You know, when it comes to Penang food, most of what people recognize will be from the island – char kuih teow, laksa, prawn mee, curry mee, and such. However, the bigger, less glamorous landmass Penang government “rent” from Kedah does in fact offers a few gems of its own when it comes to hawker food – one of which is the topic for today – yam rice with pork offal soup.
Yam Rice stall at Tien Tien Lai, Ara Damansara
While my favorite version in Penang is from Chip Heng kopitiam at Chai Leng Park, Butterworth, I was recently introduced to a stall offering something pretty much equally as good right here at Klang Valley, at Ara Damansara’s Tien Tien Lai kopitiam.
This particular yam rice stall is in fact introduced to me by my mom’s friend (who is also from Penang). A bowl of soup goes for RM 8 and comes with plenty of ingredients you’d expect in this dish – including pork ball, pork slices, tongue, intestine, coagulated blood, tofu, salted vege, and parsley. You’ll then get to choose to have it with yam rice (RM 2), or white rice (RM 1), and if you ask me, there’s no question the former is the version to go for.
yam rice plus pork offal soup with salted vege and tofu
The yam rice itself is properly flavored with good aroma from yam, and the soup is packed with porky goodness properly balanced with the saltiness & slight acidity offered by salted vegetable. Grab a piece and dip in the homemade chili sauce with dark soya sauce, then mix it up with a spoon full of yam rice, put it in your mouth, and follow up with a spoon full of soup… yums!
If you want some proper yam rice with pork soup without having to travel up to Penang, this is one to check out.
Address: Tien Tien Lai kopitiam Ara Permata, 33, Jalan PJU 1a/42, Ara Damansara, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor GPS: 3.117288, 101.587120 Hours: breakfasts
Dinner in Klang consists mainly of three big categories – bak kut teh, seafood, and taichau places. Today, let’s look at one of the older, more traditional taichau (or in Hong Kong – “tai pai tong”) that offers some rather unique dishes – Hin Kee Restaurant.
Hin Kee Restaurant, Klang
Hin Kee is located across Jalan Meru from Klang Parade, on a parking lot/medan selera sort of set up within the residential area. The restaurant itself is a zinc roof with no wall type of set up, and it’s reasonably clean, with ceiling fan to boot.
Like most of these old school places, there’s no printed menu. There is however, a few rows of dishes printed above the stall, all in Chinese characters. You can always ask the server for suggestions, which we did.
sumptuous meal at Hin Kee, Klang
We ended up ordering 6 different dishes – deep fried pork offal with ginger, duck noodle, grilled squid, lala (Thai style?), vege, and fried Hokkien mee.
The dishes did not take too long to arrive, which is always a good thing.
duck noodle, grilled squid, lala, Hokkien mee
So how are those dishes?
Pork offal – simply excellent, prepared right on point with those ginger balances porky taste. This with some beer would be heaven! Grilled squid was similarly enjoyable, with texture that’s just right, fresh, and bits of caramelized skin really bringing it to the next level. Love it.
The noodle dishes were pretty good, though I enjoyed their duck noodle quite a bit more than Hokkien mee, which I found pretty average.
pork offal with ginger
We thought the lala dish was a bit.. odd tasting. It was sort of like Thai steamed fish sort of sauce, sourish and slightly spicy, but with lala. I guess some may like it that way, but not exactly my cup of tea.
Overall though it was a very positive experience, will order a different type of lala preparation and perhaps skip the Hokkien mee next time. Pork offal & squid would be the two dishes I’d definitely order.
Address: Restoran Hin Kee 26, Jalan Dua, Taman Meru, 41050 Klang, Selangor GPS: 3.063454, 101.451322 Hours: Open for dinner
My day job brings me to Kota Kinabalu quite often these days, which is a bit of a blessing when it comes to work travel as this North Borneo city does offer a full package of beautiful ocean & beaches, the magnificent mount KK, and a host of rather unique hawker dishes not easily found this side of Klang Valley. I’m also particularly blessed to have friends who would bring me to explore these places.
Kedai Kopi Wah Juan, Kota Kinabalu
During my last visit, I had to go offshore for a short stint. For Sabah, that meant using the old Terminal 2 at BKI airport (who has flown Air Asia flight via this side before?). On my return trip, my friend Yann May picked me up and we decided to stopped by this rather busy looking kopitiam located by Tanjung Aru, between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 of the airport.
As it turned out, this was the famous Kedai Kopi Wah Juan that offers mixed pork (or pork offal) noodle which if I remember correctly, is an addiction of a friend who claimed to eat clean otherwise.
our lunch spread for two
We ended up ordering a plate of noodle with roast & bbq pork (as the lady doesn’t eat pork offal, WHYY!?), a bowl of beef ball soup, a plate of noodle with pork offal, and an additional small plate of pork offal.
Well, the result? It was awesome!
Can’t say much about those BBQ & roast pork, but the pork offal was on point, soft, flavorful, and properly braised to perfection. In addition, the home made noodle were superb as well, subtle in taste which compliments the other ingredients, and soaks up those sauce just nice. The beef ball soup too did not disappoint, and would be something I order again.
If I had to nitpick, they could do with slightly better chili paste, that’s about it.
