Since taking over vacant possession of our new home in Shah Alam, we’ve been spending quite a bit of time inspecting defects and monitoring the construction of koi pond version 2.
With the new place just a stone’s throw away from Klang toll, we’ve started exploring the eateries nearby, such as the few rows of old school restaurants and kopitiam at Taman Berkeley, an area that’s already a favorite among the locals.
Number One Claypot Rice, Taman Berkeley
When trying out a new place, the rule of thumb is just stick with the most popular option. In a kopitiam, the most popular stall, and in a makan area like Berkeley, the restaurant that’s most packed.
Going with this rule brought us to Number One Claypot Rice, a restaurant that isn’t really overly humble on their claim.
claypot chicken rice cooked from scratch
Like most claypot chicken rice places, the rice is cooked from scratch claypots of two sizes. A single portion is priced at RM 7, and bigger, double person portion at RM 14. If there’s 5 of you, 2 big and 1 small, you do the math, it’s pretty simple.
In the pot you get plenty of bite size chicken, chunks of lap cheong (Chinese wax sausage), and a small amount of salted fish.
I find the rice and chicken pretty much spot on, with the sausage having slightly tougher skin that I’d like, and the salted fish, well, is something that I’ll need to ask for extra the next time around (you can do that for extra RM 2). The crispy bits of charred rice are there for those who love it that way.
chicken soup in coconut, braised vegetable
To compliment the claypot chicken rice, we also ordered the coconut chicken soup (RM 7) and a side of braised vegetable (RM 5), there’s also option of herbal chicken soup, vegetable soup, or pork tripe soup (would be better I think!) to go around as well.
Everything came to be about RM 30 for the two of us, and the serving was certainly more than enough. Would go back again.
Address: Number One Claypot Rice Jalan Lang & Jalan Bangau (corner shop) Taman Berkeley, 41500 Klang, Selangor GPS: 3.059943, 101.463137 Hours: Open for dinner, closed to Tuesday
This is easily one of my favorite dishes from mom when I was young. Every time mom made her signature chicken rice, I would take a second serving. I think if she had made this more often, perhaps I’d be 6 foot tall and weigh 80kg with pure muscle (or more likely, same height with extra 20kg fat)
awesome home cook chicken rice with chinese sausage
The ingredients are quite close to claypot chicken rice, but with a few extras that you typically wouldn’t find at hawker center.
While it does take a few extra steps to prepare, this isn’t a dish that is difficult to make at all, or have ingredients that are hard to source even if you aren’t reside in Malaysia (and crave for that claypot chicken rice). Here’s the recipe.
home cook chicken rice ingredients – chicken, mushroom, chinese sausage
The ingredients (for 2 pax):
cooking oil
1 quarter chicken (thigh & drumstick)
2 Chinese sausage (lap cheong)
mushroom of any type
some garlic
dark soya sauce, soya sauce, salt
rice wine (optional)
shallots & spring onion for garnish
fry the rice and ingredients, then continue in rice cooker
You do need both a frying pan and rice cooker to make this dish, but no, there’s no clay pot or charcoal flame needed in this case.
Instructions:
debone and chopped chicken into bite size
heat up 2-3 table spoon of cooking oil, then fry chicken & diced garlic till chicken not pink
add sliced Chinese sausage and mushroom into the pan
add 2 tablespoon of dark soya sauce and continue frying for another 2 minutes
add half a teaspoon of salt and a few shakes of soya sauce (a bit of rice wine if available)
add rice and fry for a coupe minutes longer
put everything in rice cooker, add 1.3 cups of water and complete cooking in rice cooker as you would cook normal rice
prepare the condiments – fried shallots and spring onion
While waiting for the rice to cook, prepare some fried shallots and chopped some fresh green onion as garnish. They will greatly add to the overall flavor and texture to the chicken rice dish.
One or two stalks of green onion and a couple shallots would be enough.
haze enjoying the chicken rice with ABC soup
The result is two plates of absolutely delicious home cook chicken rice prepared only in around one hour or so. The dish is best accompanied with some clear soup (ABC, radish soup, etc). Optionally, you can also add some salted fish on top, I would if I had some good quality ones to go with.
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Taman Paramount is one of my favorite locations for dinner for the simple fact that it is pretty close to where I stay, and it doesn’t hurt that the area (including seapark and ss2) is littered with a lot of good old fashion eateries.
One one of our routine “what should we eat for dinner, how about just drive around till we find something?” exercise, we spotted this newly opened clay pot rice place that looked pretty decent, and thus decided to check it out.
Restaurant Gafan – the clay pot rice specialist
As it turned out, this Restaurant Gafan is a branch of the much reviewed clay pot chicken rice with the same name in Taman Connaught. If it’s good enough for masak-masak , it’s good enough for me.
The restaurant has a pretty basic kopitiam style set up, with plastic tables and chairs under plenty of ceiling fans.
clay pot chicken rice with lap cheong & salted fish, or fermented tofu
There’s 10 types of clay pot rice on the menu, 6 of them with chicken, remaining four with lamb, prawn, beef, and fish. They also offer a few types of vegetable, soup, and tofu to go with the main course.
