vkeong loves good food, travel and photography!
Kepong
Restoran E Soo Yong Tou Foo @ Bandar Manjalara, Kepong
Mar 19th
E Soo (Cantonese for 2nd sister in law) is an extremely popular Yong Tau Fu restaurant in Kepong and it is not difficult to understand why. Not only your food arrives fast even during the busiest times, there are plenty of other main dishes to order too which makes a meal here really quick and complete.
The sizes of the individual YTF here is delightfully big and packed with fish paste, so we did not really mind them being slightly pricier than the rest. Besides, they are really tasty too except for some fried items that were just plain oily to the extent of being inedible.
The fried item I was referring too is the friend brinjals, they were so soaked in oil that it felt like biting into a greasy and soggy tissue, kind of gross. We complaint about this to the staff and owner but our complaint was simply brushed off with something along the lines of ‘fried brinjals are like that one mah, sure got a lot of oil, even if I replace for you also will like that‘ So yeah, no more fried brinjals for us in our future visits since the other restaurants do not seem to have this problem. The rest was OK though – we liked their fried ‘fu cuk’ and ‘tau fu pok’, both were crispy and light with very little grease.
Hometown Steamboat @ Bandar Menjalara, Kepong
Oct 28th
Our next stop in conquering the steamboat restaurants in Kepong is Hometown Steamboat at Bandar Menjalara. From what we have observed thus far they could be the busiest steamboat place in town and the crowd is still going even though they opened a few months ago. This was also the first time we had to queue for steamboat and we were given a number to wait for our turn. Luckily the turnover was quite fast so we only waited for about 10 minutes for our table.
Their a la carte menu is reasonably priced, food is fresh and they have a variety of soup bases to choose from. We only tried the clear and award winning Tom Yam soup and I have to say the latter is really good, definitely a must try for Tom Yam lovers. So with so many good factors it is no wonder they are so popular. But the service could be faster.
Instead of serving only one standard steamboat set, there are a few other sets you could choose from and each of them come with different ingredients and pricing. For example if you choose the single set @ RM16.80 shown above (the only set which you could order 1 pax portion) it will be the very generic type while the Seafood Set @ RM16.50/pax has a better selection of seafood with clams included. Another set is the Ketam Crystal Ball set @ RM15.50/pax that has more processed food – you get the drill. For dessert, ice cream fondue is available.
Wantan Mee @ Restoran Heng Nam Hai, Jalan Ipoh
Oct 2nd
I came here after I read about Heng Nam Hai‘s Wantan Mee here. The coffee shop was not hard to find because its photos, address and GPS coordinates were provided in the blog. Now that’s a food blog done right folks.
Look at the Char Siew, just look at it. So handsome and all, it is the main reason why we were here. You don’t get to see this quality of Char Siew available in the normal coffee shops often enough.
One bite is all it takes to know that the Char Siew is indeed charcoal roasted just like advertised on the stall. It may not be the best out there but it certainly beat those artificially colored ones by miles. Noodle was decent too considering that the medium portion @ RM4.60 comes with 4 dumplings as well, it would be tough to complain. If there’s anything I think they could do to improve on the overall taste, it would be as simple as giving more Char Siew sauce on the meat.
Hing Kee Bak Kut Teh @ Jalan Besar Kepong
Sep 26th
I am not sure what happened to Heng Kee Bak Kut Teh (Taman Kepong) because they appeared to be closed every time I visited them recently. It is one of my favorite makan places in Kepong so hopefully it is not a sign that they are gone for good.
So today we detoured to Hing Kee at Jalan Kepong instead which is another popular spot for Bak Kut Teh. Looking at the three shop lots they own, you could probably guess the huge volume of business they are doing daily. Quite a number of customers could already be seen eating there around 5.30pm even though they actually start at 6pm. And that includes us as well.
Anyway, if you read my post about Heng Kee earlier you would know that there are a couple of Heng Kee/Hing Kee in Klang Valley. Not only they share the exact Chinese name, even their menu and cooking styles are very similar. However, they do not share the same spelling in BM/English so they are obviously competitors. In short, Heng Kee is a standalone while Hing Kee is more like a chain restaurant with branches in KL and PJ.
