Ensconced in a quiet nook of Shoplex Mont Kiara is Fat Fook Inn, a charming little eatery if ever there has been one. This is an eating place that wears its heritage like a badge of honor – so that you’ll speedily stumble on the Oriental-style work of art and pretty Chinese plates bedecking the walls, all without delay alluding to the truth (in case you hadn’t already sussed it out) that that is really a Chinese restaurant.
The eatery is run through Lam Ee Voon, who additionally owns sister eating place Fat Fish next door. Lam turned influenced to open Fat Fook Inn after realizing there was a dearth of satisfactory Chinese eating places in the vicinity. I’ve been in this region for approximately four years now because of Fat Fish, and I love Chinese food. And I determined that there’s no proper Chinese eating place around here, so that’s why I stored an eye out to see if there was a vacant lot to take over,” she says.
Last August, Lam’s dream became authentic while a lot became available, and the control becomes aware of her idea for a true-blue Chinese eatery. At Fat Fook Inn, there may be no immediately obvious slant to the Chinese cuisine, as it doesn’t hail from any specific Chinese province or region. Instead, Lam trawled thru her very own preferred Chinese food and came up with a various variety of fare. So quite a few human beings inquire from me, ‘What sort of cuisine do you focus on?’ And basically, we don’t concentrate on any Chinese province’s meals, because we’ve got an extensive range of stuff that we serve right here.
For example, we have Hokkien noodles, Cantonese-fashion dishes, Hakka dishes like pigs’ trotter, and we even do a Teochew steamed fish, so it’s a combination of every unmarried style of Chinese meals there’s,” affirms Lam. Start your meal here with the marinated shredded chicken with jellyfish (RM20). “It sounds very dull, but we use premium grade jellyfish, and you may taste the difference in the feel,” says Lam. Interestingly, Lam’s own family is inside the commercial enterprise of supplying and distributing dried and clean seafood like fish maw, abalone, and sea cucumber, so she is aware of a factor or two about seafood.
The dish is scrumptious – the jellyfish plump with a distinct wobbly, bouncy satisfactory to it that mingles amiably with the tender bird within the combination. Next up, strive the wok-fried Yue Kwong hor (RM20) or stir-fried flat noodles. The dish arrives with a raw egg yolk atop that you’re intended to pierce and slather everywhere in the noodles to create a creamy veneer. The egg gives the noodles a silky texture. It accentuates the dish’s natural attributes, which is filled with unctuous slices of a beer belly, plump prawns, and springy squid, all running together harmoniously to deliver the gastronomic equivalent of an ebullient rendition of ‘Lean on Me.
The Hokkien noodles (RM18) also pack an exceptional flavor punch with copious amounts of crispy red meat lard juxtaposed with beef belly, squid, and greens. The black sauce in this rendition would perhaps not be as thick as popular variations of this famed dish; however, you don’t regularly get Hokkien mee with such beneficiant portions of pork lard and other ensemble ingredients.
If you’re going to be partaking in a spread of dishes, actually, absolutely eat all of them with a serving of beef lard rice (RM3). This devilish offering is largely rice topped with a sprinkling of crispy red meat lard and a house-made sauce. Tossed together, this reputedly easy dish takes on an altogether accelerated shape and will shape the precise canvas to the luxurious, hedonistic meal in advance.
From the vegetable options, strive the stir-fried chives with chestnut mushrooms (RM20) which function crunchy chives towards chewy bits of mushroom in what proves to be a union of equals. Sweet and bitter beef is so not unusual in Chinese restaurants that it’s also the dish least possibly to impress locals who have attempted numerous variations of the identical antique component. But at Fat Fook Inn, the candy and sour pork with pineapples (RM28) are, in reality, quite … faultless. The pork has a lovable crunch that offers manner to a gentle, almost juicy indoors, and the sauce that traces the crevices and hollows of the beef juggles the sweet-bitter divide with aplomb.
The braised sliced beef stomach with salted fish (RM32) is an aspect of beauty that differs slightly from traditional versions. “Normally, the red meat stomach is braised collectively with the salted fish in the clay pot, however here we name it yin-yang as it’s half of braised and half deep-fried,” says Lam. When you blend all the elements collectively, you’ll right now discover slices of crunchy red meat belly interspersed with the intensely salty salted fish and fiery dried chilies in what proves to be an addictively true compilation of intense flavors.
