Malaysian | Ziggy

Malaysian food would be food primarily found in Malaysia, or done in the Malaysian style.

Malaysian Food/Cantonese Food

May 2021

One of the best place for Malaysian style food!

They declare themselves serving Cantonese food, we can’t argue with that! Its menu is decisively Cantonese, with some sections and items in strictly Cantonese, like 靓汤 (nice or beautiful soup), 好犀利 (awesome) and 唔得顶 (unbeatable). And then there is a tom yam seafood soup…. Didn’t know sawadikap is Cantonese! Hahaha

Anyway, a few of the very friendly staff there speaks Cantonese, from Malaysia, and generally it’s Malaysian style food. I would refuse to call it a Cantonese restaurant as it serves one of the best Hokkien noodle in town, although in Kuala Lumpur, we always order our Hokkien Mee in Cantonese….

Enough of being silly and pedantic…. The char siew came first, it was pretty impressive! Tender and tasteful, wonderfully done! My only complaint is that it was warm…. Think about it, how often do we actually plonk the whole char siew gleefully in our mouth and got to open it again to release hot air? It’s not too hot that you follow that action with the fanning of the hand in front of the mouth but it was warm, still deciding if I like it that way, but taste and texture wise, it was brilliant. At about $2 a piece (quite a chunk size), it didn’t come cheap though!

Next up was a clay pot pork liver, recommended stuff by the staff, good stuff, and staff too… we were scrambling to take the liver out of the very hot pot for fear of it over cooking the liver, but the liver was never really overcooked and its texture remained nice. Good recommend.

Then came the Cantonese fried Yuen Yang (sea food fried bee hoon and kway teow). It was quite decent, probably one of the better ones I’ve had in a while. This is a dish that I’ve been asking around if there is a good one, and everyone seems to agree it’s not easy to find. I really miss the one I had a Restoran Sea View, fried by Mr Lye Fatt, whose Hokkien and Cantonese fried whatever was amongst the best. I understand from my dad that he was one of the 3 apprentices of the master that created these 2 dishes of fried noodles, all 3 were very famous, most people may not know their names or shops but everyone knew them when their stalls are mentioned. All 3 are not around anymore…. Which brought me to think that I was envious of my dad, we tried this on his birthday, and I thought he’s probably enjoying tea with Uncle Lye Fatt, who cooked some very nice Cantonese and Hokkien noodle for him.

Pardon me. The bee hoon was fried crispy and almost burnt, in the traditional KL style, then served with a thick soupy base of white sauce with sea food. If I had a choice, I’d order mine with just pork, so this is the negative for me. It was nice and fragrant, and full of “wok hei” (the aroma of a very hot wok”) and the base gooey with flour, just the way it should be. It is 2-3 notches below Master Lye Fatt, but still one of the better ones as most are not quite half as good….

Then came the KL fried Hokkien noodle, aka the KL thick noodle, aka the KL dark noodle. This one is quite decent, the basic taste is there, slightly sweet, which it shouldn’t be, but when they got the basic taste correct, it’s commendable. The noodle seems a bit thicker than the ones we are used to but the texture of the noodle is quite good. Served with pork slices, prawns, pork lard and clams. The clams were odd but no complaints, the rest are standard stuff. So this is as authentic as it can be in terms of taste to the ones in KL. A good effort but it costs about as much as you flying there to have one!

This is a nice place for food. Ample parking, it wasn’t too crowded on a Saturday evening peak. We did see a lot of reserved tables but when we left at 7+, there were still ample seats.

Food R Us

3 Queen Road, #02-171, s260003

10am – 11pm Daily

https://www.facebook.com/Food-R-Us-191428780891124/

Lucky

Malaysian Food, Chicken Rice, Niang Doufu

Feb 2020

A bona fide Malaysian Restaurant, with various Malaysian dishes, passes all taste tests!

This is an interesting place, at the corner of Sims Avenue and Lorong 17 Geylang, you cannot find the name of the restaurant anywhere. I managed to make a guess from the T-shirt that some of the staff were wearing, which says Lucky Seafood….

It is supposed to be a tze char restaurant but prominently in the middle of this coffee shop are 2 stalls, one selling Ipoh beansprout chicken rice, the other niang doufu.

The niang doufu comes with either a bowl of noodle, or chee cheong fun with sweet or curry sauce. The noodle is nice and springy, slightly thinner than udon and comes in a delicious soup. The sweet and chilli sauces are nice and thick too. The stuffing for the niang doufu is made from mackerel, you’ll know it when you’re there, as a TV will constantly tell you about it through an interview the owner gave.

