My niece, the one working in Singapore – my brother-in-law’s daughter, will not be able to come home for Chinese New Year owing to work commitments so she came home last weekend and as always, she invited us out for dinner with her and her parents.
I heard that they run this very nice chap fan (mixed rice) place as a chu char (cook & fry) place at night and the chef was originally from here, round the corner from my house. I might have gone there before – I can’t exactly remember – but I do know for a fact that everytime we drove past at night on our way home, there would be so many people and they had to lay out tables onto the road even.
We agreed to go there and give the place a try that night and boy, was I in for a surprise when we got there? The place was so very crowded, packed with a sea of people but thankfully, most of the shops in that area were closed at night so there was no problem whatsoever getting a parking space…except that you may have to park a short distance away and walk a bit as those right beside the coffee shop/restaurant would be taken.
They had an army of employees dressed in strikingly red t-shirts, their waiting staff but unfortunately, the young and handsome boy who came to take our orders was mono-lingual. I was not quite in the mood to deal with our communication problem so I just asked if, among so many of them, there was anybody who could converse in Hokkien and he flashed his cheeky smile and said obligingly, “I will go and get someone OLDER who can speak Hokkien.” Tsk! Tsk!
A lady came almost right away and she took our orders for the fried midin (wild jungle fern), ching chao (fried plain)…
…and the bitter gourd cooked with the three types of eggs…
…and a friend did tell me that their butter milk chicken…
…was nice so we ordered that and we also had their sea cucumber soup…
My niece wanted those giant freshwater prawns but no, they do not serve them here so we had to settle for their prawn balls instead…
I asked for the kiam sor (salty & crispy/crusty) but they got it mixed up and we ended up getting the butter prawns instead. Yes, it was nice but the thing was the sauce was exactly the same as the one with the chicken strips so of course, the taste would be the same.
Their own-made tofu…
…was very good and while their salted fish soy sauce pork…
…was all right, we could hardly detect the fragrance and taste of the salted fish plus they used 100% lean meat – I think I would enjoy it more with a little bit of fat. Hehehehehe!!!!
The bill came up to only RM137.20, inclusive of drinks, for the 6 of us. We ordered for 4 but the servings were so huge we had to tapao everything home. There was enough for at least, 10 people, I think.
So if it is nice and very cheap food, very fast and efficient service, this is one place you can consider coming to but if you are not into crowds and would prefer a place more quiet and comfortable, perhaps it is best that you go elsewhere.
PHOTO CREDIT: All iPhone snapshots featured in this post were taken by my niece as somehow or other, I forgot to bring my camera along that evening.
AH KIET RESTAURANT (2.317307, 111.850023) is located right behind Comfort Furniture among the shops beside the Selemo traffic lights along Lorong Ling Kai Cheng 2, off Jalan Deshon if you are coming from town or you can go in via Lorong Ling Kai Cheng 4 if you are coming down from Teku or Ulu Sg Merah. The very popular kampua mee (and fried kompia stuffed with minced meat) place, Sing Ming Kee Cafe is in that same block of shops at the other end on the left.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 