Tim Kei Chicken Rice, Equine Park

August 13th, 2008, Jason

Through Gary, I managed to get in touch with Satkuru. After some discussions, we decided to meet up for lunch at Equine Park on the following day. Since we were planned to meet up, I asked him to get William Leong to join us as well, since I wanted to meet him for quite some time too.

Satkuru, a blogger whose blog I read very often and randomly. He has been pinging Project Petaling Street and that was how I got to know his existence in blogsphere. Moreover, the fact that he knows most of my ex-classmates did intrigued me. As for William Leong, a featured blogger for Nuffnang, we have chatted a few times on IMs and I, too, occasionally read his blog.

They suggested the famous chicken rice at Equine Park, which I never heard of until that faithful day. Tim Kei chicken rice shop. They also sell mixed rice, char siew and siew yuk too!

Apparently, they were featured in many magazines, TV shows and even Hong Kong celebrities paid them a visit.

The usual sauces like dark soy sauce, soy sauce and home made chilies are already placed on the table. The chilies tasted superb, just like how my late grandmother used to make them. Fragrant and tasty, thick and spicy, the real chicken rice chili sauce. At other places, you get the superbly diluted version, where you taste sourness more than spiciness itself.

The rice didn’t taste like chicken rice at all. It didn’t have the strong chicken rice flavour and aroma. The restaurant calls the rice as yellow ginger rice (loosely translated).

Being the greedy ones, Ah Kit and I ordered their steamed chicken, roasted chicken, char siew and siew yuk. Heh!

The siew yuk was really nice, crunchy and juicy but not the case for their char siew, which tasted like a really thick piece of plastic toy food.

As for the roasted chicken, it was nothing close to their steamed chicken. The meat in the steamed chicken was much more tender and softer compared to its counterpart. Unlike the chickens in Malacca’s chicken rice ball shops. the meat were more chewy and had a firmer texture. It was a little dry but still delicious.

Not too bad, for my standard actually. Maybe I will return for more, just maybe.

One for the album, say cheese!

Serdang Little Kitchen Restaurant, Revisited

August 4th, 2008, Jason

We gathered once again.

Since I was in KL and we have yet to really celebrate Ah Yong’s birthday, Ah Kit and I decided to treat Ah Yong to a scrumptious meal. After some discussions, we decided to dine at Serdang Little Kitchen Restaurant (沙登小厨美食馆) again for its relatively cheap price.

I have blogged about this restaurant before, you can click here to read about it.

There weren’t many customers around when we arrived around 10pm. We proceeded to sit ourselves at a table near a television since we had to wait for Ah Kit to finish his classes at MMU Cyberjaya.

Ah Kit finally reached the restaurant at 10.30pm and Ah Yong was literally starved to death as he didn’t have dinner earlier. Although I had my dinner around 6pm at Pasta Zanmai, I couldn’t help it but felt hungry for I knew that we were going to have a very good meal in a short while.

First up was the free soup of the day. Since it’s free, I am not complaining. We drank this while waiting for Ah Kit.

When I walked in, I saw a clay pot curry that looked really tempting and delicious. Hence, I inquired about it and the waiter said it was clay pot curry fish head. Figuring that all of us don’t really know how to enjoy fish head, we opted for slices of fish meat.

When the dish was served, immediately, the aroma caught my attention and I took a sip of the curry. God! It was simply delicious. Judging from the colour and thickness of the curry, I reckoned it was cooked with ridiculous amount of coconut milk. Thick, aromatic and strong flavoured, definitely worth recommending. The three of us finished a bowl of rice by just mixing the curry sauce with our white rice.

Towards the end, I even suggested to the guys to order another pot but without the fish, just the vegetables alone.

We actually ordered the two flavoured pork ribs, but the waiter got the orders mixed up and we ended up with a plate of pork ribs cooked with fermented bean paste. It was nothing close to the awesome two flavoured pork ribs which I had during my previous visit. It was overcooked, hence, the stiffness and rubbery texture of the pork ribs. It was okay, but I would recommend the other pork ribs, which tasted much better.

Calamaris cooked in butter sauce wasn’t as good as I expected, considering their deep fried calamaris tasted really good. It was not entirely bad, but compare to the deep fried version, it lost out, by a pretty huge margin. However, the squids were still tender and juicy, but lacked the butter flavour.

Their deep fried seafood tofu, well, tasted average. We ordered this because we didn’t want to order vegetables. Ha! We wanted a slightly more balanced diet, instead of an all-meat meal.

Steamed prawns, probably the most expensive dish among all, was to show our respect for our brother, Ah Yong. Heh! The prawns, thank God, were really fresh and juicy. Opting for the steam version was indeed a wise choice, as we could savour the natural sweetness of the prawns without too much seasonings. Although the size of the prawns were on the smaller side, it wasn’t too bad as each of us had about three or four prawns each. There were a layer of steamed eggs at the bottom of the prawns as well.

Pardon the lousy picture, the dish was quite a mess to begin with, with all the coriander leaves and ginger slices on top.

Overall, it wasn’t a disappointing meal although there were two dishes were a slight disappointment. The bill came up to RM96, which I think it was still reasonable as we had seafood and all meat meal. Besides, we had a total of seven bowls of rice, if not mistaken.

