From afar, Pau Kee is just another one of the many unsuspecting kopitiam by Imbi area. And by from afar, I meant from Win Heng Seng kopitiam, a place that I frequent quite a bit for lunch for it’s char kueh teow and pork noodle.
Eventually curiosity got the better of me (and I do get bored of same dishes very fast), so I decided to give it a try several weeks ago.
Pau Kee – Ipoh Hor Fun
Pau Kee’s main dish is Ipoh hor fun, steamed chicken, and prawn wantan, much like the excellent Soo Kee at Paramount Garden, but in addition to that, they also have wantan mee, and Ipoh style curry mee (with curry chicken).
The one benefit of them serving all these different dishes is that you can let your imagination run wild and have combos such as wantan mee with curry soup, or dried “wantan mee” but with hor fun instead.
Ipoh horfun that looks and tasted like the real deal
Their ipoh horfun though, is a thing of beauty. Look at the photo above, the prawns at center on a bed of shredded steamed chicken on top of the horfun (kuih teow) and bean sprouts, accompanied by spring onions that is precariously cut. Then there’s the soup with a ring of floating chili oil, I mean, it’s beautiful isn’t it?
Fortunately, this thing tastes as good as well.
steamed chicken, soup wantan mee, dry wantan mee, curry mee
I’ve been there a handful of times since, and tried their curry mee (another excellent dish with pretty thick curry broth and fragrant sambal), dried wantan mee (prawn wantan and shredded chicken was good, but the sauce was a bit lacking), steamed chicken (smooth! I’d rate this just below Soo Kee), and sui kao soup (just above average).
The dishes are around RM 5 and up, the portion of steamed chicken above costs RM 8, so prices are really very reasonable. Oh, there’s air conditioning too.
Restaurant Pau Kee No 10, Jalan Utara (next to Honda showroom) off Jalan Imbi, 55100 Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.145417, 101.715629 Tel : 016-375 1360
One of my regular weekend brunch places is restaurant O&S at Taman Paramount. According to a friend, most, if not all the hawker stall operators in this restaurant were originally from Penang, and thus if you’re looking for some good Penang style hawker food, you can’t go terribly wrong here.
The prawn mee (hokkien mee in Penang), laksa, and Penang style prawn paste chee cheong fun are all pretty famous here, but one that somehow managed to escape my attention for the longest time has gotta be this kueh teow soup stall.
kueh teow soup at restaurant O&S
I actually discovered the kueh teow soup place by accident – while walking towards my table after ordering prawn mee, I spotted some coagulated blood in a bowl on the stall counter. I told myself I gotta give this a try, and I did just last weekend.
Penang style kueh teow soup is pretty rare at Klang Valley, this is only the second stall at PJ area that I know, the other being the one at Soon Lee Coffee Shop at PJ Old Town.
kueh teow soup with coagulated blood, intestine, chicken, and more!
I ordered the kueh teow soup with extra pork intestine and coagulated blood. This is on top of fish ball, fish cake slices, and chicken meat that comes with the soupy concoction. Of course, some fried lard cubes, green onion, and fried garlic serves as the finishing touch of this dish.
All for RM 5.50, can’t say it’s a bad deal at all.
check out these proper ingredients 😀
While the fish balls aren’t nearly as good as the one at PJ Old Town, the coagulated blood were awesome, and intestine super soft and tasty too. The soup further enhanced by that bit of lard, and overall you have a bowl of proper kueh teow soup anyone from Penang would approve of.
You can choose between kueh teow, yellow noodle, or meehun, so brace yourself among the crowd at O&S and give this a try ya!
I lied, that line wasn’t what I uttered to the employee at 60s Teow Chew Fish Ball Noodle Restaurant at Sea Park, for the very simple fact that she is probably a Chinese national who does not speak nor understand our National language.
tapao noodle at 60s teow chew fishball noodle restaurant
In fact, I didn’t really have to specify the word “tapau” (or take-away, in non-Malaysian English). As soon as she saw the Tupperware in my hand, she had already asked what I wanted to order for take-away. Smashing!
The Tupperware that I brought for this very purpose was the very aptly named Tapau Set!
fish ball kueh teow soup in tupperware – all in all less than RM 10
The Tapau Set comes with 3 containers – 2 Crystalwave dish (1L), and a single Crystalwave bowl (2L) that comes with a noodle holder. This noodle holder gadget eliminates the whole problem of soggy kueh teow altogether, you wonder why nobody has thought of that till now.
