The black pepper lamb (RM22.00)…was certainly an improvement from how I remembered it to be. My late father used to buy home from here for everyone in the house to eat, those years when my late mum was bedridden. This time around, the meat was very nice and tender and unlike before, the sauce did not taste like what came out of the bottle like what one would get when eating that once-a-year burger in the hope that one would strike it rich and be very prosperous!
My girl also wanted their salad prawn balls (RM13.00)…and I would say that this dish was my favourite of the three.
We wanted fish and settled upon snow fish…also known among the people here as Alaska fish or 鱈魚 in Mandarin which is, in fact, cod. My missus said it would be very expensive as one slice at the frozen foods stores would cost over RM20.00 each and we got two slices but as far as I was concerned, I thought it was perfectly all right as we would not be eating it all that often and besides, my girl enjoys it very much, just like how she loves the just-as-expensive salmon.
I loved this fried tofu topped with seaweed and garnished with enoki…and whatever else – I certainly would want to order this again the next time I drop by here.
We had one of their signature dishes, the kampua mee…which was very nice but I think it had been cooked for a while already before it was served so the strands of noodles all stuck together and it was quite a task to toss and shake them loose.
their sweet and sour giant udang galah (freshwater prawns)… New Capitol sweet & sour udang galah …certainly were like no other sweet and sour dishes that we had had elsewhere and this one was truly a winner!
The rice was not lemak, only very slightly and the salted fish was like it had been fried a long time ago… The sambal was all right, thankfully as it did help make the rice more palatable to some extent and the fried chicken was…like fried chicken.
I also ordered the pian sip, dry (RM3.00)…and that I would say was its saving grace and I quite enjoyed it.
I also asked for a large plate of fried kway teow (RM10.00)…to share and this too was very good and I liked how they went through the trouble of removing the tails of the taugeh (bean sprouts) – they do not bother doing that elsewhere.
We also ordered the lamb with lime sauce…and I only found out that night that they had mayonnaise in it with the lime. It was nice but I think it was nicer when we had it before – the meat was not grilled that well enough.
This very nice claypot fish dish…which was very nice though I wouldn’t mind a little bit more fish and yam and tofu puffs – the next time I order that, I will certainly ask for more of those and maybe, pay a little bit more.
We had the sizzling venison on a hot plate…something we had not had for quite sometime and the general consensus was that it was very nice.
I had these…and also this very nice pork, RM6.00…that was a cut above the sweet and sour fish fillet that I also had, I must say.
Their own-made tofu…was very good
This time around, I ordered their bak chang (meat dumplings) with salted egg (RM5.50)…and it was very good – lots of meat inside and one whole salted egg yolk that was very nice and fresh…
Thankfully, the kampua mee (RM2.80)…was very good – I certainly would rank it among my favourites and it is a little cheaper than a lot of places around town, usually RM3.00…or more.
I had the kampua mee pok (flat noodles), white (with light soy sauce), tossed in (bottled) chili sauce with pian sip (RM3.20)…and one thing I noticed was that the mee pok seemed a little narrower and thinner…than those I had elsewhere and boy, they sure gave a lot of it! Maybe that is why people do not mind one bit that they would need to fork out 20 sen more here.
I asked for a recommendation and they unreservedly told me the Fish Fillet Burger with Egg and Cheese (RM 3.90) was their bestseller. This actually tasted pretty good! I liked the crunchy fish fillet and the creamy egg with the pillowy soft chu nu miang. Nice!
She had her favourite sambal fried kway teow here…with a special request for it to be extra spicy, of course and I ordered the same for my girl but I asked for it to be fried “white” or without soy sauce, that is…She did not seem to enjoy it so much though and was struggling with it and in the end, I think she barely finished half of it. I did try a bit and I thought it was all right just that it was not quite the same – I guess we are more used to having soy sauce in our char kway teow and would prefer it that way.
