Food Gems - Klang Valley, Malaysia

McCurry Noodles in Shah Alam , the capitalof Selangor State, has the unique proposition of being run by a Scotsman, Colin James Mcculloch, and his Penang Chinese wife.  Their version of this fav street food in the Klang Valley (and also in Australian capital cities) has a spicy kick, a rather wholesome soup and niftly cut chicken pieces served on the bone that somehow draws the flavours better.  (Image above).

I also highly recommend their accompanying teh tarik, lightly tinged with an cinnamon aftertaste. I was taken to try this for breakfast one weekend morning by Yew Ting and his youngest son. The cafe is located at 7, Jalan Juruaudit U1/37 in Section U1 of Shah Alam in Selangor State.

Walking around the Gardens Mall in Kuala Lumpur, I was captivated by two stores, one providing Haagen Dasz ice cream flavours (the Austin Chase above) and the other looking as cottage prettty as it can be (image below, the Delectable Cakes).
Austin Chase originates from Seattle, the home of Starbucks as well, and its main product is of course coffee.   Austin takes pride on the human element it emphasises to produce never bitter and full bodied coffee using all Arabica beans and utilises the Apassionato roasting process.  They also have outlets in Singapore and Penang Island.  The Gardens Mall outlet is one of seven in the Klang Valley of Selangor State.
Delectable Cakes by Su has delightful names for its main product categories  - Fruitcake Parcels, Little Men, Merry Men, Brownie Parcels and Happinuts.  Su studied Construction Management at the UNSW in eastern Sydney but then went to the NotterSchool of Pastry Arts in the USA.

In the proverbial search for the most tasty soy stirred egg noodles in Malaysia, I can now identify with one along  Jalan Juruaudit U1/37 in Section U1 of Shah Alam in Selangor State.  Okay, what a mouthful! Take the easy route, go to the curry laksa mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry and stand in front of this cafe.  Walk across to head around 2pm on an imaginary clock and you shall reach this place that offers charcoal grilled char siew (  Cantonese barbequed pork).  This version here stands above the rest and is better than the ones I find in Sydney and Melbourne.  They make it more juicy because they allow a little bit more fat in the meat chosen, but also the charcoal thing does make a difference.  When accompanied by egg noodles (picture above), the result for the palate is just unsurpassed.
I also recall the lovely roast pork, with crackling skin and moist meat, served at the dinner with university classmates on Sunday, 3rd of June 2012. Yew Ting , Yue Nin, Yit Chan, Susie Cheng, Siew Ngor and Soh Wah had each provided me a lively conversation on various topics for a resident in contempoary Kuala Lumpur. We were seated in an established restaurant, the Oversea at the Armada Hotel in Petaling Jaya - the Oversea Group has a long running reputation serving Cantonese cuisine in both Malaysia and Singapore.  I also noted the quality of the char siew.   This restaurant is also known for its signature claypot dishes with goat meat and braised pork ribs. I also had opportunity to try the steamed fish that evening, unique in its intensity of flavours.  My university mates and I settled somehow settled into a pace as if I had never left for Australia, and that is a treasure I appreciate so much.
One Thursday evening, cousin Lai Han took her Mum and me to a delightful coffee shop outlet, the Sang Choi Kei, along Jalan Kuchai Lama, in the Taman Desa area of Kuala Lumpur.  This gave me a treat of the KL styled Hokkien noodles stir fried with black soy sauce. Rich in taste, slurpy and delicious, my memory of such a dish harks back to university days. This is a specialty of KL, although there are replications of this all the way from New Zealand to the USA.  The same place also served Marmite marinated deep fried chicken, which was a recent discovery of mine in Sydney.

On a Wednesday evening, Kay Bee, Angie and Swee Yuen caught up with me for a late dinner at Pantai Seafood, located in Petaling Jaya in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara.  I absolutely loved the deep fried pork knuckle, a signature dish that is different from the German version but tasty in its own way!  Another menu item we had was the mantou, the Chinese bread to accompany savoury mains  and this was just perfect to eat with the pork knuckle pieces.

Other dishes of note from Pantai are the otak otak tofu (interesting combination of Chinese and South-east Asian, otak otak being my fav steamed spicy fish fillet mousse wrapped in petite banana leaf packages); the Hakka-styled braised duck; baked pork ribs; stir fried Japanese snails, garnished with dried shrimps and chili padi; steamed clams from Scotland, tempered with minced garlic;  and the baked Alaskan crab with salted egg yolk.  Pantai is operated by the Unique chain of restaurants, which are also in Ipoh, Perak State and other spots in the Klang Valley (Cheras, Subang and Section 13 in Petaling Jaya).