I tried the basic clay pot chicken rice with lap cheong (with addition of salted fish) and also chicken with fermented tofu at this place, and so far both versions came out rather good (RM 7-10 per serving). I also like the fact that they give you a tower towel to hold the super hot clay pot.
Kerol’s enjoying her clay pot chicken rice, and so was I!
Do try the steamed soup (RM 4) here too. They are quite delicious, and sipping soup makes waiting for the freshly cooked clay pot rice a lot less boring.
Earlier this month I was invited to the Wild Rice restaurant at Mid Valley Boulevard hotel for a food review session courtesy of foodstreet. I looked through the list of my MSN and found a dinner partner in Ringo to go there with me. (you know, a fehmes blogger to increase my street cred.)
wild rice restaurant, with indoor and outdoor seatings
The wild rice restaurant is situated on the 9th floor with nice indoor seatings as well as the open terrace with a beautiful pool view.
We were greeted by the friendly communication manager Mr. Huang, and shortly after that the dishes started coming in. The good chef prepared eight dishes for just the three of us for the night. Other than their weekend buffet, Wild Rice restaurant serves Malaysian food as well as Western dishes.
clay pot chicken rice, char kueh teow, Penang seafood hor fun
Our first dish of the night was none other than Char Kueh Teow. I usually have my reservations when it comes to this dish, but the chef (who has a very strong Penang tie) actually pulled this off rather well. The good size prawns, chives, bean sprouts, and egg combined to deliver a dish that tasted pretty good.
Similarly, the Penang Hor Fun was very nice as well. I like the way the egg is done with the yolk still half cooked while the white spread over the flat noodle. The hor fun comes with prawns, squid, dory fish fillet, and vegetables.
The chef also prepared two versions of clay pot chicken rice for us, the more usual recipe with salted fish, and a version with century egg. Although I love century eggs, I think the combination is a little weird though, this little experiment from the chef didn’t turn out very great (the dish is not on the menu). Then again, I always applaud chefs who are willing to experiment.
Hainanese chicken chop, avocado burger, pan fried salmon, oxtail soup
Then there’s the very crispy and juicy Hainanese chicken chop that I wish I have a bigger stomach to eat more. The chicken chop consists of 1/4 quarter chicken with thigh and drumstick, fresh button mushroom in brown sauce with some mixed vegetables, and of course, fries. (I wonder if they have fries in Hainan, but lets not digress)
The pan fried salmon was good as well, but I think the most interesting dish for the day goes to the avocado burger. This vegetarian dish has beet root, cheese, butter, and a generous serving of sliced avocado. If you had California Roll, you know how avocado tastes like. The combination of avocado relish, and cheese in the bun was actually delicious.
the good chef and Ringo
Ringo’s favorite dish, if my memory serves me correct, was the Malaysian oxtail soup. It wasn’t too spicy nor tasted too strongly. The soup was just nice with the meat tender and the carrots soft, serving it in a clay pot does help by keeping the temperature.
Boulevard Hotel is situated at the North Court of Mid Valley City
The best thing about Wild Rice restaurant is the fact that it is open 24 hrs a day. To me this spells the end of mamak after midnight show especially if I’m at Mid Valley.
As for price, I think they are pretty reasonable for a hotel. Soup is RM15; the burger and other local dishes are around RM 18 to RM 22. Expect to pay slightly more for western dishes, but the portions are pretty big. The good news is that the prices are nett, no extra 10% or 5%. I like that.
We decided to catch dinner at the nearby Petaling Street after going on the Eye on Malaysia a couple weeks ago. Even though it was a weekday, the heart of KL is packed as usual. We ended up at Hong Kee (鸿记) clay pot chicken rice after seeing that the rat’s tail clay pot place was not operating that night.
the old school charcoal burner
Like it’s Damansara Jaya counterpart, this stall cooks the clay pot chicken rice with the old fashion charcoal fire instead of using propane gas. I’m not sure I could taste the different, but it sure make the food preparation a lot more exciting, attracting the tourists along the busy Petaling Street.
Although the place also sells Portuguese Ikan Bakar, we only ordered their signature dish, the clay pot chicken rice, and a plate of vegetable (油菜) for the night.
suanie was philosophical about her food
Our food didn’t take too long to arrive. 2 big pots of steaming clay pot chicken rice for the 5 of us. The chicken rice marinated with the appropriate sauce, topped with some shredded salted fish, sliced lap cheong (Chinese Sausage), and spring onion was as good as I’ve tasted from anywhere. The vegetable though, was just average.
fireworks
Price wise, Hong Kee is inline with the other places despite operating in the city center. The meal costs about RM 10 for each of us, a pretty decent place to visit if you’re down at Petaling Street.
Hong Kee is just right next to the Chinese bookstore by Petaling Street
