Old Tricycle Charcoal BBQ Yong Tau Foo @ Desa Aman Puri, Kepong

[THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED]

Yong Tau Foo is such a versatile dish. You can boil ’em, fry ’em and now even grill ’em. The parents of Old Tricycle‘s founder, Ray have been in the yong tau foo business for more than 5 decades.
They first started as street vendor in Pudu, and plied the streets with a food cart fitted on a tricycle – just like the one depicted in the restaurant’s very Instagrammable mural. From there, the business grew and they eventually became suppliers.
Ray’s idea of grilling yong tau foo actually came while having dinner at Gerai Makan Japanese BBQ. He thought maybe the same concept would work for his parents’ yong tau foo. Well, it did work. And cue the opening of Old Tricycle’s second outlet at Desa Aman Puri.

Price wise, it is slightly more expensive than the average yong tau foo since it involves grilling. So do expect to pay more for the items that start from RM1.50 each. If you feel like trying a little of everything, there is a set menu catering for couples and families.
We had the Couple Set @ RM30 which comes with 15 pieces of different items which include the usual selection of fried foo pei, brinjal, bitter gourd, okra and etc . It also includes 6 pieces of the more premium items such as streaky bacon with capsicum fish paste, streaky bacon with pig skin fish paste and back bacon with fish paste. The premium items cost about RM1 more than the normal ones.

And it’s time to grill! Since this outlet is not open-air, customers are advised to let the staff do the grilling work especially in the afternoon. But you could still opt to grill the food yourself to experience the novelty if you insist on it. The yong tau foo was already pre-cooked so it’d only take them a few minutes to finish the grilling.

Everything we had tasted fresh and good, slightly sweet from their home-made BBQ sauce with that distinctive smoky aroma imparted by charcoal. But some items especially those wrapped in bacon could be a tad too salty if eaten as it is. So I’d recommend having them with rice instead.

And what is yong tau foo without chee cheong fun? These two dishes always go hand to hand anywhere. Here you have four choices of chee cheong fun (CCF) @ RM4.50, each having its own sauce and garnishing.
I am not really an aficionado when it comes to CCF but I think their curry sauce was well-prepared. It was tasty and flavourful despite looking rather diluted. If you prefer something lighter on the palate, you could try the fried onion soya sauce flavored CCF. There’s more fragrance than taste in it.

As for drinks I highly recommend the Freezy Chin Chow @ RM3.90 (small) It had tiny, crunchy basil seeds for that crunchy taste and was simply refreshing. Pictured at the front is the pumpkin barley @ RM3.90.

The Coral Jelly @ RM4.90 was the only dessert available. The simplest way to describe this is to imagine a chilled, slightly sweet, non bitter herbal jelly (Gwai Leng Gou), flavoured with goji berries with longans in it. I certainly enjoyed it with soya bean milk.

Desa Aman Puri could be quite a confusing place to navigate for unfamiliar people. So the easiest way to locate this restaurant would be to look out for Khuntai Thai restaurant, as Old Tricycle Yong Tau Foo is located just side by side.

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