Last weekend the 89A gang had dinner again at 粗茶淡饭 by Taukeh Gan and JM’s recommendations. We could have easily missed this place if we weren’t looking for it and they have not been there before. At least, I didn’t notice any signboard pointing to this place.
粗茶淡饭 in direct translation is ‘rough tea and plain rice’, the chinese idiom that we usually used to describe a plain meal. Therefore you can understand why I wasn’t too enthusiastic about dining there judging by its name. Its interior didn’t impress me either with barely any decoration except the necessary tables and chair. I thought it was just another gimmick when they claimed to serve authentic China chinese dishes. Then when the owner spoke to us in her China country tongue, I started to have a little hope on getting real chinese food. She recommended the 水煮鱼, 锅包肉, Choy Sam and seaweed soup so it’s 2 out of 4 dishes that I did not know what’s to expect.
水煮鱼 turned out to be thinly sliced catfish (Patin) cooked in extremely oily looking Sze Chuan spicy soup/sauce with beansprouts. All of us love it! There’s totally zero muddy taste in the freshwater fish and the meat was so soft and delicious. The spiciness was least of my worries as it was manageable. Even the big beansprouts were fat, juicy and scrumptious.
锅包肉 was like our sweet and sour pork but they used the tapioca starch to form sticky paste around the meat before deep frying it. Am I confusing you? Just imagine; the crunchy batter as its outer layer, while the second layer have the texture like rice ball and finally the juicy pork meat in the middle of it. The sauce was so much better than our typical sweet and sour pork.
The Choy Sam (I hope I got the name right) were fresh and not overcooked.
A little not-so-good part of our dinner was the seaweed soup which was average but with some sands in it. In the end, we gave up trying to finish the bowl of soup.
Our meal was RM60 for 5 person including the rice and drinks which was totally justifiable. With the fish and pork that good, you should have guess that I would be back here really soon.
Direction : 粗茶淡饭 is located at PJ Section 14 at the old Jaya Supermarket area, same row as Guardian and Kings Bakery. If I’m not mistaken it’s just a few shops away from Wah Chan, but take note that it’s on the first floor.
2 Comments
zomg! cumi really LOVES his sweet n sour pork. i like it too but am not as crazy as him.. i prefer the chee tou tong (pig stomach soup!)
They serve Chu Tou Tong? I didn't notice that, maybe I was too slow when comes to reading Chinese words. Must try that next time!