Some items come in a bowl of soup, I love the soup but a friend dosn't like it saying that it is a bit fishy. The niang doufu is wonderful but “a little” on the oily side, especially when you are choosing the items. You’d be using an oily tong, to pick some fried stuff, onto an even oilier basket, the oiliest I have ever seen outside a fish and chips kitchen…. Despite this, it’s well worth the trouble as it is quite impressive. Note: I STRONGLY recommend you bring tissues along, preferably wet ones…. For using after choosing your niang doufu.

The KL hokkien noodle will be an item that catches your attention. I’ll just say I have tasted better, it is not wet enough, the noodle is thicker than usual, and the sauce just lacks something, so says my sister, the queen of KL Hokkien noodle. I'd like to point out that this is an Ipoh restaurant, don’t expect them to do well with a KUALA LUMPUR mee (and vice versa) 😎

Kampong (village) chickens are used for the beansprout chicken, they have a deep yellow colour, and smaller in size. It is a little bit salty, though savoury is more apt, juicy and tender. The rice is nice and fragrant too. Termed beansprout chicken, but you have to order the beansprouts separately 😆🙄, which is a simple dish with beansprout on soy sauce. Coming from Ipoh, the place famous for producing one of the best beansprouts in the region because of the fresh spring water they are grown on, it is deliciously crunchy, well worth a try.

Besides those, they also serve asam laksa, I don’t think anyone I’m close to likes this much, but I happen to bump into a friend while I was there, who happened to order this. His conclusion is that it is authentic, sourly sweet and nice. Also prominently advertised is the “old mother hen fish head steamboat”, sound good!

A decent place to come for Malaysian style Hokkien noodle and especially the niang doufu, and quite decent plate of chicken rice!

Lucky Seafood Catering

134 Sims Avenue (Lorong 17), s387456

1100am - 1130pm Daily

https://www.facebook.com/Lucky-Catering-%E5%B9%B8%E8%BF%90%E8%8F%9C%E9%A6%86-1635420773361909/

TKS

Malaysian Food, Tze Char

May 2021

Inspired by the legendary Tuck Kee Restaurant in Ipoh, some Ipohans collaborated with one of the sons of the the restaurant owner, to offer similar food items as the original Tuck Kee, with the help of some former staff of the restaurant.

So what’s good here? I will be extrapolating, I’ve tried a few dishes and extend my views on some others.

Ipoh Tuck Kee Son at Katong

Ipoh Tuck Kee Son at Toa Payoh

The Yut Kong Hor, or “Moonlight Hor Fun” is definitely the must try dish here. It is exceptional, one of its kind. The taste is very distinct and unique, and wonderful. Served with black sauce, or “dry”, and comes with a raw egg (hence the moonlight) on top. Do what you want with the egg, it pretty much remains raw all over the dish. The taste is a mixture of wonder in your mouth, sweet, sesame, garlicky, smooth, salted. The mixture of taste is wonderful, fighting for attention of your taste buds. Prawns, pork and lard pieces fill the dish too, good amount of ingredients but can’t call it generous.

The rest are good stuff but not really stand outs. The baby octopus in soy sauce is worth a mention. Brilliantly boiled to retain freshness, they are tender and tasty. Probably something I would always order. La La lime (or clams in lime) is also worth a mention, but it’s just nice and easy.

The Wat Tan Hor, or Hor Fun in smooth egg gravy, is a another good shout but I find that not everyone enjoys it. Also served with prawns, pork slices and lard, you get pieces of pork intestines too. Comes in a bowl, the sauce is thick but fills the bowl like a soup dish. It is like the Cantonese style noodles in KL. The white sauce is tasty and definitely up the scale in terms of taste, up there with the better ones.

There is also the Dai Loke Mee (KL Hokkien Noodles). People from KL often copy Ipoh and Penang food, not many do it as well somehow; this is also true in reverse. They do a decent job, at least the noodles are of the right size! The taste is actually good, but it has too much of the unique Tuck Kee sauce. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure, the traditionalist in me say it is, but the adventurous me says it’s fantastic. You decide!

I would expect the other noodle dishes to have the unique Tuck Kee taste, so take your pick of noodles, I haven’t tried any but seems like you’d have to tell them to make it Yu Kong style if you want the raw egg.

The pork balls are ok, but nothing special.

Footnote: there is a Tuck Kee Son (without Ipoh) at Jalan Besar that is not related to the 3, and both are now not exactly related to the original Ipoh restaurant. I lump them together as they taste almost the same, with the Jalan Besar one I feel tasting slightly better with some extra oomph.

Ipoh Tuck Kee Son

2 Jalan Bukit Merah, #01-5134, s150002

Daily 11am – 3pm; 5pm – 10pm

865 Mountbatten Road, #B1-85 Katong Shopping Centre, s437844

Daily 11am – 3pm; 5pm – 10pm

9 Toa Payoh Industrial Park, Singapore 319061

Daily 11am – 3pm; 5pm – 10pm

https://www.facebook.com/Tuckkeeson/