Nyonya / Peranakan food in PJ

24-May-09 Sunday 7.30pm

It's dinner time and also headache time for us as we, a family of 3 will have to decide where and what to have for our dinner. Weekend Saturdays and Sundays are non-cooking days at home.

Deciding where and what to eat can prove to be a difficult task for me as we have to consider a numbers of factors such as the foods and the place are acceptable to everybody's liking and most important of all it will not cost too much. 

If budget is not a problem then it's easy as we can just pop into one of the many expensive restaurants in town. 

One such regular budget and yet serving tasty food place for dinner for us is this small nyonya food house in Atria shopping centre in Damansara Jaya Petaling Jaya.

This is what we ordered:

1. Asam fish curry;

2. Nyonya fried chicken;

3. Clay pot Japanese Tofu;

4. Otak-otak;

5. One hot chinese tea, one iced lemon tea and one barley drink with chin-chau.

On the whole the dishes were tasty. Two additional "big rice" were ordered. The asam curry fish which also have lady's fingers and long bean in it tasted not so spicy and oily, was delicious with tastes of tamarind, kungit, balacan and serai. The siakap fish used was tender and tasted okay.

My son Justin always likes fried foods so no problem for him to finish all the three big pieces of fried chicken.

The clay pot Japanese tofu was cooked with a variety of vegetables which saved us from ordering a vegetable dish. It has cabbage, cauli flower, squid, kai-lan, chicken fillet, carrot and ginger slices. Gravy was slightly starchy and tasty.

The nyonya otak-otak was one chunk of steamed meshed fish cake blended with kungit and wrapped in banana leaf. 

We did bottomed up and finished all the dishes with ease and this means that we will definitely come back again soon for more.

Total billed for the food and drinks were RM63.30. No complaint.

The name of the restaurant is called Nyonya Foodhouse (established since 1992), located at Lot G16, The Atria Shopping Centre, Jalan SS 22/23, Damansara Jaya, 47400 Petaling Jaya. Tel: 7729 7279. It also has a branch outlet at Arena Food Court, 1-Utama shopping complex.

Ipoh Chicken Rice in PJ

On Sunday 24-May-09 my family of 3 went to have a chicken rice lunch at Jalan Gasing, PJ.

This is our favorite place whenever we want to have a chicken rice meal. When we arrived at about 1.00 pm the shop was quite packed and noisy as we would usually find in chinese restaurants. We took the last vacant table on the ground floor. The shop also has a dining place at it's first floor to accommodate the big crowd. 

This time we ordered :

1. Steam "Choy Yin Kai" or kampong chicken half chicken;

2. Fried La-La for 1 person;

3. Bean sprout or "Nga-choy" for 3 person;

4. Fish ball soup of 8 fish balls;

5. Two iced and one hot chinese tea.

Dishes were served within five minute so we did not have to endure a long wait.

As usual the dishes were all tasty and we enjoyed to the last bit. Chicken was tender. La-La was stirred fried I like the soupy gravy which tasted sweet and slightly pungent as some shredded cili padi was used. Bean sprout was fresh, fat  and crunchy on biting. Fish balls were tender and smooth to bite.

Total billed amount was RM58.40, quite reasonable for me.

The shop also serves other dishes such as curry chicken, roast chicken, roast pork, bbq chicken, curry prawn and curry fish head. You also can order "Hor-fun"  instead of rice to go with the dishes. 

We would recommend this shop to anybody who wants to have a chicken rice meal in PJ and KL area.

The name of the shop is New Restaurant Ipoh Chicken Rice, located at 107, Jalan Gasing, 46000 Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03-7956 0958.