The Malaysian Food Review

Once in a while, when you just feel like you have eaten a whole lot of meat, you’d like to have something light.  So, i found this wonderful Restraurant in Ipoh serving Lui Char, a dominantly vegeterian dish.  Restaurant Chor Kee is also rather famous for it’s Bak Kut Teh, but that is for another day when i feel more carnivorous.  The restaurant itself is tucked away in Ipoh Garden East.  One of the most popular residential areas in Ipoh town itself.

It is a traditional Hakka Dish.  Served normally in two seperate bowls, one with the rice + ingredients and the other with the sauce/soup.

The rice here comes with a whole lot of ingredients.  From what i could remember, it included, peanuts, onions, cabbage, four-angled beans, long beans, two other greens and fried dried prawns (the only non-vegeterian ingredient). The sauce/soup is more often the make or break part of the dish.  The soup is made of boiled tea, vegetables i don’t know their names and a bit of mint.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You eat Lui Char by mixing the it all into something close to a mush.  It’s a dish you either like or hate and nothing in between.  This particular stall is managed by a guy with spiky hair and his father.  I haven’t found a place in around KL serving this dish that is quite as good as this one.

Other than Lui Char they also serve other Hakka delicacies like Yong Tau Foo and Cakes.  The Yong Tau Foo filling is slightly different from the norm.  It has pork mixed with the normal fish paste in its filling, which is claimed to be the most authentic way.  Of course when in Ipoh, you always have to try the white coffee too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How’s the Food?  Lui Char (8/10); Yong Tau Foo (6.5/10); White Coffee (6.5/10)

How much is it? Lui Char RM3.00; Yong Tau Foo RM 0.40 per piece; White Coffee RM 1.10

Will I return?  Definitely, well worth it.

[Ratings]

A friend recommended this place to me after he heard that it sells 6/7 different types of soups. And since I love steamboat (not as much as bak kut teh, but more than chicken rice), I drove all the way to Sri Petaling to check it out. Making a booking is advised as this place can get pretty full. On weekends, the wait could be up to 1 hour. Because of this reason, and also because I am a nice guy, I took the trouble to list down the phone number below.

When you first enter the restaurant, you will notice that it is very simple inside. Even the floor is not tiled, it is merely painted concrete. The tables come with built-in steamboat holsters (?!?!). Try to get a table away from the walls as I have seen cute little baby cockroaches running around there.

You will be given a menu with many items listen on it, and a piece of paper to order your food, Kim Gary style. Please look out on the walls for pictures of their special dishes that are not listed on the menu. Don’t ask me why.

The good thing about the menu here is that it’s ala carte. You might end up paying more, but at least you get to choose what you want rather than eating the funny crap you get at the steamboat places with a standard menu.

They have also got a nice selection of chilli on the table. There is this one chilli that looked very similar to the famous kin kin chilli. It looked so similar that I had to try it before my drink could even arrive. I concluded that whilst it tastes quite similar, nothing beats kin kin.

First thing to choose is the soup. There were many soups on the menu but only 3 that I would consider consuming. My 2 favourites were tom yam and herbal soup. The tom yam soup is very very good. If not for my weak tummy I could drink that stuff all day. The herbal soup on the other hand is a bit bland. However, as the meal progresses, the soup becomes thicker, and nicer. Towards the yee mee end of the meal, the herbal soup is delicious.

I ordered fish balls, pork balls, chicken slices, pork slices, fish, mushrooms, crabsticks, and a special dish, which is pork ball with mushroom. This much is enough to fill up 4 people.

While waiting for the food to come, you can scribble on the walls. Don’t worry, this will not get you thrown out. It is allowed.

This place must be cool… Larrie has eaten there…

Once the food arrives, you should be careful to not let any of the meat juices from the plate upon which the raw meat is placed flow into the steamboat. It looks disgusting.

Now, because I am rather free today, let me give you a steamboat tip. This is what you should not do when eating steamboat:

If no one else wants egg in their noodles, please don’t try to put the egg in your bowl and then think that by pouring the hot noodles and soup onto the raw egg it will cook. Because it will not.

