Puchong Yong Tau Foo

This particular place was sitting in my wishlist for some time now. When Cheryl said “I’ll bring you to Puchong for yong tau foo” last month, it didn’t even crossed my mind that it is the place I’ve been wanting to go all these time. A few left, right turns and “go straight” instructions (we passed by Tractors, pasar malam and an ugly-ly designed condo, I remembered that) and we arrived in front of the Han Ming Chinese School. The place is just opposite the school and we saw cars of all sizes parked haphazardly at the roadside.

Now, it would be advised that you come with 2 or more friends; one party to grab a table (especially during dinner peak hour) and another party to pick the fresh vegetables – red chillies, bitter gourd, brinjals, okras, tofu puffs, tofu and foo chook from the baskets and hand them over to the lady workers. They will stuff them with fish paste and cook them immediately.

While waiting for the yong tau foo to be served, David got himself a parcel of the paper-wrapped chicken which according to him, was just so so. Nothing fantastic to rave about. We also spotted a stall selling pan mee here. Pan mee with yong tau foo… sounds not bad eh?

Now, here was the part where my photo taking task came to the rescue. The big bowl of the vegetables stuffed with fish paste came first and as usual, I started my job. While I was busy taking pictures, Cheryl was busy staring and looking at the items in the bowl when she said “I remembered I picked more YTF than this portion. This bowl of YTF looked too little than what I picked.” Just when she said that, another worker came to our table with a bigger bowl and when she saw the YTF which arrived earlier, she started to yell to the other staff in Indo-language I assumed, saying that someone must have made a mistake to deliver that small bowl of YTF to us. She then checked the small paper attached with the bowl which has our table’s number written on it and asked another staff to take that away. We would have eaten the smaller portion of YTF if it’s not because of me! *cheeky grin*

We like both the stuffed vegetables and deep fried items. The stuffed vegetables came with soup made from ikan bilis stock and sayur manis leaves. The deep fried items were very crispy and fresh since they arrive straight from the wok – just the way we like them to be.

Each pieces costs RM1 (slightly pricier than other places). I really can’t remember how to get here again unless I have the directions or I should drag Cheryl along (?) but here are the address.

Puchong Yong Tau Foo
Lot 105, Batu 14,
Jalan Besar, Kampung Baru Puchong.
Business hour: 11am – 9.30pm.
Close on Mondays.

Those who also been here before (possible candidate for directions? :) ):

• Eat First Think Later
• God of Food
• Simple Tofu
• And They Lived Happily Ever After

Merdeka Open House: Mee and My Malaysia

Malaysia will be celebrating the 51 Independence Day celebration in another 5 days and every year, Babe will never fail to organise the Merdeka Open House event where floggers will blog about a particular genre of food based on the selected theme.

This year’s theme is Mee and My Malaysia (as suggested by Jo from Saucing Around, Jo’s Deli).

I told Babe that I’ll come up with something “Ipoh”, hence during my trip back to Ipoh last weekend, I requested mom to cook the tom yam hor fun. She used to prepare this simple dish for lunch as she’s lazy to cook so much dishes which will get cold by dinner time (reheat them back doesn’t taste as good as freshly cooked ones).

The agak-agak recipe:

300 grams anchovies (halved, head and internal removed, cleaned)
1 litre water
250 grams Ipoh kuey tiau aka hor fun, blanched with hot water
250 grams cabbage, Chinese cabbage or choy sum
Assorted yong tau foo or yeong liu
Tom yam paste
Some cooking oil

1. 1. Heat up 1 tablespoon of oil in a deep pot and fry the anchovies till they turn slightly brown. Add in one litre of water and bring it to boil.
2. Meanwhile, heat up another 1 tablespoon of oil in frying pan and pan fried the assorted yong tau foo. You can deep fried them too if you prefer or buy those which are freshly fried. I personally like to pan fried them especially the fu chok with fish paste roll.
3. Put blanched hor fun in serving bowl. When the stock is boiling, lower heat and season with salt. Add in Chinese cabbage or cabbage and stir till the veggies soften.
4. Scoop the stock with veggies over the noodle. Top with tom yam paste, give it a good stir till the paste dissolves and garnish with chopped spring onion and yong tau foo. You can add bean sprout and onion too if desired. Serve hot.

Thanks mom for the lunch! :)

Red Chilli

Simple name, but Hong La Qiao (meaning “red chilli” in Mandarin) serves not the typical local Chinese dishes. With a history spans over 8 years, they serves one type of authentic Chinese cuisine that most of the locals branded it as one of the spiciest food around: Sichuan.

The first time I heard about ma la or ma lat in Cantonese, someone told me it’s from Taiwan. In fact, ma la orginated from Sichuan province of central China, one of the poorest province in China history to cover up the smell of rotten meat and trigger the body to produce warmth during winter. The name is formed from two Chinese characters; ma (numbing) and la (spicy), referring to the sensation on the mouth after taking the sauce.

For those who loves ma la steamboat, you can get it here and best of all, you can customise the ingredients that you wanna have with the steamboat such as tiger prawns, luncheon meat, home made dumplings, the usual fish balls, crab, Chinese mushroom, wood ear fungus, lotus root, enoki mushrooms, beancurd and so on. If you’re not the hardcore Sichuan steamboat fan, go for the Yin Yang steamboat which is made of half ma la and half herbal broth.

But we came here for the Soo Toong Rou (Soo Toong pork). I did some research on this and it seems to be the same dish called Tung Po Rou (Tung Po pork) which is named after revered Song Dynasty poet, artist and calligrapher Su Dongpo. The pork belly has about 4 layers, being the top layer is actually pork fat. The pork was braised with a special gravy mixture for few hours till the meat are chopsticks-tender and most of the fat has been rendered. The result is a very tender and juicy meat with gelatinous texture. Very sinful indeed!

Another Sichuan dish, Ma Po beancurd which is cooked with imported Sichuan spicy bean paste, crushed peppercorns, ginger, some grounded pork and Chinese wine.

Fancy something soupy and not spicy? Beancurd broth might be just the right one for you. Clear broth prepared with thinly sliced white beancurd, crabmeat sticks, black fungus, ginger, coriander, shrimp and egg, it was a great comfort food.

The La Tze Ji (Chicken with Dry Chillies) was spicier than we expected it to be. Tossed with dry chillies, Sichuan peppercorns, spring onion, ginger and sesame seeds, the chicken were crispy at the outside while remain tender and juicy inside. The only letdown of the dish are the annoying small bones.

Hong La Qiao can be quite noisy as Chinese visitors dominated the restaurant during dinner peak hours, so you might want to come early. You do not need to brush up your Mandarin language before coming as the waitresses are local Chinese.

Restoran Hong La Qiao
No. 53 – 55,
Jalan Changkat Thambi Dollah,
Off Jalan Pudu,
55100 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2141 0078 / 03-2141 8078
Fax: 03-2148 8078

Business Hour: 10.30am – 10.30pm
*A la carte order available from 10.30am – 3pm and 5pm – 10pm.
Only steamboat is available in between 3pm – 5pm.
Last order at 10pm.

Need more info?

• KYSpeaks
• Rasa Rasa Malaysia