From time to time, I like to go into a restaurant totally devoid of any idea what is being served there. Last weekend was one such occasion. Haze and I were near Leisure Mall and hungry, we drove around a bit, parked the car, and decided to head into Restaurant K.T.L – which stands for Kwong Tau Lou (光头佬, bald guy)
steamed tilapia and steamed egg are the must order items
The reason we chose this particular restaurant was that it looked cheap, almost unfurnished, and yet filled with mostly older diners & families. To me, these are a sure sign that good food is available, and it won’t break your wallet.
After seated, we asked for recommendations from the wait staff and ordered a steamed tilapia with tao chio (beans), steamed egg, and a plate of vegetable. Total dishes to choose from was very limited, there’s 2 types of fish (other being haruan), always steamed but with a few different variations, eggs, steamed ribs, and a few types of vegetables. Just as well, makes ordering quite a lot easier.
check out how smooth is the steamed egg, slurps!
Dishes didn’t come quick, and you have the pleasure of seeing them catch the tilapia that’ll end up on your table.
But when it does, boy, the fish was great! The tao chio sauce was very flavorful and quite a bit spicy too, they even stuffed it full in the fish’s cavity too, a nice touch for sure.
The steamed egg was on a big plate but very thin, and very very soft. Imagine the softest chawanmushi, and this was 3 times softer. It tasted very simple yet awesome, with soya sauce and a hint of sesame oil on it. (I tried to replicate the steamed egg at home the other day and failed miserably)
The only let down at the place was the vegetable. Well, it wasn’t bad, it was average, but after the fish and egg, this was slightly disappointing.
The dinner came to be slightly less than RM 20 per person including two Chinese tea. For fresh fish and excellent dishes, it was a steal. Definitely will go there again.
Address:
Restaurant K.T.L.
Gerai No.3A, Jalan Manis
Taman Segar
56100 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.088250, 101.743231
Tel: 017-872 7567, 012-308 7311, 014-322 3613
Jalan Peel has always been a place where the locals go to eat. The area has some of the most old school traditional eateries one can find outside Pudu area.
A few weeks ago I went there for the first time when we visited the Sunway Velocity showroom. It was the good people from Sunway who actually treated us lunch at Kar Kar Lai (家家来). Thanks!
Kar Kar Lai 家家来 at Peel Road
The set up at Kar Kar Lai isn’t much. An inconspicuous stall with plenty of meat on display, with make shift tents over a dozen of so tables by Jalan Peel. Not very different from Thim Kee at Pudu, 10 points for old school feel, 1 for weather protection.
We ordered steamed chicken, siu yok (roast pork), char siu (bbq pork), steamed tilapia, and vegetable to go with rice for lunch, but did not try the yummy looking pork knuckle or chicken feet, unfortunately.
steamed tilapia, steamed chicken, char siu
The steamed tilapia with thai sauce was pretty good. The meat fresh and tender, the sauce packs a kick, goes well with white rice but probably too strong to eat as is.
Steamed kampung chicken was yummy too, slightly tougher than normal chicken, but quite a bit more flavorful. After all, Kar Kar Lai’s signboard shows that this is a chicken rice stall.
My favorite of the day though, goes to the char siu (bbq pork). The caramelized meat was tender, sweet, and positively delicious, don’t miss this out if you come here. This is on par with some of the better char siu in town, like Meng Kee at Glenmarie and Famous Seremban Favorites at Aman Suria.
siu yok (roast pork), vegetable at Kar Kar Lai
The siu yok (roast pork) was what our host kept telling us about, but to be honest, while it was good, I couldn’t say that it is exceptional with a straight face, an off day perhaps? (Our host swore it’s better on other days). I would definitely give it another try.
As usual, we also ordered a vegetable dish to make sure mom approves.
Nic Gan, Kim, Gareth, Haze, KY
Overall, Kar Kar Lai is a place definitely worth visiting even just for the char siu and steamed chicken, I’d also like to try their pork knuckle and Chinese sausage next time. Price information is absent since lunch was bought by our generous host from Sunway, but I have a feeling it’s pretty affordable.