She ended up having the tom yam hung ngang (big bihun) from one of the stalls instead (RM8.00)…The mum declared that she had it before, praising it to the skies and insisted it was really very good and kept saying repeatedly that they made their own bay kar /ikan tenggiri (mackerel) fish balls and so on and so forth.
It tasted all right, more like kampua mee, I would say, right down to the chili sauce given. By right, we would get sliced chili soaked in vinegar with kolo mee. The minced meat…looked like it had been reheated over and over again many times till it became rather salty, not something to my liking and the serving was really huge – in fact, I was quite shocked when I saw the lady taking the noodles to cook so of course, I did not finish all of it. All I wanted was something light for tea but there was nothing else.
I asked for the kampua mee with egg (RM3.00) and got the noodles, kosong (without meat)…and one wok-fried egg…Yes, the mee was great and the egg was done the way I love it!
Unlike most elsewhere where the broth tastes of black soy sauce and garlic soup, more or less, the one here (RM8.00)…has that exotic fragrance of the spices that go into the cooking and I would say that initially, it took a little bit of getting used to. Once I got the hang of it, I started to enjoy it…a lot!
Mee sapi/beef noodles (RM6.00) The soup was great, wouldn’t mind if the beef taste had been a little bit stronger and I seemed to detect a hint of sweetness in it. However, despite that, I rather enjoyed it and I loved the noodles and the meat with their special own-made chili dip…which I finished while I was halfway through and I had to ask for some more.
I decided to throw caution to the wind and order the butter prawns (RM20.00)…as we had not had that for a while now. Usually, we would go for the creamy or butter scotch or honey “prawn balls” – prawns without head or shell, all curled up into a ball after cooking as it seemed to be cheaper that way. I expected whole prawns like the ones we had that evening to cost a hand or a foot but it did not turn out to be very expensive, after all and of course, the best part would be the fact that they did it really well. The buttery fibrous egg topping was perfectly done and we sure enjoyed this dish very much.
I tried the steamed meat pao (RM2.00)…and it was quite good – I like paos with egg in it
I ordered the tomato kway teow special that I had before not too long ago, the regular not the special and it was really good. The kway teow was so very well-fried…I could detect the wok hei fragrance as I loosened the strands of the noodles.
Soon, my order arrived (RM8.00)…- my Foochow fried noodles, the moon version, special with all the liver and innards, char siew, strips of meat, fish cake slices, fried tofu and oh me oh my, it was as good as it looked.
Fried kway teow (flat rice noodles), wet (with sauce/gravy) I tried it and was glad to find that it was very nice. It had that much coveted wok hei fragrance and the guy was very generous with the added ingredients…unlike elsewhere where you will get bits of meat and green vegetables hardly visible to the naked eye for that same amount of money.
This is called the Green Dragon vegetable (青龙菜) or the royale chives…which I hear is not available locally and is served at this restaurant by special order. I quite enjoyed it – it had a slight hint of the fragrance of regular chives.
The kampua mee…was very good and I loved that the guy used stewed pork unlike many other places where they would give you paper thin slices of boiled pork coloured red in the hope that it would look like char siew.
I asked for the lor mee (RM6.00)…and it came in no time at all. Yes, it was very nice though I would not mind a thicker broth with a bit more egg in it – I could see some bits of the egg but there was so little of it, it might as well not have been there.
One that caught my attention was their crispy pata or what we call the Philippine pork leg…Seeing that there were only the three of us, the lady who came to take our order suggested half of it only for RM28.00. Wowwwww!!! I thought the price was kind of steep but never mind! I had not had it for a long time and I would like to see if the one here would be worth coming back for. Well, unfortunately, it was at best, just o.k. and not really to my liking – I thought it was on the dry side and a bit too hard.
However, when we heated it up…to eat, we were somewhat disappointed. No, it was not supposed to be that way, nothing like rendang as I know it to be and definitely not like one of my favourites that I had enjoyed before. It wasn’t really like curry either but it was closer to that than rendang – let’s just say it was their version of curry, not the best, of course, but it was all right, that much I would say. One thing I would give them due credit for would be how the meat was very tender.
