly love the old school subway style ceiling (Colin had to personally put them on one by one).

Hoofed at TTDI food review session
In order to maximize the number of dishes we get to try, Hoofed prepared the dishes in small doses. I thought this is a pretty good way of handling food review, much better than having a bunch of people splitting several dishes and everyone ended up having to fight for the good stuff.
The night started with a plate of pretty interesting duck salad that comes with duck breast, century egg, 7/8 boiled egg, and fresh vegetable in vinegrete dressing. A refreshing taste that I haven’t had before, it was pretty good actually.
Hoofed prides itself in serving pork dishes, and they have suckling pig too! (whole piglet at RM 170). I was given a portion, and it was really as good as they come.

roast pork, tenderloin steak, pork ribs, pasta with roast pork
Other pork dishes I tried when I went there again for a little xmas gift exchange session last week were the really awesome roast pork, pork ribs, and pasta with fried roast pork.
I’m hesitant to say that it is the best roast pork I’ve had, but it is tough to rate it any lower than the one at Wong Kee, Pudu. They are essentially different, the version here is softer and goes well with mustard, while Wong Kee’s roast pork has a crunchier skin and fatty midsection but slightly tougher meat. They’re equally good in their own way.
Same can’t be said about the pork ribs I ordered though, while it was tender and juicy, I thought it was a tad too sweet for my liking, that kinda masked out the savory part of the meat a little.
Those who had the pasta with roast pork though, swore by it. I didn’t manage to steal some from Winnie, but boy it sure looked good.

lamb shank, grilled fish, tenderloin
Since I didn’t bring the bigger camera for the session, these two collages were actually hand-me-down photos from Hoofed.
The lamb shank is best enjoyed by two person as Horng ordered and couldn’t really finished it all by himself. Haze had the tenderloin steak that turned out to be slightly more cooked that she would have liked it.
I had the grilled fish during the review session and it was very good though.

dessert, fried rice, pasta with roast pork
To me, the most surprisingly dish at Hoofed has gotta be the fried rice. Though this place doesn’t really concentrate on a particular cuisine, fried rice seems to be an unlikely entry in their menu, and it is a damn fine plate of fried rice at that. This, and the pasta with roast pork, should be the must-try dish at Hoofed.
I’ve only tried the brownie with ice cream as far as dessert is concerned. It was good, but to be frank I’m not a big dessert person and would almost always stuff myself with more roast pork instead.

xmas gift exchange with TDH gang
To be frank, not everything at Hoofed is spot on. I love all the pork dishes with the exception of ribs, the fried rice and fish were pretty awesome too. Some of the other dishes however, are still a work in progress, but I am sure with Colin’s attention to detail and constant communication with diners, they will improve in time.
Dishes at Hoofed is priced at a tad above average, but the ambiance and the right dishes do make up for it.

Address:
Hoofed
No 18A, Lorong Rahim Kajai 14,
TTDI 60000 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.15455, 101.62289
Tel: 03-7728-8567
After having a pretty good first impression on the food at Jalan Peel that came in the form of Kar Kar Lai chicken/pork rice stall, I was determined to go back to the area again. We did just that several weeks later, but this time to check out the hawker scene at night.

hawker stalls at Jalan Peel, Cheras
The setup of the hawker center at Jalan Peel is much like the one at Kuchai Lama (awesome grilled lamb), with rows of stalls situated along Jalan Peel, right across Shell gas station. Pollution in terms of noise, smell, or air aren’t exactly the best, but hey, we’re a third world country and we embrace this kinda thing, don’t we?

mixed pork soup – meat, tripes, intestine, blood, tongue etc
There are some dozen stalls operating on the stretch, but as soon as I saw the pork innards stall, I made my decision. The last time I had this was at Restaurant Matahari at Bandar Seri Damansara with Kim, and that stall has unfortunately, already ceased operation.
The bowl of goodness you see in the photo above comes with generous amount of 3-layer pork, tripes, big and small intestines, pork tongue, and even my favorite – coagulated pork blood. It was a little slice of heaven for RM7.

drinks, coagulated pork blood, popiah
Having seated outside the corner kopitiam, we ordered drinks from another stall. Fresh sugar cane and coconut juice, kinda felt like being on a holiday.
The pohpiah here (RM 1.80 per pc) was crispy and pretty good too. We ended up ordering more cos the Char Kueh Teow I tried to order somehow didn’t came. I still prefer the non-halal pohpiah at Jonker’s street in Melaka, but this was quite fine too.

KY & Haze at Jalan Peel
There are certainly more stalls to try out at this hawker center. The chicken wings and the satay stalls always looked busy, and I want to try the CKT too. Will go there again soon!

Address:
Hawker Center
Jalan Peel, Cheras
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.13102, 101.72293