Address:
Kar Kar Lai 家家来
Jalan Peel, Cheras
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.12865, 101.72488
A couple Fridays ago my buddies Terence and Horng made a trip down to KL and bought me birthday lunch. Since it was a little too early for the best roast pork at Wong Meng Kee (they only start serving at 12:30pm sharp), Terence suggested that we head to Thim Kee Steamed Fish, a place with the best Tilapia, according to Mr. Goh.
Thim Kee Steamed Fish at Pudu
As with anywhere in Pudu, parking is always a challenge, Pudu plaza car park is an option since the stall is situated just directly opposite the old mall. The hawker shack itself isn’t exactly the most comfortable of all dining places, but it’s largely sheltered, and relatively clean.
The three of us were joined by Sean, so four of us ordered up a total of four dishes to share.
delicious deep fried tilapia
First to come was their famous deep fried tilapia that was so crispy on the outside but still has its meat fresh tasting and tender (must be fried with really high temperature, check out the gas canisters on top collage). The fish is served on top of a sauce that carries a hint of sweetness and fermented bean flavor, unique and in a very good way.
This is a definite must order, I’ve never tasted tilapia so good, it’s even better than Sister Lan’s tilapia at Rawang.
butter squid, herbal steamed tilapia, fried chicken
The butter squid here is served in a clay pot and comes with butter in liquid state, which results in soft and tender squid but one that doesn’t get as much flavor from the butter/spice/curry leave. Still a dish worth ordering though.
Herbal steamed tilapia is another fish we ordered, since this place is famous for tilapia, so why not? I couldn’t find any fault from this dish except for the fact that there’s only so much you can get out of tilapia, I think this would taste much better if only it was a siakap (barramundi) or pomphret.
Fried chicken is another must-order dish. This tastes like a cross between Vietnamese style lemen grass chicken and traditional Malay pandan chicken but deep fried. The sauce that came with the chicken was sweet+spicy and definitely flavorful. I wanna have the whole chicken drumstick by myself next time!
note: GPS should be 3.136585, 101.713824
As with most hawker stalls at Pudu, price is rather reasonable. The total bill for four of us came to some RM 60+, we left with really satisfied stomachs. Will definitely return, thank you guys for treating!
p/s: By the way, do call and make a reservation to make sure fish and more importantly, seats are available!
Address:
Thim Kee Steamed Fish
Jalan 1/77c, Off Jalan Pudu,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.136585, 101.713824
Tel: 03-3986 3097
Remember the news on the possible removal of One Bangsar a few months back? Well, I wish that won’t ever come true. The restaurants on the stretch at Jalan Ara provides one of the nicest ambiance you can get anywhere, with lush green lawn and quaint interior decoration, and more often than not, excellent food.
Bangsar Seafood Garden
I had actually been to Bangsar Seafood Garden once (during Galvin’s wedding) prior to the invitation by Jade to the food review session. Then again, it was a wedding dinner, and for some reasons I could never remember in details how food at wedding dinners tastes like.
Which means that the food review session was most welcomed. Together with Haze, Suanie, Kerol, Horng, and Cheesie, we went over for dinner a couple weeks back.
butter crab and deep fried mantao
I felt that it is appropriate to write about the butter crab first, even though it wasn’t the first dish served.
The crab’s fabulous, they are fresh, big, sweet, and best of all, soaked in the awesome butter sauce with a hint of curry leave taste that’s so addictive. Do order the deep fried mantao to take advantage of the sauce.
Also, forget about the steamed mantao, you won’t get much health benefit at all anyway if they were to be dipped into butter sauce, the deep fried version tastes so much better.
steamed cod fish with essence of chicken, baked chicken with cheese
No seafood dinner is complete without fish, and for the dinner we had steamed cod fish that came with plenty of mushroom, cilantro, ginger, carrot, and even bean curd skin. Like the steamed haruan from restaurant Yap Yin, a bottle of Brand’s essence of chicken is poured to give the soup base an even richer taste.
Of course, cod fish tastes (well, naturally more expensive too) more refine than haruan.
The baked chicken with cheese reminds me of lasagna, but not a very good one at that. The chicken’s fried, but it was a bit spicy, too cheesy, and just overall a dish that’s slightly too weird for my taste.
