Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Restoran Yap Chong

I believe this is a Hakka restaurant (thanks to http://bernsy.blogspot.com/ comment). The pronunciation of the name of the shop tells me so (i initially thought it was teo chew, forgot that hakka's pronunciation is more accurate). You know how every clan pronounces the same chinese words differently. That is how we can know if a chinese is from which clan by reading their chinese surname spelled in English. Like Tan could be a hokkien, which is also what a cantonese will call Chan. But this distinction is diminishing, as all the clans have mix and match the pronunciation.
Back to the food. This place is very well known for family dinner. One word of advise, if you can't wait, don't go there on weekends. They actually serves a space of 3 shoplots. We waited for almost an hour for a simple family dinner.

Chinese-English Translation
Yap - Leaf
Chong - Invite

Location: Opposite PGRM, Maluri, Kuala Lumpur (not the Kepong Maluri)
Rating: Food ok and quite cheap

Review
We ordered steam fish with ginger. If you want to know if your fish is fresh or not, steam 'em. If they are not fresh, once you steam them, all the fishy smell will knock you off your knees. But as you all know, commercially cultivated fishes tend to acquire smell of mud. Therefore, we had the fish steamed with ginger to overthrow the muddy smell. The fishes here are always steamed well (not overcooked or uncooked) and the mélange is tastefully done. Then we have the ever popular sweet sour pork (gu lou yok). Not anything special. Just a very normal dish. At least the meat is not too soft or hard.
Ah.. and this is something reallllly interesting. They call it Amy Yip beancurd (Yip Chi Mei Taufu). If you do not know who Amy Yip is, she was a well known sex symbol in Hong Kong films during the 90's with her disproportionately "upper front torso". Malaysian seemed to love her with many food named after her ie Yip Chi Mei Dai Bau. Anyway, the beancurd was quite good when eaten in combination with the condiments like deep fried small prawns (har mai in cantonese) and garlic. The beancurd itself is nothing special. Not specially soft, or smooth, or fragrant. But definitely looks big.

And as usual, the best thing to wash down all the heavy food is a good cup of tea. At normal restaurant like this, it is hard to order a good quality type of chinese tea. Nevertheless, it has improved significantly. We ordered Char Wong (King of Tea in cantonese). The taste stays longer and more fragrant. It is slightly more expensive, but well worth it. Nothing about the teapot below. Just that I like the shape of the teapot. Very cute!

2 comments:

Bernsy said...

Hi, I think these flers are Hakka people... coz they speak Hakka most of the time...

Nice place to makan ... good pick !!

Ping said...

Woops.. mistake corrected. Thanks for notifying me :)