Even if you do this it won’t help.

You will end up dumping the contents of your bowl into the rest of the herbal soup, ruining it for everybody. Then no one will like you.

Okay that is all the time I have for now. Before I forget, the phone number for this place is 03-9059 4353. The address is No. 19, Ground Floor, Jalan 13/149L, Sri Petaling. It is located near the Sri Petaling branch of Ipoh Chicken rice. Should you require further directions please do not hesitate to ask. The above meal for 4 people came up to RM80. I would give this place a 9/10.

[Ratings]

Any self-respecting person will know that the only decent breakfast dish on a Sunday morning is dim sum, or bak kut teh. Last weekend, I had a craving for the former.

When I think of dim sum, I think of Sri Petaling. This place I went to has been there for quite some time now and is always very crowded. If you go after 12 noon it is likely that they would have run out of some of their more popular dishes. It is located along the same row as the Public Bank and the KFC at Sri Petaling, directly opposite the 7-11. There is also a newer place for dim sum in Sri Petaling, located about a 5 minute walk away from this one, but I refuse to go there because I believe they are just copycats stealing business from the people who made a good name for themselves there.

This shop has tables inside and outside, but because of the location, the morning sun hits the outside of the shop, and therefore it is always recommended you sit inside. “Inside” consists of 2 shop lots, one belonging to the dim sum people, and the other belonging to the neighbouring bak kut teh shop. (For BKT fans out there, I have not tried the BKT here yet. I don’t think I will be trying it in the near future. Maybe one of you can try it and tell me what it is like).

Now, back to my dim sum, the service here is pretty good. You don’t have to wait too long before some skinny Chinese/Burmese/Nepalese boy carries over one of those huge wooden steaming devices to your table. There is also a very wide variety of things. I have heard very good things about the Char Siew Pau here but due to stomach capacity constraints I could not sample it.

Before I get into my review proper, let me first warn all of you that this is going to be filled with technical terminology that most of you may not understand. Most of my technical terminology will be used to describe the food, its ingredients, etc. Please try to stay focused throughout the lecture.

I shall describe the above dishes clockwise, starting from the above left. As you all can see, this is clearly some stuff with a bit of crabstick on top of it. I for the life of me don’t know what is in it, but it tastes pretty good. Next up is the long cylindrical shaped stuff with a brown outer layer. This stuff tastes good too, but not as good as the crabstick stuff above. I also had to pull out a long piece of carrot hidden just under the brown outer layer as I thought it might spoil the taste. The final item in the above photo is fishball, which is stuck on some sort of flat thing. Due to the many items I ordered, I can’t remember what this one tastes like. But I am sure it was nice.

Moving on to the next photo, first (from the top, clockwise) is the carrot cake. I cannot for the life of me figure out why they call this carrot cake. There is no carrot in it. Anyway, this was not very good. The pieces of watchamacallit are too big. Then comes the salad prawn, which was quite good. I would rate it above average. Finally, I had the delicious cylindrical shaped brown thing. This is one of my favourites. It is nice and crunchy.

The Loh Mai Kai here is very average. It is a bit bland. I was extremely disappointed. This is definitely one thing they should work on improving.

The prawn wrapped in white stuff is one of the specialties here, and for a good reason (for those of you who are slow, the good reason being that it is delicious). But then again, not many places go wrong with this dish.

Pictured above (from the top, clockwise) is the stuff wrapped in yellow coloured stuff with a little carrot on top. This is another specialty here. Better than most places. A must have when you come here.

Next is the spicy gingery pork. This stuff tastes really good, but unfortunately the pieces of pork they give consists 90% of fat, bone and cartilage. If only they gave decent pieces of meat, I would be addicted to it.

The last thing I could stuff into my tummy before exploding were fishballs. Put any fishballs in front of me and I will finish them, and they all taste equally good to me.

The bill came up to around RM35.00 including 3 drinks. I wouldn’t know how that compares to other places.

Overall, I would say the dim sum here is above average. The shop has also been renovated recently to deal with the new competition nearby. I would give it a 7.5/10.