Not like the other one…

I was delighted when my good friend, Robert, told me that this restaurant has opened a branch here because it is not so accessible in that old place – parking is always a pain and of course, these days, going there is out of the question for me. I cannot possibly park half a mile away and walk all the way there plus it is always fully booked. The last few times we were there, because we are regulars, they let us sit and order and eat and leave quickly before the people who had booked the table came.

Of course, I wanted to drop by this one here to give it a try and that day, we were out all afternoon and it had been pouring cats and dogs. When we were done by around 5 something, I suggested going some place for dinner, no need to rush home to cook and eat and that was why we ended up there.

There were ample parking spaces right in front of the restaurant and at 5.30 p.m., we were the first people to drop in. The lady who came to take our orders said that it wasn’t really a branch – the two may be affiliated in a way but they are quite different from each other. One look at their menu would confirm that!

Yes, they have the celebrated chicken rice here too but they had run out of rice that evening. That was why we asked for the Hainanese poached/steamed chicken (RM30.00 for half a bird)…

…but did not get to try their chicken rice.

The chicken was good but I do think that the ones here and here have a slight edge over this one here. The ladies enjoyed the ginger garlic dip that came with it and of course, the chili dip was very good too.

I also ordered the pork belly salted fish claypot dish (RM25.00)…

…but for reasons unknown, it did not come in a claypot and there weren’t any layers of fat in the pork belly either! It did not matter one bit though as we all loved the taste. That sure was one dish that we would want to order if ever we were to come here again.

The cangkok manis fried with egg, small (RM15.00)…

…was good and to wash everything down, we decided to go for the corn kernel soup (RM12.00)…

My missus cooks the latter quite frequently but the way they did it was different and it was nice too.

I was looking forward to ordering our favourites at the other place – the chequerboard duck and the filleted white pomfret (pek chio/ikan bawal putih) with its special sweet sour sauce, for instance but no, they do not have those here but what we had, though not really spectacular, were good and we did enjoy them. It did not come cheap though – together with the rice and drinks, the total came up to RM95.80.

I did not take any photograph of the exterior because it was raining when we got there and it was still raining when we were leaving. Another time, perhaps but I guess for one obvious reason, I would not be coming by all that often!

JING DU RESTAURANT (2.293190, 111.835860) is located on the ground floor at No. 17, Lot3545, Lorong Chew Siik Hiong 1A.