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.