It was good – there were lots of ingredients including a few prawns and bits of sotong (squid) , a couple of fried fish slices and some vegetables plus the pork fat crusts (bak yu phok) but I would not mind a stronger wok hei fragrance. Yes, they do not use plastic here too – a pat on the back for that.
I ordered their fried noodles, moon and sat there and waited. Boy! For reasons unknown, it sure took a mighty long time like that time when I was there for the kampua mee and when it was served…I must say that I was quite disappointed. It sure did not look all that enticing. However, when I tried it, I thought it was quite good…but for RM4.50 a plate, I sure wouldn’t mind a few thin slices of their char siew or roast meat. This place is famous for those or perhaps I was too early in the morning and they were not ready yet – the cabinet at the stall designated for those was still empty
I had no intention of joining all the cars moving at a snail’s pace so I decided to stop by the aforementioned coffee shop for the kampua noodles…I was delighted to see that they used real char siew (barbecued meat) instead of those wannabes – boiled pork coloured red, and the char siew was really very nice! All this while, I had been grumbling that I could not get very nice char siew here, nothing like those in KL or elsewhere in the peninsula, but this one here wasn’t too bad. Now I know where I can go to should I happen to have a craving for it.
The kampua mee was in a bigger bowl and the soup…came in an even bigger one, not the usual aluminium bowl that was somewhat small. I sure enjoyed both the noodles and the thick and rich soup with a whole lot of meat, beef tripe and beef tendon in it.
The noodles came – this…kampua mee kosong with black soy sauce. Now, we never said we wanted it black. I am no fan of it black as the strong taste of the soy sauce would be overpowering and it would drown out the nice subtle taste of really good kampua mee.
I felt like having their beef noodles, our favourite in town, so I ordered the special (RM8.00)…with all the tripe and tendons…and the meat that all went so well with the chili dip that came with it.
Their braised pork rice (RM5.00)…Of course I wasted no time at all in ordering that and yes, it was very nice – very generous with the pork…and there was one whole hard-boiled egg by the side. I certainly would much sooner go for this than what I had here for a ringgit more and no egg.
I remember I quite enjoyed what I had there sometime ago but this time around, the red wine was very sour, so sour that it would have been great had it been a bowl of zhao chai hung ngang. I suspected they did not manage to get hold of a good batch of the wine – sometimes it can be sour – but a friend commented on Facebook that she would go there quite regularly and everytime she had the mee sua, it was sour. If I had known that, I would have gone some place else, not there. I remember it was RM6.50 the last time I had it but it is only RM6.00 now, I wonder why.
I loved the stuffed chili and salted egg and the fried chicken was so well marinated with kunyit (turmeric) and whatever else and was very very nice plus it was not over-fried till hard and dry like the ones at some places here.
I asked for the nasi lemak special (RM6.00)…and paid an extra ringgit, RM7.00 altogether for that one half of a salted egg. Yes, the last time I bought some salted eggs, they were already around RM1.30 each, uncooked. The sambal was great…though not spicy at all and they did give one salted fish alongside the few peanuts and two slices of cucumber and the egg…though a little overdone, was fried the way I would like it and the chicken wing…was like chicken wing, nothing exceptional about it. Sadly, the green-tinted rice was not lemak at all, none of the rich santan (coconut milk) taste and despite the colour, I could not detect any pandan fragrance in it either. I guess it is pretty obvious that should I happen to drop by here anytime in the near future, I would not be ordering this again.
We also ordered the sweet and sour or chio/ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret)…and got a big one and yes, we liked it a lot too.
I asked for the bawal hitam (black pomfret) to be just deep fried like that, no flour, no sauce, nothing and this was what we got (RM18.00)…They got it right the first time but the 2nd time, they coated it with flour prior to frying and thankfully, it was tapioca, not wheat. This time around, they sprinkled some soy sauce over it and I was quite pissed off by how they could not stick to my specific instructions. We quickly removed the skin and the soy sauce on the outside so my girl was able to eat the soy sauce-free inside of the fish.
