It was a rainy Sunday night and for some unexplained reasons, our thoughts turned to noodles. KL type noodles, like Fried Hokkien Mee or Braised Yee Mee, eaten with that special belacan blended, sweet-spicy chilli sauce that is only found in Malaysia. My mum suggested Restoran Ong Lai, an old KL favourite. Like the best of cze char places, it is located in a dingy backlane off Lorong Tiong Nam 3, which is itself off Jalan Raja Laut.
Conversation between umami's husband and umami's father
U's husband: Eh Father, we are only going out to eat noodles, why are you dressed so smartly (long pants, collared t-shirt)? Wear bermudas OK right?U's father: The restaurant is very popular with Hokkien people, and most of my business associates are Hokkien. We always bump into somebody we know. Some people even eat there week after week. So I have to dress a bit more presentably lah.
Sure enough, my mum spotted some old friends there the minute we walked in. The parents started chatting with them while we waited for our table. I've blogged often about cze char places in Singapore and cze char places in KL are not that much different. Cheap foldable, stackable furniture to cater to different party sizes, bright fluorescent lighting, weak air-conditioning (if any), melamine plates, disposable paper towels, everything reassuringly similar. Some differences of course, for one thing, the wall-to-wall beer advertisements were for Calsberg, and Singapore is Tiger territory. The beer-ladies also do not seem to operate here, the posters have made their job redundant I guess. Another thing is the pervasive smell of cockroach exoskeleton in most KL coffeeshops, this grosses me out because one gets used to "sterilised" environments in Singapore y'know.
Finally, my parents ambled back to our table, and we ordered with much noise and enthusiasm. Four (yes, four) types of noodles, oyster omelet, steamed fish head, stir-fried baby kailan, sweet and sour pork and stirfried venison were ordered, for our party of 8. The staff dispatched our orders to the kitchen, which is located outside, the original open-concept kitchen. If anyone wanted to know the house specialties, the signboard tells you all about it too.
The steamed wan-yu fish head got a resounding thumbs up from everyone. For a river fish, it was surprisingly devoid of any muddy taste and the flesh was the most delighful balance of melt-in-the-mouth and meatiness, with the delicate sweetness of very fresh fish; it was probably alive only a few hours ago. It is the restaurant's signature dish and they've been doing it right for many years.
The fish head beehoon went down well too. There was plenty of succulent pieces of fish meat and thick rice noodles in the rich fish soup. The soup looked milky but did not taste milky, probably because they had bothered to simmer it long enough for the fish bones to "melt" in the soup. The soup was naturally tasty and unlike Singaporean versions, did not have the distracting taste of cognac.
The other dishes were good too, especially the mee-sua (rice vermicelli), though my brother-in-law had meant to order tang-hoon (glass noodles); the meesua was not too greasy and had absorbed the tastes and flavours of the seafood broth it was fried in. We finished most of the food, much to our own disbelief. But I was disappointed the Fried Hokkien Mee, though generously sprinkled with pork cracklings, did not have enough wok-hei (wok-fragrance). Still, towards the end of dinner, I said to my sister, "P, please pass me what's left of the sub-standard hokkien mee." Beggars can't be choosers, in Singapore, I don't even get within sniffing distance of the uncooked noodles. The chilli sauce was terrific though!
