We had our lunch first before headed out for Matta Fair at PWTC. Of the many choices available, we settled for curry fish head at Cheong Hin, supposed to be a branch of the famous Puchong’s. I once read about this shop from a blog, but I can’t recall the link. It is located at South City commercial area and its not very difficult to find as it is a corner shop lot with a rather big sign board.

Nothing special inside, typical Chinese restaurant.

We had their tau fu which didn’t really taste like tau fu but rather steamed eggs with some spring onions on top as garnishments. Nothing great, nothing bad and nothing special. It wasn’t cheap also, priced at RM12.

Only stupid less intelligent people will order bean sprout while dining in a Chinese restaurant and among us, there was one who just had to order bean sprout as our vegetable dish. For God’s sake, the plate of bean sprout was RM10. RM10 for a 50 cent worth of bean sprouts. Rip off! I wasn’t paying attention when he ordered that dish and imagine the dumbfounded face I had when the waitress served the plate of bean sprout.

Pork ribs cooked sweet and sour style, not too bad but it’s still on the expensive side. Again, nothing great, nothing bad and nothing special.

Of course, we ordered their famous curry fish head. I really like the curry sauce, hint of spiciness with coconut milk to give the creamy and smooth texture and also lots of vegetables to go along with the fish. However, there weren’t much meats on the head, hence, I reckon it would be better if we ordered the body or tail part instead. Overall, it was pretty good and delicious. The price? RM28 for small, RM40 for medium and RM50 for large; ours were RM34.

Our meal came with complimentary watermelon with sago dessert, which tasted very diluted.

The bill came up to RM84, with RM17 per head. Pretty expensive, I would say. However, I might or might not go back there for their fish head and nothing more than that.

I tried really hard to think of a decent place to bring my KL colleagues for a good meal but I can’t seem to think of any, until I recalled reading Yung.’s posts on a Teo Chew restaurant called Teo Soon Loong Chan, somewhere near Jonker Street.

My aunt and dad have both said that the food at the restaurant has deteriorated over the years and the price is really on the high side for Malacca’s standard. However, since KL people generally think that Malacca’s food are cheap, this is my best chance to try this restaurant as I was pretty sure my colleagues wouldn’t mind paying a little bit more for food.

The restaurant is situated right at a crossroad, connecting Jonker Street and Blacksmith Street. It is also near the pau shop that sells the famous small big pau that I once blogged about. It is also a few meters away from Cheng Hoon Ting temple.

It is believed that the business is so good that reservations are needed as there are only a few tables (Six, at most.) inside. The air-conditioned shop is rather small and very old school. Bottles of liquors are displayed on the shelves. Heh, I even saw some Jack Daniels on it. Since there’s not much space inside the shop, the kitchen is placed outside, along the road and you can see the chef in action.

There are two kinds of chilies placed on the table. The sambal belacan and the cili padis in some kind of lime sauce. However, I didn’t touch any of it though as I prefer my food to taste original.

An old man / waiter will then lead you to a corner where they placed their seafoods like oysters, clams, soft shell crabs, sea cucumbers and etc., with ice on top to keep it cold. All you have to do is point at the items you want to eat and the old man will decide the cooking style for you. He even wrote down our dessert even before we agreed to it. So much for customer first policy.

Their specialty is their oyster noodles. It tasted reasonably good but there are better ones out there, like the stall at Jalan Bunga Raya. The sauce wasn’t thick enough but the noodles were just nice. The biggest letdown was the oysters used weren’t fresh at all.

Another specialty is their tau fus with minced meat. The tau fus are briefly pan fried on the outside to give the slight crispiness and colour. I reckon the tau fus are homemade as they were really soft and smooth. Definitely a must order won’t go wrong dish when you dine in.

Clams cooked in sambal belacan sauce. The sauce was really great, mild spiciness with a bit of sweetness in it. However, the clams weren’t fresh and I reckon it has been frozen for too long. The shells were so fragile, as it would break into many pieces the moment you tried to suck the meat out of its shell. It was really irritating to eat the clams as I had to use my hands to slowly pull out the meat.

Fish (What fish is this anyway?) steamed teo chew style. This isn’t the teo chew style that I used to know, or at least, not even a single bit like my mum’s. Not only they over steamed the fish, I couldn’t taste the natural sweetness of the fish meat due to the heavy seasoning of the sauce. They even put tiny bits of minced meat in it. Something is really wrong with this dish.

At least the vegetables were really fresh and crunchy. Heh! I like the thick chicken stock based sauce they used to cook the vegetable too.

Actually, their dessert was the thing that I have been waiting throughout the dinner. As far as I know, their yam puree is one of the best, if not, the best, in Malacca. It was really smooth, not too thick yet not too watery, just the right amount of liquidness and solidness. Served with pumpkin’s puree and some ginkgo seeds. You mix all three together and you are
on your way to heaven, literally. My mum would only make either one of the two, but not both. I don’t really like the pumpkin’s on its own, but after mixing it with the yam, absolutely delicious.

The bill came up to RM150, with RM30 each for the five of us. Yes, it was definitely on the high side as expected. However, my KL colleagues looked really satisfied and happy walking out from the restaurant. At least, that’s what I could read from their facial expression and they didn’t complain as well. However, for me, it was a rather disappointing meal. While the tastes were nice, the freshness of the ingredients were really not up to the standard.

Will I be back? Perhaps, when I don’t know where to go, someone is footing the bill and I am craving for their dessert. And the odds of all three factors popping up at one time is relatively low.

An old school full manual Yashica film camera, an Olympus digital camera and a Sony Ericsson K700i phone camera in one picture. They are all cameras, but totally different from each other. Technology, that’s what we called.

11 months with Nuffnang (February 27 until January 30), this was my first cheque from Nuffnang.

RM830.14. Neat.

Have you joined Nuffnang?

However, this money is going to Bryan’s bank account though as I owe him some money.

I always wanted to try this place after being told by someone that the restaurant was featured by “Taste With Jason“. The shop is called “Lao Di Fan 老地方”, loosely translated as old place and is conveniently located at Taman Kota Laksamana.

The business hour is as stated in the photo. If you can’t read it, lunch hour is from 12 noon to 3pm and dinner time starts from 7pm to 10pm. However, it is advisable that you make a reservation few hours before your meal time. Contact number is 06-2830681 and 012-2760932.

They only serve can drinks though. Green tea, anyone?

We (Allison, Debbie and I) ordered their curry fish fillet, which tasted pretty well. It was cooked with coconut milk, giving it a very fragrant smell and thick sauce. Along came with pieces of lady fingers and brinjals. However, I reckon that the fish fillet should be pan fried a little to give it a better texture, especially on the outer side.

Deep fried chicken chunks with mayonnaise. Nothing special about it but the chicken was nicely deep fried and crunchy

This tasted absolutely just like the normal sweet and sour pork, except that its tau fu this time. There were bits of pineapple chunks, vegetables and corns in it. I find the the portion of the dish is a little on the smaller side. Nope, not recommended.

I wonder why the choi dam wasn’t crunchy as it supposed to be. Nicely stir fried with small shrimps.

The bill came up to roughly RM14 per head, just about the average price that I have expected before the dinner. While I don’t really know their signature dishes that made them being featured on “Taste With Jason”, I reckon that this place is still worth visiting, since there aren’t many decent Chinese restaurants in the town.