Makan-Makan Petaling St.

to die for

My momma was in town till yesterday. On Saturday, we decided to bring her to one of my favourite food haunts in KL - Seng Kee. The place is situated along Jalan Sultan which is where the old Rex Cinema used to be and runs parallel with Petaling Street (the place, not the blogtal). The shop sits in front of the Furama Hotel.



This place has been around forever. Like the sign says, the signature dishes here are the Claypot Loh Shu Fun, superb Yong Tow Foo and their fantastic Crispy Roast Pork Noodles. While Seng Kee found fame with it's Claypot Loh Shu Fun - a rice noodle cooked in a claypot with a generous helping of braised mince pork and pork liver, it must be said that the standard has dropped over the years. It's not all bad, just not all great. However, the Yong Tow Foo is still excellent. Yong Tow Foo is a fish patty stuffed into various veggies including chillies, okra, eggplant. I especially love the stuffed chillies since this place deep fries the stuff, bringing out a unique aroma in an otherwise standard chinese hawker cuisine. :)



To call Seng Kee a restaurant would be something of an understatement. When I ate here a decade back, Seng Kee was just a roadside shop with a few tables along the five-foot way of the shops on Jalan Sultan. Today, the tables are set along the corridors of some 7 or 8 shops. Seng Kee also rents the space of daytime restaurants for it's night time use. I usually sit in their Nam Heong space where it's air-conditioned.



We ordered the shop's new specialty - the Cantonese Fried Sang Mein with Fish Patties. Fish patty is like fishball without the ball shape. While most good Chinese restaurants serve this, Seng Kee's fish patties are excellent. The patties here are deep-fried in a light batter and seasoned with Chinese five-spice powder. We also ordered a Braised (Mun) Sang Mein with Fish Fillet (Yue Phin). That was only okay.

However, the current number one - which is the topmost picture on this post - is the Crispy Roast Pork Noodle (Siew Yoke Mein). In this dish, the roast pork is sauteed in dark soy sauce with bits of cruncy garlic slices. This is a heavenly accompaniment for the stir-fried Sang Mein noodles.

Seng Kee operates from dinner time till the wee hours of the morning, about 2 - 3am. It's a great place to eat and not terrible expensive too. We paid RM 95 for a hearty meal for 7 of us. So much for my diet. *sigh*