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Gao Ren Guan, Bandar Puchong Jaya by Chan Kar Tat |
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Monday, 06 November 2006 |
Chiefeater - we have Chan Kar Tat to thank for this review.
Opposite IOI Mall where there this cluster of new buildings, you will find this restaurant Gao Ren Guan just opposite Leong Ah yong tau foo and same row as Taiping Lang.
Serves Gao Chow (meaning people from the Gao province somewhere part of Guandong in China) dishes.
Simple but tastefully done deco with aircond and large black and white images of people in the good old days getting together and one old man cooking and slicing pork at a wood fire stove. That's how far it goes in terms of reminiscence of the past. No antique or war time paraphenalia or stuff like that. No frills like kacang and wet perfurmed paper towels to waste your money. One long piece of mirror covering one side of the wall all the way from entrance to the kitchen wall.
A look at the menu shows majority of dishes belong to the "Pork" section. Pork section occupies the whole page while Vege only half page and Seafood quarter of the page. So I guess the Gao Chow people specialty must be pork.
The main highlight is their 4 dishes - 1. Fried tofu stuffed with minced meat and chopped "ham choy" or salty preserved vegetable, 2. Pork and yam slice (eg:hakka char yuk), 3. Bitter Gourd stuffed with minced pork and 4. Steam salted kampung chicken.
I ordered all 4 main plus another "Braised Pig Mixed Inards". Let me go through the main 4, then the Inards.
The stuffed bitter gourd and fried tofu is something very uncommon, have never seen such style of cooking. The bitter gourd was stuffed with minced meat and steamed until it's very soft. So soft that your chopstick can sink into it if you have strong fingers. It's small size bitter gourd so you can order 1 each per person. Taste very good as you sink your teeth in. Slightly bitter at the outside but as your shove your toungue into the stuffing, tasty aromatic mince pork with slight "ham choy" juice oozing out. Same experience goes to the fried tofu. Fried but not oily and crunchy. Both the bitter gourd and tofu served with a bit of soup dripping out onto the plate. It was a soft juicy affair to gobble these 2 items.
Ahh the best part.....The "char yuk". It looks like the usual "hakka char yuk" except that it's more on the pinkish side then the usual dark brown. Suspected something to do with the special fermented yam paste (eg: lam yue). Served with the usual piece of meat interlaced with piece of yam. The real difference is when you put it in your mouth. The char yuk is soft and multi-layered with fat and meat. Fat and meat still nicely joint but when biting on it, both fat and meat melted slowly with fermented yam paste coming into picture with slight taste of wine. I suspect it's the good quality fermented yam paste that will give you the wine taste.
Next the salted baked kampung chicken. Taste good not much comment on this as it's quite a normal dish. Kampung white chicken with few pieces of "tang kuew" herbs. Although normal, still it was nicely done.
Now the inards, you get large intestine, pork tounge, ears and not sure what else, finely sliced and braised to very tender perfection. Not overly watery like those you find in Teo Chew porridege shops.
That's all I can take for that night. There were lots more to sample at the Poultry and Pork section. The pork section looks very interesting. There's a sliced pork marinated in special wine, the picture really makes me want to try it but hey....I leave some for you guys to try and write.
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