While steamboat restaurants are aplenty in Petaling Jaya, very few serve nice pork broth as the soup base. Bone & Pot is our usual favourite, but we decided to try a new place. Dian Huo Xin Wo Steamboat Restaurant had stayed pretty much off my ‘foodie-radar’ for years. It’s former location  at SS4  played a part in this, for being concealed in an out-of-way part of Petaling Jaya.

Now shifted to a busier location, Dian Huo Xin Wo had gained reputation among bloggers for serving great soup base with fresh homemade steamboat ingredients. We decided to put this claim to a test.

The Soup Base

I am very old-school, and believe that the conventional chicken or meat soup are the way to go for steamboat. Tom Yum? It will overwhelm the fresh ingredient’s original flavour (if they are fresh to start with!). Herbal? Vegetables and chinese herbs are not the best mates, so no, thank you.

Besides, the reason we chose Dian Huo Xin Wo was because it has pork soup to begin with. As they claimed, it’s double-boiled!

The Ingredients

It was a hectic night and I was late. I rushed in and dropped a few item names that I want, to my dinner mates. Then I rushed out to find a parking space. Dang! When did Giant hypermarket started to charge for parking?

By the time I was back at Dian Huo Xin Wo, the pot was served and most of the ingredients were dropped into it. Hence, no photos.

Fried yam is a must in all steamboat, perfectly fried to withstand the long boiling in the soup.

The dumplings were well-made but nothing noteworthy about the taste.

Pork slices were fresh and the thickness almost tempted me to go for a quick swish in the soup, before popping into my mouth. But I didn’t anyway.. cause eating under-cooked pork is a no-no. Nonetheless, the pork slices taste really good and soft even when they were, at my insistence, over-cooked.

Dian Huo Xin Wo has a few meat/seafood balls choices and its star products were the Golden Egg Pork Balls and Wild Mushroom Pork Balls.

The Verdict

At the end of the meal, we had our routine chatting session, as with all the gatherings in the world should have. We drew a conclusion for our meal; while the ingredients were rather fresh, the menu was rather lacking. We wanted pure meat balls, but all they have were meatballs mixed with something else. And given glamorous names.

The pork soup base was the major disappointment for me. Truthfully, it doesn’t taste like it was boiled for long hours. We don’t taste the porky goodness in there. In fact, the red dates made the soup too sweet for our liking.

Dian Huo Xin Wo’s price is on the higher side. Most of the menu found online were in old prices, and new prices are significantly pricier. We paid RM140 for our meal (3 ladies), yet we don’t feel fulfilled as we always had with Bone & Pot.

Dian Huo Xin Wo 点火心窝
Address: Ground Floor, The Grand Kelana Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya