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New Boston is arguably the most popular “tai chao” restaurants in Klang, and one with a reputation to boot. It is this reputation that took me more than a year after moving to Shah Alam to finally give it a try.

What’s the reputation you may ask? They are two, first – the lala is awesome, and second, the queue is super long. As we found out, both of these claims are true.

New Boston Restaurant at Klang, wait and you shall be rewarded

It was a planned dinner with a bunch of relatives, so to avoid disappointment Haze went there just before 6pm (opening hours at 7pm) to start queuing, and within minutes there were already a couple other people joining the line.

We got our seats by 6:55 pm and made our orders about 5 minutes past 7 pm. To be fair, it took less than 20 minutes for our first dish to be served, which wasn’t too bad considering it was already fully packed by then.

If you arrived after 7 pm, chances are you may have to wait quite a bit before getting a table, and it’ll certainly be an exercise of patience to get your food. However, New Boston operates till about 2 am so if you come here for supper, it’ll probably be a more pleasant experience.

order your lala in abundance 

The claim of fame for this place is the lala in superior soup (RM 24), and if you’ve already invested all those time in waiting, I’d definitely recommend ordering enough to go around. For the 10 of us, we asked for 6 plates, and that turned out to be just right. Some even suggest to order one big portion per person.

The lala did meet the almost impossible expectations, it was really fresh, juicy, and had just the right kick & slight spiciness from ginger, garlic, and chili padi to make any lala fan yearn for more.

The lala used here is what Hokkien refered to as “kap par”, which has a thicker shell but also more substantial & juicer meat, which I really enjoyed. For the “normal” lala in prepared in kam heong method, I recommend the version at Alisan street hawker at PJ SS4, available at night..

lala, claypot seafood tofu & vegetable dishes

We had a full dinner with rice at New Boston, and thankfully most of the dishes here were also right up there in terms of quality.

Claypot seafood tofu came packed with a generous portion of goodness, while the greens had good wok hei and generous amount of garlic, which I really liked.

Fried Hokkien mee is another one of the more popular dishes here. It is very rich, dark, and came with enough lard to satisfy any Hokkien mee fans. One word of caution though, this should be consumed piping hot, a cold version of super rich Hokkien mee is usually not entirely too appetizing.

hokkien mee, steamed red snapper, ginger chicken, mantis prawn with oat

Another stand-out dish we really enjoyed from New Boston was their soya fried ginger chicken, it was absolutely spot on and went really well with steamed rice. I think perhaps their secret is the ginger, both lala & chicken utilizes a lot of ginger, and they were some of the best redetions of these dishes I’ve tried.

Mantis prawn with oats & steamed fish were decent dishes as well, but not up to the expectations set up by the wait time at this place.

Anyway, if you’re a lala lover, you owe yourself to try this place at least once. I will probably head back to this place again one of these day,s but most likely not for the busy dinner session.

Address:
New Boston Restaurant
1E, Jalan Kapar,
Kawasan 18, 41000 Klang
GPS: 3.050331, 101.448086
Tel: 012-905 3523
Hours: 7pm to 2pm, closed on Wednesdays

Heading East from Klang Valley via the Karak Highway towards the direction of the East Coast, there exists quite a number of restaurants that offers “proper” food just a few kilometers away from the exit that brings you up to the mountain top wonderland that is Genting highland or Berjaya Bukit Tinggi (if visiting a Japanese garden is your thing.)

Late last year, we did just that with a couple Singaporean friends of Haze’s.

Garden View restaurant at Bukit Tinggi, there’s actually a vegetable garden

Our stop-over for late lunch was at Garden View restaurant, a pretty big zinc-roofed restaurant over viewing a vegetable garden. Looking at the size of the little farm though, I can’t be sure if it is sufficient for the crowd that this restaurant gets. Doesn’t bother me anyway.

