Fat Spoon

Fat Spoon is a nyonya restaurant in Uptown, Damansara Utama in PJ, located several shops away from the Capital Nasi Dagang along Jalan SS21/1A. Crystal apparently got to know about this place and wanted us to try it. So I got SP and the usual family members and we were there for a leisurely weekend dinner.

Everything in this restaurant looked old and worn. The outside smoking area had a couple of tables and chairs that appeared to be discards from some second-hand furniture shops.

The main doors were worn with faded and peeled paint. The welcome decor were several old planks nailed to the the wall.

Inside, the theme was likewise old and simple. Tables and chairs were varied and haphazard. They appeared to have been randomly taken from everywhere to make up the restaurant. It really was not a bad idea. The place looked charmingly rustic and perhaps comparatively cheap to furnish.

I particularly liked this cosy corner. It reminded me of the old days when we made do with whatever we had to furnish our homes. The only difference was the soft lighting. In the old days, we only had fluorescent tubes.

We had one of these kitchen cabinets before our parents could afford a fridge.  The doors had mosquito netting to keep out flies, lizards and cockroaches; and yet airy enough to prolong freshness of food. The latch for the doors was a simple wooden peg with a nail. Simple yet so practical.

These were some kitchen appliances we used to have. The tiffin carrier and thermo flask can be museum pieces now. They certainly brought back lots of childhood memories.

The menu of the restaurant were pasted on pages of these children books. Who can forget Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? In our primary school days, we also read lots of Enid Blyton - Secret Seven and Famous Five. That evening, we read the menu.

We snapped ourselves back to present day reality. This was their menu blackboard. They now have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And dishes were at prices that could perhaps feed a whole family for a week in our childhood days.

The staff in the restaurant were cheerful and friendly. A charming young lady helped us with the food selection. She was surprised at the number of dishes we ordered and tried to stop us. Until we told her we were a bunch of big eaters.

We then settled down to some Chinese tea.

Our first teaser was this popiah. It wasn't the greatest but we enjoyed it nevertheless. The 2 rolls were certainly not enough for the 6 of us.

Then we munched on some crispy pumpkin fritters. It was very well done. The pumpkin was shredded and deep friend in a batter. This was my first time with pumpkin fritters and I liked it very much. An innovative yum.

This was sayor paku. Very ordinary and not much innovation in this plate. Still, we liked it.

Next was the tamarind prawn. It was a wonderful dish. The flavour was spicy and sourish. I had not had this dish for a long long time. I remembered my late mother used to prepare this. This plate was so very like what she prepared.

This was the ulam omelette. Ulam is a mixture of fresh nyonya spices. This was the first time I had tasted it in an omelette. And I liked it very much. The flavour was slightly tangy and very pleasant.

Perut ikan (literally translated to mean fish stomach) is a very popular nyonya dish. But I am not a great fan of it. I think this recipe is somehow over-rated. It was a mushy mash of I-don't-know-what. It was definitely over-cooked and I didn't know what exactly I was eating. And the flavour was a bit weird.

This simple fried chicken was delicious. I think it was done with just salt and perhaps a tinge of turmeric. The skin was crispy (and sinful) and the meat tender. The portion was too small. I wished we had more of it.

This was another simple dish - a cucumber acar (spicy salad). I really have not much impression of it in my mind now. I guess it wash't too bad.

We shouldn't had order this tofu with minced meat. It was a soupy dish. Quite mundane and ordinary. We could had ordered something more interesting.

The fried sotong (squids) was delightful. The batter was nice and crispy while the squid inside was succulent and not overdone. Again the dish was rather small.

The nasi ulam (rice with fresh spices) was very very good. It was small pot and naturally not enough for 6 people. We had to order a second pot. The ulam provided a really nice aromatic flavour to the rice. I particularly liked the fresh flavour of the bunga kantan (etlingera elatior). 

And the sambal was superb. From the look of its texture, it was obvious they had hand-pounded the sambal in a "tumbuk" and not mashed in a blender. The flavour was perfect.

We shared 3 different desserts. First was sago with a scoop of ice cream. OK but nothing compared to the next 2 to come.

The first of the next 2 was a durian caramel. It was so very very rich. Almost out of the world. It was like a whole musang king (the top durian species in Malaysia) condensed into a small cup. It was sweet. It was smooth. It had a very strong durian flavour. Almost the holy grail for durian lovers.

We waited a long time for this last dessert. It was cempedak (jackfruit) spring rolls. Apparently they ran out of cempedak and went out to buy. We had to wait because one of the reasons Crystal brought us here was to try this dessert. And we were not disappointed. The rolls were served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and they were very good. The fresh cempedak was crunchy when we bit into it. Combined with the crispy roll skin, it made one heck of a dessert.

