I was first introduced to Restaurant Uncle Meng by a colleague of mine that simply said “the other day we went to this char siu place, it was good, lets go”, or something to that effect. So on one fine Friday over lunch (2 hours lunch wooho0), we drove all the way to Taman Shamelin for some good old BBQ pork.
restaurant uncle meng is actually a kopitiam
We ordered char siu (BBQ pork) and roast chicken for the four of us, and like many other chicken rice places, soup is self served, you can take as many bowls as you like. They have roast pork here as well but it didn’t seemed to be their speciality and hence we decided to opt out on that. We also ordered some rice to go with the meat.
glorious char siu, as good as I’ve ever tasted
You get to choose the fattiness of the char siu, we had ours medium and it was glorious! The meat was super tender and you can cut through the fat just by gently slicing it with a blunt spoon. Accompanying the superb texture was the taste that did not disappoint, it was simple one of the best char siu I’ve ever had.
I found out that Meng Brother is actually the younger brother of Meng Kee char siu at Tengkat Tongshin (now at Jalan Alor), which is also the sibling of the equally superb Meng Kee at Shah Alam. The three brothers seemed to have Cheras, KL, and Shah Alam covered so far as awesome char siu goes.
Sheng here was enjoying his lunch to the fullest extend
As for the soup and roast chicken, they were of pretty decent quality too. If you crave for some good char siu that is priced decently and don’t mind making a drive to Taman Shamelin, check out Meng Brother’s!
Address:
Restaurant Uncle Meng
Jalan 6/91
Taman Shamelin, Cheras
Kuala Lumpur 56100
GPS: 3.123898, 101.738310
Yes, this is yet another curry mee post. More specifically, a curry mee place with coagulated pork blood in the list of ingredients, the only way real curry mee should be.
It is the same back story from Penang One post is what led me to this place.
restaurant Millenium 86 at Seapark
A man’s gotta have his curry mee, and I’m actually glad that this stall is now much closer to home than when it was located at Restaurant Good Food. To me, this means that I don’t need to necessarily wake up before 8:30 for restaurant okay’s curry mee, or brave the traffic to Puchong for Penang One.
glorious Penang style curry mee, with coagulated blood
The curry mee is as good as I remember. Pork blood, prawns, cockles, tofupok, long beans, and of course that slightly charred chili paste with fragrant coconut milk based broth. This is Penang style curry mee as close as you can get, and would have been absolutely perfect if not for the lack of cuttle fish, but I’m not complaining.
If you love curry mee, this is definitely one of the very few places worth going. The operator also offers Kuih Teow Soup, I should try it next. 
map to Restaurant Millenium 86 at Sea Park
Address:
Restaurant Mellenium Eighty Six
Jalan 20/22,
Taman Paramount, Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.108099, 101.623983
While on the way to Penang for Cheng Meng last week, we stopped by Ipoh for a quick dinner. The choice of noms for the night was the famous Menglembu Honey Chicken.
famous Menglembu honey chicken stall (shop now)
While I’ve had the honey chicken wings many times (usually tapao by Horng) The last time I visited this place was at some 10 years ago, and instead of that little small hawker stand, it is now a whole shop by itself, with ample workers to cater for their booming business.
The mainstay is their honey chicken wings (RM 2), but you can also order chicken skin (RM 2), honey bbq pork (RM 3), fried mushroom (RM 2), drumstick (RM 3), chicken breast/ribs (RM 3), and whole quarter chicken leg (RM 6).
the best honey chicken wings there is
We ordered a 2 pairs of honey chicken wings, 2 fried drumsticks, and a plate of deep fried chicken skin to share.
The honey chicken was as good as remembered. Sweet, succulent, and sticky in a good way. The meat gets torn off the bones so easily you can feed this to someone toothless. Chicken skin too would make very good beer food.
As for the deep fried drumsticks though, they were very ordinary, and play second fiddle to my favorite KFC.
If you’re willing to detour a little on a late evening drive between Penang and KL, do stop by this place and get some honey chicken. I assure you the extra 10km drive is worth it.