Before we left, we had papayas and watermelons for dessert, which, I think was on the house.

We definitely had a good time eating dinner again.

While walking to our car, Ah Kit asked,

“Why do we always have to eat such big and heavy meal each time we meet up?”
“为什么我们每次四个在一起就一定要大吃大喝啊?”

I gave him my sneakiest and biggest grin ever.

Ya Lie Restaurant, Serdang

April 2nd, 2008, Jason

Simon once told me about a famous Chinese restaurant in Serdang that serves some fried fish dish, which was eventually featured in The Star not too long after that.

According to the address, my friends and I ended up at this restaurant called Ya Lie, according to han yu pin yin that is. I wasn’t sure whether it was this restaurant featured by The Star and the one Simon referring to, but we decided to give it a try as there were quite a crowd at that moment.

Again, it’s another makeshift restaurant. Honestly, there are many houses in this new village that were converted into restaurants, shop lots, food courts and etc. You can see restaurants practically every where and at every corner inside this super packed new village.

There were also three cooks, just liked the Serdang Little Kitchen Restaurant that I blogged about few days back and the food was served in no time. I don’t know what 菜胆 is called in English, but it tasted average. We eat healthily, hence, the greens, not some stupid rip-you-off bean sprouts.

We ordered half herbal chicken, which tasted rather bland. The soup wasn’t boiled long enough to let the herbs release their flavour and the chicken wasn’t soft enough.

Deep fried calamaris with salted egg. What’s with salted egg? I just ate salted egg with bitter gourd the other day. Salted egg with Gardenia bread, anyone? It’s not pure salted egg anyway, as there were chunks of onions, gingers and spring onions, a mixture of everything. The calamaris weren’t crunchy either. Not that bad, but I might or might not order it again, depends.

Deep fried seafood tau fu. Didn’t I tell you that homemade seafood tau fu is so overrated these days that every single restaurant calls them his / her specialty when I suspect it all comes from the same supplier. Someone should start investigating the origin of the so called homemade seafood tau fu and bust it for once and for all. Average, for me.

Their specialty, stuffed ma yau ala yong tau fu style. Well, they took out all the meat from the fish, minced and turned them into fish paste, before stuffing it back to the fish to deep fry. Well, it tasted pretty much like those fish paste in yong tau fu. However, it has a firmer texture and more bouncy. Nice and definitely delicious.

The bill came to RM84 and all of us got a shock of our life. However, after getting into the car and talking about it, we came to a conclusion that it was within the reasonable range as we had half a chicken, sotongs and a fish. Overall, we had a pretty decent and fulfilling meal.

Serdang Little Kitchen Restaurant

March 24th, 2008, Jason

I joined Ah Kit and his house mates for dinner during one of the evenings when I was bunking at his place. They brought me to this makeshift-from-a-house restaurant smacked right in the middle of Seri Kembangan Chinese New Village. The restaurant’s name is 沙登小厨美食馆 which loosely translated into Serdang’s Little Kitchen Restaurant.

It used to be a house, but has been turned into a restaurant, with plenty of tables and guests. Judging from the number of guests, I was pretty sure that either the taste was above average or the price was very cheap. There was a constant flow of customers in the shop.

We placed our orders and with three chefs working in the kitchen, it wasn’t too long when our dishes were being served. In fact, it was very fast compared to the number of customers they had at that moment.

Stir fried salted eggs with bitter gourd. It wasn’t very salty as they used just the right amount of salted eggs. The bitter gourds weren’t bitter at all as the egg yolks wrapped around the slices of bitter gourds like a piece of cloth. The dish was dry, hence, the slight crunchiness on the vegetable. Nice, in fact, it’s my first time eating bitter gourd this way. Unique, indeed.

They also ordered their tau fu which tasted rather average. You know, those seafood tau fu that they claimed to be their specialty dish but you get to eat them at any other Chinese restaurant.

Their deep fried calamari was absolutely fantastic, finger licking and crunchy-licious. It was really crunchy and appetizing. It has to do with the batter they used, as it was light and not too flourish. It was so crunchy that I thought I was eating some crackers / snacks and not squids. Heh!

Our last dish was the pork ribs in two flavours, the sweet and sour and mayonnaises. Not something to shout about yet something not to miss out, as it tasted quite nice. Normal for the dish, but nice for the taste. The colours of the garnishings (the “smelly” leaves and fried garlics) did complement each other; red and green, white and brown.

Best of all, there was a bowl of free soup for every table. Although not some fancy soup, but its free and nobody’s complaining.

The bill came up to RM48 for a table of four. That’s a freaking RM12 for a decent dinner, with meats, vegetables and tau fu. I don’t think you can get this price anywhere in KL. Not only the food was good, the price was cheap, no wonder there were so many people flocking to their restaurants throughout the night.

Honestly, I am going back there again and I am going to order a lot more dishes since the price is just way too cheap to be ignored. Worth a visit? Definitely.

Tiuniasing, you can try this restaurant, really!

Curry Fish Head @ Cheong Hin, South City Plaza

March 19th, 2008, Jason

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.