In the above “exercise”, I bought a portion of kueh teow soup, with soup and fishball in the 2L Crystalwave bowl and the kueh teow on noodle holder. I also used the 1L Crystalwave dish for some yong tao foo. (since the tupperware containers are quite big, sometimes hawkers will unknowingly give you bigger portion! shhhh…)
user friendly design, tupperware eco bottle
The Tapau Set also comes with this very nifty Grip n Go Cariolier that allows you to hold all 3 containers at the same time. A bit like a modernized version of old picnic set, no?
Together with the Tapau Set, Tupperware also have some new 500ml Eco Bottle Spring that comes in several colors. They’re small enough to fit into a handbag, and big enough to quench your thirst.
cendawan the Bengal approves of tupperware!
Ultimately though, the most important message in this advertorial is about something that is better than recycle – REUSE. Using Tupperware for all your take-aways eliminates disposable plastic bags that ends up in landfills (or worse, the ocean where turtles can mistakenly ingest them), it is a step to the right direction for a better environment.
After all, the Penang government has already say no to plastic bags, shouldn’t we do our part too?
Above is the short video by popular hosts Winson & Orange showcasing the benefit of using Tupperware Tapau Set. Check it out!
After casting my vote on that fateful election day that changed our history forever, I called up FA to go breakfast as her polling station is just a mere kilometer from mine. I took a very short drive to Sea Park (PJ Seksyen 21, not to be mistaken with Taman Sea) for some Ipoh Kueh Teow Soup at Soo Kee.
master chef skillfully remove all bones from the chicken
For the two of us, we actually ordered up quite a feast. Two bowls of Ipoh Kueh Teow Soup (Ipoh Hor Fun), a bowl of prawn wan tan (with at least 8 wantans in there), and a pretty big portion of steamed chicken. I don’t get to eat early breakfast that often, so it is a feast when I get a chance.
Ipoh kueh teow soup, prawn wantan, and really smooth chicken
While waiting for our food, we noticed that a lady next to our table took out a curiously looking newspaper wrapper, and out came roasted pork (siu yok). That certainly made us salivate, and after FA checked with the lady, I was sent to the wet market just opposite the restaurant on a mission. I came back with RM 5 worth of godsend.
look at FA being so happy with the roasted pork
As it turned out, we really had too much food that morning. The kueh teow soup was actually very good and true to the traditional recipe. Some prawns, shredded chicken meat, spring onion, and a dash of chili oil that amplify the flavor. I particularly like the steamed chicken too, almost completely boneless (like Fatty Loh‘s style), with the meat very smooth and succulent. The wantan was pretty good too, if not a little bit on the saltier side for my taste.
The addition of roasted pork was certainly the highlight of the day. The crunchiness of the skin on roasted pork was a stark contrast to the smoothness of chicken and the kueh teow, the contrasting taste and texture made the breakfast awesome. We had our stomach completely filled.
Soo Kee is located just a stone’s throw away from the Sea Park Shell station
I don’t remember exactly how much each bowl of kueh teow costs, but the entirely meal was more than RM 20. Certainly expensive for breakfast, but with the amount of chicken and prawn wan tan we had, I think it was still reasonable.
Address: 33 Jalan 21/17,
46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor GPS:3.109781, 101.622012 Tel:03-7876 7736
Whenever I go back to Penang, there are a few hawker food that I usually do not miss. The char kueh teow, curry mee, mee goreng, and also kueh teow soup such as the one at Lebuh Armenian. The other dish would be this famous dried kuey teow at the Mt. Erskine road side hawker center.
the kueh teow soup stall
This particular stall has been in operation for at least the past 20 years or so, back when this make shift hawker center only had a couple of stalls operating under the trees. There are many places that sells kueh teow soup, but when it comes to the dry version, this place probably came up with the best concoction.
dried kueh teow, with soup on the side
Much like wantan noodle , this dried kuey teow is served with a bowl of 4 types of fish ball soup on the side. The kueh teow then is served with some dark sauce, shredded chicken, and raw vegetables.
The different types of fish ball has their own unique texture and taste to it, some softer, some firm and bouncy, and all very delicious. I particularly love the sambal belacan that is served as the condiment, made from fresh red pepper, belacan, and lime that is rather spicy and perfect with those fish balls.
my favorite sambal.. slurps
A bowl of the dried kuey teow goes for RM 3.50, but as with most Penang hawker dishes, the portion is quite small, which is just as well so that I can order another bowl of curry mee or mee goreng to fill up my stomach. 😀
map to the hawker centre at Mt. Erskine
The hawker centre operates from around noon to 4-5 in ther afternoon.
Address:
Jalan Mt. Erskine,
Tg. Tokong, Penang GPS:5.450560, 100.302064