The menu is quite extensive. They offer a variety of river fish, kampung chicken, pork, seafood, and a selection of “wild” meat such as wild boar, frog, ostrich, soft-shell turtle, and deer.

river patin, this is the expensive bit

We ordered a river patin (RM 90, 1.2kg of RM 7.50 per 100 gram) prepared in its purest form – steam with soya sauce. The portion was perhaps a little too big for just the four of us but it was delightfully prepared and certainly very fresh, smooth, and absolutely packed with seafood fatty texture which I really like.

You can also have the fish prepared by steam with ginger, with assam sauce, teo chew style, with chili sauce, in clay pot, or even deep fried. There’s also quite a variety of fish to choose from, with tilapia (RM 3.50/100gram) being cheapest, all the way to kelah  (RM 40/100 gram)

steamed kampung chicken, wild boar curry, four kingdom vege dish

In addition to the fish, we also ordered steamed kampung chicken with ginger (RM 15), wild boar curry (RM 15), and “4 kingdom vegetable” (RM 15). These are very reasonably priced and tasted more than decent.

The chicken is my favorite and a speciality of sort of Bukit Tinggi. You can get pretty good ginger steamed chicken just about at any restaurants around the area, the key being the Bentong ginger they use, which is really spicy and extra fragrant.

Singaporeans, same as Malaysians, are trigger happy

Over all it was a very satisfying late lunch for us. The river fish is pricey but expectedly so, if you stay away from having river fish, the prices at Garden View restaurant is very competitive. So if you’re around the area looking for a good meal especially with a group, this place won’t be a bad choice.

Address:
Garden View Restaurant
Lot 19326 Pesona Heights,
Kg Bukit Tinggi, 28750 Bentong, Pahang
GPS: 3.353010, 101.826982
Tel: 09-233 0282

I don’t often venture out to Jinjang, in fact, Jinjang is sort of a place we always joked about as a “kampung” within KL. Whenever we see a particularly  badly dressed young female, we’d say that she must be from Jinjang.

But like many older part of the Klang Valley settlements, Jinjang, and the whole Kpong area, spots some pretty good old school eateries, and Restoran Seafood Ho Kee is one of them.

Restoran Seafood Ho Kee, Jinjang

We were brought here by Haze’s aunt, a lady who is well versed with good old fashion Chinese food around the city, often with very reasonable pricing too. She was also the one who introduced us the equally good Zhen Liew Siang restaurant at Sentul.

Ho Kee is located at a row of shop lot on Jalan 1/32 at Jinjang, which is just off Jalan Kepong. The restaurant has a pretty simple set up, with plastic chairs, wooden tables, and plastic liners. Surprisingly, it is also air conditioned and smoke free.

sambal fish, kulou yok (pork)

One of the speciality dishes here is their sambal fish, with tilapia coated in generous amount of sambal all wrapped up in aluminium foil. The whole concoction is then lit up with a bit of alcohol when serving, probably a bit gimmicky and unnecessary. That doesn’t matter tho, cos the fish was very delicious with the potent sambal, and goes superbly with steamed rice.

The kulou yok (sweet and sour pork) here is definitely one of the bests I’ve had anywhere, we ended up ordering an extra serving. Crispy yet juicy pork with those savoury tomato sauce, yummy!

steamed ginger chicken, Japanese tofu with egg, pork belly with salted fish

Another dish on my must-order list would be their steamed kampung chicken with ginger. This version is as good as the one we had at Bukit Tinggi’s Loong Sing restaurant, the minced ginger will surely open up your sinus, in a good way.

Pork belly with salted fish is worthy worthy dish, but one that is perhaps not the best I had, for a better version, try Lucky Loke at PJ SS3.

The Japanese tofu with egg provided a welcoming change in taste, a more moderate note to balance out the stronger tasting dishes.

fried cuttle fish with dried red chilli

Ho Kee also offers one of the rarer dishes out there – fried cuttle fish with dried chili (in Cantonese “si jiu chau yau”, also means getting fired from work). The cuttle fish perfectly cooked, fresh tasting and crunchy while not being rubbery, the flavour of dried chilli and ginger permeated in the seafood, making a uber delicious choice.