We had a lot of food that evening - 11 dishes and 3 desserts. No wonder the waitress tried to stop us. But the servings were all quite small. Nyonya servings are normally small. I don't see any reason for that. Anyway, this restaurant is worth a visit. We will definitely be there again. I wonder if they will still serve the durian caramel if it is off season.

Taiping Lang

I will try my level best to be as objective as possible in this blog posting. For the subject belongs to the family of a very dear friend. Joyce and Alan live with their wonderful family in Geelong, Australia. Joyce has her roots in Taiping. Her sister Sun and husband Seng run a restaurant in Puchong appropriately named Taiping Lang. Lang in Hokkein means "people". 

"Taiping People" is located on Jalan Kenari 18B in Bandar Puchong Jaya. It is in a corner shop opposite a car park. The place has a charming rustic aura. On display are many old and almost antiquated artifacts and utensils that brought back much memories of my small-town childhood. I felt so very at home there.

They have an out-door dining area which is quiet and away from the crowd.

And a play area where the kids can do their social thing while the adults do theirs.

The restaurant serves home style Hokkein dishes, very heavily inclined to the nyonya way. The culinary brain behind this restaurant is Joyce's mum - known as Ah Mah to everybody. She single-handedly came up with the menu for the restaurant and until today is still actively involved in the kitchen. She apparently is like the executive chef, supervising and ensuring that the cooking is done just right and that the best ingredients are used. This is Joyce and her mum.

They take inspiration from Ah Mah's mother (Joyce's granny) who taught Ah Mah everything she knew.

Alan, Joyce and family were back for the CNY. We met up for a dinner. What better place than the Taiping Lang? Joining us was Eddy (also back from Melbourne), Gan and wife Daphne. 

The restaurant has a comprehensive menu, with a variety of set meals on different days of the week. The menu is in their website. The dishes are named in Hokkein - rightly so. I really cannot remember all the names of the dishes we had. We were too occupied chit-chatting and catching on old times, and I forgot to take note.

Dinner started with a clear herbal soup. It was served individually in mid-size bowls. The soup was good. It was adequately boiled. In Cantonese, we say it is 够火.

Then it was acar for starter. Acar is the very popular Malaysian spicy pickled vege dish. The acar here was good though not exceptional. There was a pickled cucumber, long bean, cabbage, carrot, etc in a spicy sauce and a generous sprinkling of sesame.

The other starter was the salivating sambal served with raw cucumber, cabbage and okra (ladies finger). It's been a long long time since I ate sambal in this manner. My only complaint about this dish was the type of lime they provided. They used the small lime variety. I prefer the big green ones.

The Kali Kay (chicken curry) was rich in its curry flavor. It obviously was cooked with a good curry mix and adequate santan (coconut milk). I liked it.

The Bangkuang Cha (shredded jicama with cuttle-fish) looked small in portion. But it was very adequate. It was served and eaten wrapped in green salad (butterheads). Surprisingly missing was the sambal with which it is normally taken.

I think it was the Nyonya Che Kay (nyonya fried chicken). It was like the inchi kabin chicken. It was aromatic and well marinated. Very appetizing.

The next dish was probably the Buah Butai Hae. It was petai (smelly beans) cooked with prawns in assam curry. I liked this dish. Petai is one of my favorite nyonya food. The curry was strong and delicious. However the prawns were over-cooked. They are a bit hard.

I also liked the otak otak or Hu Pau. It was a fish paste in santan (coconut milk), flavored with basel leaves. The flavor was rich and tasty. Ah Mah makes really good otak otak.

I am not sure what this dish is called. Maybe it was the Bee Ba Special. It was braised pork in a rich soy sauce. The meat was tender, perhaps a bit too soft for my liking. I prefer pork with a bit more texture. But the flavor was wonderful. 

Again, I have to guess the name of the next dish. I think it was the Ba Kian. It was a deep fried meat spring roll. Yummy and very appetizing.

The Eu Chai  was a blanched butterhead lettuce. It was soaked with a nice soy sauce with plenty of deep fried garlic. 

This last dish has me stumped. I have no idea what it was. I did asked during the meal and was told it was chicken. But I cannot relate it to any the chicken dishes in the website menu. It was a semi-spicy fried something. Tasting it, I could not tell that it was chicken. But it was delicious. Whatever it was, it was an ingenious recipe. 

At the end of the meal, a plate of dip rojak was brought out. What a pleasant surprise. It normally would had been a starter. But it was a great ending for our meal. It also reminded me of the simple things I miss from our small towns days. There was jicama, cucumber and pineapple. The sauce was great. Small things, big joy.

For dessert, I opted for a hot bowl of bubur cha cha. It was superb. The bubur was richly santan. The flavor was most satisfying. I truly enjoyed it. 

Someone brought out a tub of kueh kapit. It certainly added to the CNY mood. 

What a dinner it was. Great and nostalgic food. And great and nostalgic company. The chit chat went into closing time. We were the last table to leave. And even though I am not a Taiping lang, I miss this small town feeling.