Address:
Menglembu Wai Sek Kai (Glutton Street)
Tranchell Street, 31450 Menglembu, Perak
GPS: 4.56333, 101.04480
Tel: 012-5161411, 012-5070005
Operating Hours: 5.30 pm – 11.00 pm
Koay Chiap, or braised duck noodle/porridge (鸭粥粿汁), is one of the lesser known Penang hawker dishes that is almost impossible to find outside Penang. (if anyone found one in KL, do let me know).
In fact, even in Penang itself, there are probably less than 10 stalls offering this unique dish, and it is not getting any more popular these days either. This is mostly due to the ingredients making up koay chiap, but incidentally, is also the very reason I love it so much.
lebuh kimberley koay chiap
As the name suggests, instead of normal noodle, koay chiap uses “koay”, the same substance with koay teow, but in a thicker, almost pan-mee style form. The “chiap” refers to juice, or a mixture of ingredients mainly made up from duck.
koay chiap goes well with the sweet peanut soup
In a bowl of proper koay chiap there’s duck meat, skin, intestine, blood, and braised duck egg. All immersed in a light herbal soup used to braised the duck. The dish is often served with a special chili sauce, but sometimes with chili padi too (like the koay chap at ayer itam)
this makes me a happy camper
The koay chiap at Lebuh Kimberley is as good as they come. It has everything that’s supposed to be in a bowl of koay chiap for RM 6, and unlike most hawker dishes in Penang, this one really fills you up. The meat are properly braised and soup isn’t bitter or overly flavored either. Best of all, the coagulated duck blood was simply superb.
I love it with a serving of sweet peanut soup (RM 1.30) to counter the meaty taste.
If you are in Penang and already had your fair share of laksa, curry mee, and char kuih teow, it is time to try something slightly out of the comfort zone, no?
Oh, while you’re at Lebuh Kimberley, check out this braised chicken feet place too.
Address:
Lebuh Kimberley (just before the food court)
Georgetown, Penang
GPS: 5.416537, 100.322473
Operating Hours: 6:30pm – 11:30pm, close on Thursdays
We actually spent a total of 10 days in Penang over CNY, my longest stint back home since getting a job in KL some 10 years, and that explains the recent flood of Penang food posts. There will be just a few more before the more KL centric posts resumes.
The extended eating binge was of course, glorious!
Tua Pui curry mee at Weld Quay
On the last few days in Penang, I finally got a chance to try the famed Tua Pui Curry Mee at Weld Quay (situated right across Chew Jetty, now a UNESCO world heritage).
I’m a sucker for Penang style curry mee, and could eat them almost daily until my lactose intolerant body starts to complain. Doesn’t matter, had curry mee!
mine is with extra fish balls, RM 3.80
Tua Pui curry mee is a little bit different from the usual run-off-the-mill Penang curry mee. They have all the usual ingredients you’d find – tofu pok, coagulated blood, blood cockles, cuttle fish; but they also have quite a lot of optional items you can add in. There’s chicken gizzards, big prawns (the bare version has no prawns, bummer), chicken wings, fish balls, and more.
The soup too is enhanced with several types of curry, giving it a little more complexity, I like it.
My bowl was one with extra fish balls for RM 3.80. The two giant fish balls, though looking somewhat peculiar in a bowl of curry mee, did not disappoint, they were quite tasty in itself. Of course, the curry mee overall was as good as any. Well worth a try if you’re in Penang.
we shared a mua chee, and Haze had her 6th laksa or the trip or something
As for Haze, she had her laksa, again. That must be the 6th or 7th laksa of the trip and that girl can never get tired of it. According to her, this particular laksa was a good one too. I didn’t try it, but just by looking at it, you know it’s a winner. RM 3 for the laksa if I remember correctly.
Then there’s muah chee, we paid RM 2 for this excellent combination of flour, crushed nuts, sesame, and sugar that you can find pretty much anywhere in Penang, but for some reasons, not in KL.
I’m missing Penang already.
Address:
Village Coffee Shop
107-A, Pengkalan Weld (Weld Quay),
10300 Penang, Malaysia
GPS: 5.412652,100.338789