Thai style stir fried prawns, assorted greens with macadamia
The Thai style stir fried prawns is another must-order item here. Massive de-shelled tiger prawns cooked with tomyam-ish sauce and served sizzling on a hot plate, very very yummy. Goes best with some rice, but in our case, fried mantao.
The vitamin C quota was satisfied with a plate of assorted greens with macadamia nuts, a luxury if rather tasty dish. Combination of green peas, lotus roots, fungus, carrots, and more were just nice for this purpose.
desserts galore at Bangsar Seafood
A good dinner’s always followed by desserts (or so all the girls say), we had fungus, peanut soup, longan and sea coconut, mango sago ice, and a couple other more traditional style sweet dishes to conclude the dinner.
To be truthful, desserts aren’t one of Bangsar Seafood’s strength. They are decent, but not something to really anticipate after all those awesome seafood.
Cheesie, KY & Haze, Horng, Suanie & Kerol, Jade
We had a good time over the review session, and I’d like to thank Jade for the invite.
Oh, if you want to have a garden wedding, there’s a huge and “golf course perfect” lawn at Bangsar Seafood Garden that’s perfect for the occasion too!
Address:
Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant
One Bangsar, No 63, Jalan Ara
Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.129461, 101.669294
Tel: 03-2282 2555
Two weeks ago, I had to go to Tun Hussien Onn National Eye Hospital to get my left eye checked after being hit by the ball during futsal (now pretty much fully recovered.)
Barely a week after that, having been making too much fun on my injured eye, Cheesie too had something on her left eye. So I took her to the same hospital located near Asia Jaya to have a look. As suspected, it was due to allergy to those colored contact lenses she was wearing.
Moral of the story: 1. Karma is a bitch. 2. Love to appreciate your own eye color
Pork Satey at PJ Old Town food court, Gerai Satay Cina Thoo Yuen
After the whole eye opening experience at the hospital where we also met a reader who came up and greeted us, it was time for dinner. Since this part of PJ is quite notorious for its traffic during weekday rush hours, I suggested that we head to PJ Old Town for for some good old cheap and traditional food that also happen to involve my favorite meat – pork.
We ended up at the food court.
Appetizer was 10 sticks of pork satay from Thoo Yuen stall at RM 0.80 per stick. It was quite juicy, and tasted pretty good with the accompanying peanut sauce. I just wish they serve pork intestine satay too, but they don’t. Bummer.
pork ribs with bitter gourd, steamed tilapia fish with lard at Gerai Thong Kee
To fill our stomach properly, we ordered two dishes from Gerai Thong Kee to go with rice. The stall next to Thong Kee serves umbra juice with dried sour plum (kedondong in Malay) at RM 2 per glass, nice!
Our first dish was bitter gourd with pork ribs. Quite flavorful with the brown sauce, red chili, and ginger. However, we didn’t have very good cuts of ribs, could have been better, but I’m not really complaining here.
KY and Cheesie at PJ Old Town Food court
Our second dish was this steamed tilapia with spicy sauce as suggested by the owner. The paste tasted a bit like tomyam, and went really well with the fish. However, the secret ingredient that made this otherwise very normal dish good was the lard on top.
Adding lard (be it raw or fried lard) on steamed fish gives the fish meat a softer and smoother texture, and of course, that pork fat flavor. I do that too when steaming pomphret fish (hey, I cook too ok)
The two dishes with rice came to RM 28, that’s fish, meat, and vegetable in a balanced meal. Now both of us needs to put eye drops, *drips drips*
Address:
Intersection of
Jalan Othman & Jalan Selangor
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.087519, 101.645948
BB Update
By default, when you reply or send a new email from Blackberry, a default signature is attached at the end of the message. As with any email clients, you can always change the default signature into something that you deem appropriate.
Before this morning, mine said “Sent from my Mobile”. Now it says “Sent from my awesome Blackberry”.
This girl used to not understand why BB is so addictive and now she’s the biggest advocate and addict there is. Cis! You can get your very own BB 8520 at a very good price from Xpax BB!
