Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Meng Kee @ Rawang

A sigh of relief! The last quiz of the semester was officially over 2 hours ago and it's about time I post some reviews on my blog! Even I got a little bored looking at my "stagnant" site for the past 7 days in the office.

Let's continue with my "makan marathon" in KL 2 weeks back. After Marche and the Loaf, we headed to Rawang for the finale. No particular reason, just a suggestion from Cousin Andy who lives nearby.

I must say the long and expanding Jalan Rawang leading to the Rawang township (from Selayang, passing by the Templer Park Country Club) was surprisingly lively on a Saturday evening with Chinese restaurants burgeoning at both sides of the road, complete with screaming neonlights. Curiousity unravelled as to how good these restaurants can be. And there's only one way to find out.

But as I was imagining the type of food served in those restaurants, we pulled over in front of a row of garage-like, mostly unoccupied shops. There was only one shop that practically "opened for business" and I was told that we would be having dinner there. It was basically a bare shoplot (which I couldn't tell the front from back) without any slight form of renovation. In short, a garage that sells food. It was already 7.00 pm and the workers were just starting to arrange the tables and chairs. I was told that this restaurant caters for the night crowd.

We started off with the KL-styled Hokkien Fried Noodles. The portion came huge with generous amount of ingredients such as prawns, squid, green mustard cabbage and most importantly, crispy lard. However, the dark sauce was quite bland and diluted, which really lowered the grade of this dish. To me, a good plate of Hokkien Fried Noodles should be aromatic, dry and yes, oily. By the way, I forgot whether they provide belacan sambal (chili and dried shrimp paste).

This restaurant is famous for its Haruan (Snakehead Fish). The chef recommended the Stir-Fried Haruan With Scallions & Ginger and the remains of the deboned fish to be made a soup.

The soup tasted rather flavourful, thanks to the generous amount of preserved vegetables and tomatoes. Savouriness was well-controlled and tomatoes added a tangy flavour to the soup while the beancurd added texture. Despite being called "remains", there was still plenty of flesh attached to the bones and was rather tender and aromatic as well, thanks to the frying process.

The Stir-Fried Haruan, again was served in a generous portion. The thick slices of fish coated with oyster sauce were soft and didn't exhibit any hint of muddiness, in terms of taste. Scallion and ginger added a refreshing taste and texture to the dish.

Next came the Marmite-flavoured spare ribs. A typical Chinese dish nonetheless but the ribs were generously cut and tasted rather fresh. The sweet and slightly sour Marmite sauce complimented the crispy ribs very well.

After all the heavy dishes, the Stir-Fried Sweet Potato Leaves was welcomed. The young leaves were well-cooked and the heaps of crushed garlic added extra crunch and aroma to the dish.

Last came the Japanese Beancurd In Hotplate. Nothing fanciful, just beancurd drenched in sizzling egg-based sauce, complete with generous amount of minced pork, shitake mushroom, babycorn and carrots. Simple yet flavourful. Salted fish would have exclamated the dish.

A decent meal with the word "generous" basically tagged to every dish there was. Not much sublety in the dishes but flavours were well assured. It was also quite affordable (I can't recall the total price of the meal though).

Keep a lookout for Rawang, food-loving urbanites!

No comments: