Jalan Ipoh Chicken Rice

Jalan Tiong Hawker Centre

Batu 3 off Jalan Ipoh

51100 Kuala Lumpur

Coordinates: 3.182113, 101.682001

Chicken rice among the Chinese community in Malaysia has to be one of the most popular and omnipresent foods. Virtually every hawker centre, food court and large coffee shops will have its variant of the Chicken rice. In a sense the Chicken rice has become somewhat of a comfort food for us.

The process of preparing Chicken rice involves poaching the entire chicken at sub-boiling temperatures. The resulting stock is skimmed off and some of the fat and liquid, along with ginger, garlic is used in the cooking of the rice. The whole bird is then roasted, served along with the rice and cucumbers, drenched in sweet gravy or drizzled with dark soy sauce and garlic chili.

prepared with experience and love

hard at work

food tastes better outdoors somehow

Brendan attends speech and Drama class each Saturday noon at KLPac nearby, so most times we will come here to the Jalan Tiong Hawker Centre for an early lunch. On this occasion our usual noodle stall was closed, so we decided on the Chicken rice stall instead.

exquisite

aromatic

divine

time to eat!

Our good friend Helen has raved about this stall before, and we can understand why. The chicken is scrumptious and roasted to perfection, while the rice is cooked to perfection producing an aroma that teases our taste buds. And with the cost of the entire meal costing RM20 this is definitely a stall for the everyday man.

Kedai Kopi Nanking

36 Jalan USJ10/1 Taipan

47620 Subang Jaya

Coordinates: 3.047867, 101.584861

We were in the vicinity this weekend and decided to visit our old favourite haunt.

A long time ago living in Subang this restaurant (together with Sin Kong) was often our destination of choice for lunch and dinner during the weekends. Like most other food courts, Nanking hosted a cluster of stalls selling the typical Chinese ‘fast food’ dishes.

I had the ¹Mee Hoon Curry; Cat ordered her favourite ²Penang Asam Laksa while Brendan ordered his usual ³Char Kueh Teow.

¹string thin rice vermicelli with spicy curry soup, chili/sambal, coconut milk, and a choice of dried tofu, cockles, prawns, cuttlefish, chicken, egg and mint leaves

²A sour, fish-based soup (with tamarind to give the stock its sour flavor) made up of shredded fish (normally mackerel), finely sliced vegetables including cucumber, onions, red chilies, pineapple, lettuce, common mint, "daun kesum" (Vietnamese mint or laksa mint) and pink bunga kantan (torch ginger) served with thick rice noodles (vermicelli) topped off with "petis udang" or "hae ko" (蝦羔), a thick sweet prawn/shrimp paste

³flat rice noodles stir-fried over very high heat with light and dark soy sauce, chili, a small quantity of belachan, whole prawns, de-shelled cockles, bean sprouts, chopped Chinese chives and egg

good to see...

our food being prepared...

by local Malaysians

a bevy of beverages

my mee hoon curry

Cat's penang asam laksa

Brendan's char kueh teow

Run of the mill would best describe Nanking and the dishes it had to offer. Not bad, and nothing remarkable as well. Seeing as how we kept coming here weekend after weekend all those years ago it must be doing something right though. Either that or we were just plain lazy to venture out further than a 5 kilometre radius from our home then.

But still, it qualifies for the mantle of serving the everyday food for the everyday man.

Teluk Pulai Bak Kut Teh

Jalan Teluk Pulai

Taman Teluk Pulai

41250 Klang

Coordinates: 3.040235, 101.434616

Our obsession with ¹Bak Kut Teh (BKT for short) is unabated. This time around we headed south to the Royal town of Klang where BKT was born, and in particular the area of Teluk Pulai.

An excerpt from Wikipedia: In Malaysia, the dish is popularly associated with Klang, and locals believed the place to be the origin of bak kut teh.^[6] There are a number of claims for the invention of the dish; one claimed that a local sinseh (a Chinese physician) invented the dish in the 1930s,^[7] while another claimed he brought the recipe from his hometown Fujian, China, in the 1940s.^[5] The dish is also claimed to have been invented in Port Klang for coolies working at the port to supplement their meagre diet and as a tonic to boost their health in the early 20th century.^[7]

¹a Chinese soup that literally means "meat bone tea", and at its simplest, consists of meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic) for hours. Additional ingredients may include offal, varieties of mushroom, choy sum, and pieces of dried tofu or fried tofu puffs. Additional Chinese herbs may include yu zhu (玉竹, rhizome of Solomon's Seal) and ju zhi (buckthorn fruit), which give the soup a sweeter, slightly stronger flavour. Light and dark soy sauce are also added to the soup during cooking and garnished with chopped coriander or green onions and a sprinkling of fried shallots, and usually eaten with rice.

Like its namesake you will find several shops bearing the name “Teluk Pulai Bak Kut The” here in Klang but what we were interested in was the original shop that was actually located in Teluk Pulai.

We promptly ordered a bowl of BKT for 3 persons and the customary ²Youtiao

²known in Malaysia as you char kway or you char kuey; made with flour, vegetable oil, yeast, sugar, salt, and water into a kneaded dough then deep fried until golden brown and puffy

the original shop that's actually located in Teluk Pulai

simple and traditional shop

choice of tea

old kettle

The verdict? Hands down the best BKT we’ve had (and we’ve had plenty down the years) with Joe Wong BKT coming a close second. In fact, if not for the distance (located some 46 kilometres away) Teluk Pulai BKT would have been our default BKT joint. So for now where BKT is concerned it will definitely be a toss up between Teluk Pulai and Joe Wong.

fiery chilli!

our BKT is served

we'll be back!

Something tells us despite the distance we'll be back from time to time, at least to provide better photos of the BKT here!