If you want a good old fashion Chinese cuisine and don’t mind a bit of a wait (It was some 45 minutes for us), give Ho Kee a try. The owner/operator/chef cooks every dish, ensuring quality though sacrificing time. Pricing is rather reasonable as well, I believe it was less than RM 20 per pax.

Address:
Hoi Kee Seafood Restaurant
Jalan 1/32, Taman Jinjang Baru,
Jinjang, 52000, Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.20814, 101.65765

If you find yourself near Bukit Tinggi, perhaps for a little vacation up at the hill admiring those faux French architectures, or like us, after a pretty awesome trip the the Perting Fall waterfall excursion, one of the places you should stop by for a well deserved stomach refuel session would be Restoran Makanan Laut Loong Sing.

Loong Sing at Bukit Tinggi

To be honest, this place is should adopt the name makanan hutan (jungle food) or makanan sungai (river food) instead of makanan laut (seafood), seeing that it is some 100km away from the ocean.

Indeed, for those with a bigger wallet, they offer “soon hock” (RM 11/100g), river patin (RM 6/100g), sultan fish (RM 38/100g) and so forth. The only actual seafood on the menu that is from the ocean would be prawns.

seafood tofu, wild boar, vegetable

We didn’t order those tho, but we had one of their signature dishes – clay pot wild boar. Wild boar has a rather gamey taste to it but with generous amount of ginger and green onion, it actually tasted pretty awesome, it’s like almost a mix of normal pork and deer meat.

Seafood tofu came with bits of mushroom, imitation crab, sea cucumber, and squid. This is a dish I can have on my own as a full meal by itself, rather tasty!

kampung chicken with ginger

Another must-order here is the steamed kampung chicken with ginger. Execution is flawless with the minced ginger covering every piece of chicken that’s cut into convenient bite size. If you have a blocked nose, this would clear it up nicely.

Oh, we also had vegetable, but I guess that isn’t something overly interesting.

Meal came to be about RM 14 per pax, pretty cheap and very satisfying. Definitely a place worth revisiting.

Address:
Restoran Makanan Laut Loong Sing
97, Bukit Tinggi,
Bentong, Pahang
GPS: 3.350188, 101.821627
Tel: 016-960-8270/016-276-6876.

Chicken is one of the cheapest meat to buy and also one that most everyone eats. We tend to use it as one of our ingredients whenever we cook, so trying out a different recipe from time to time is paramount to giving life the pleasure of variety (Haze was starting to complain that I cook soya sauce chicken [simpler version] too often).

Today’s recipe is a pretty simple ginger wine chicken with sesame oil, for those who prefer the halal version, feel free to omit the Chinese rice wine, I believe it won’t affect the taste too much.

The dish has a sweet and savory taste, with a light brownish that goes very well with rice. The chicken should be succulent and not over cooked, this feat is obtained by the use of corn starch. The inclusion of ginger also gives it a sweet aroma and add to the overall warmth of the dish.

It takes about 20 minutes to prepare and another 15-20 minutes to cook. Portion here is good for two person.

1/4 chicken, corn flour, ginger, spring onion

Ingredients:

• 1/4 chicken, thigh & drumstick (or boneless breast meat), cut to bite-size chunks
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 2 inches ginger, sliced
• 3-4 stalks of spring onion, cut in 2 inches
• 2 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• salt & white pepper to taste

fry, then simmer in low heat with all the sauces

cooking instructions:

• mix chicken with corn starch and a tablespoon of cooking oil, set aside for for 10-15 minutes
• heat up frying pan with oil, add ginger
• when ginger starts to emit aroma, add spring onion
• stir for 30 seconds, then add chicken
• when exterior of the chicken starts to brown, add all other ingredients
• simmer for 10-15 minutes in low heat, add water if base gets too dry
• ready to eat!

simple ginger wine chicken, classic Chinese dish, goes well with rice

The dish turned out pretty good, the sauce goes very well with steamed rice, and I like to have the chicken with a side of soya sauce and chili padi.

Get cooking!

I have more recipes on the blog, hope you enjoy!