120509 New Ipoh Chicken Rice Restaurant, 107 Jalan Gasing 10/1, 46000 Petaling Jaya, 46000, Malaysia

(This was eaten quite a while ago, but I hadn’t posted it till now. I’m quite hungry now, so I might as well make you hungry also.)

This restaurant has been one of our favourites pretty much all along, as it used to be located along the way from Petaling Jaya to Kuala Lumpur. These days, it has expanded to 2 shoplots, across 2 floors so it fits quite a few people even during busy lunch hours. Both floors are air-conditioned, but previously, only one side of the ground floor restaurant was air-conditioned.

When we walked up to the first floor restaurant, we thought we’d walked into a school canteen as it was filled 90% with kids in blue uniforms. Guess it beats the school canteen option, since the restaurant is just across from the school.

The menu is quite small, with only few things to be ordered, but all the dishes are good so where there is quality, you don’t need quantity (only kidding, you need quantity all the time).

There were 7 of us at lunch, so we decided to order plain bowls of noodles and rice each, and also ordered dishes to be shared.

The noodles (known as ‘chai’, as in, plain noodles with just soup) came also with some complimentary pig skin and ‘taufoo pok’ (fried beancurd). Pig skin, you ask? It’s quite a delicacy, but a cheap one thus it’s given free in the noodles. The texture is chewy, and slightly like jelly. You say yuck, I say yum.

Steamed chicken – half for about RM20

See how almost half the portion looks like it’s breast meat? Over here in South East Asia, chicken breast is seen as the not so fantastic part of the chicken, because it’s drier and tougher than the other bits. When we called the waiter over to complain, it seemed as though complains are quite regular as he was very well-versed with explaining how although it LOOKED like we had alot of breast meat, it was actually half the chicken, because see here, there’s the wing, see there, that’s the chicken leg.

Not convinced? Neither were we.

Roast pork – siew yuk RM24 for this portion

Nominated most expensive dish of the meal, it was also the majority’s favourite as the skin was crispy, the meat was well-flavoured and tender.

Chicken gizzard, skin and others RM1.50

This was slightly chewy and very flavourful, went well with the noodles and rice as it was a slightly salty dish.

Hakka stewed pork with mui choy (preserved vegetables) – Mui choy kau yuk, about RM15

This is a home-cook favourite, and is one dish that is not easy to master. When cooked well, the pork becomes melt in the mouth, and the preserved vegetable blends well to make it a salty, sweet and very delicious dish with rice.

Plain curry noodles (‘chai’) RM1.50

The usual price for a bowl of curry noodles elsewhere, with other things in it such as chicken, costs about RM4.50. Here, for RM1.50, you get a reasonably large bowl of curry noodles with tofu pieces, very delicious soup, and very smooth noodles.

Ipoh beansprouts RM4

If for one moment you thought these were ordinary beansprouts, think again, buddy. These are Ipoh beansprouts, which means they are immediately superior to the more inferior non-Ipoh ones. How do you know if you’ve been tricked into paying for Ipoh beansprouts when you’ve received the other version? The Ipoh ones should be short and plump, which means that they’re crunchier and juicier than the longer versions which tend to be stringy (and get stuck in my teeth a fair bit).

These weren’t quite up to the usual Ipoh standard, but still OK.

Pork meatballs RM1 for one

Made with pork, these meatballs are quite bouncy and chewy, but slightly pricey for one.

At the end of the meal, the air-conditioning went off, the school kids left the building, and so did we. Would we come back to this restaurant? I’d like to, as I really enjoyed the food here.