she, the epicuriousgirl.

Kafe Bawang Merah is my neighborhood fix for authentic homecooked Indonesian/Malay cuisine. Regardless of lunch, tea or dinner time, it’s always packed. Love the set up of the place, with the cosy and inviting ambience. A little cramped perhaps but once you’re seated and fully enjoying your food… all other issues fly out the window! they don’t really serve ala carte food but have this nasi campur concept. they also have some “specials of the day” which is mostly stuff like nasi ayam, lontong sayur, soto ayam etc.

During a recent lunch with my aunt and family, we picked out a few different dishes to accompany our rice. Amongst which we had;

Pucuk Manis & Ayam Goreng with Tempeh Goreng

The Pucuk Manis is the dark green leaves of this leafy vegetable Cangkuk Manis and cooked in a lemak gravy. The leaf itself tastes slighly sweetish. The Fried Chicken was marinated with turmeric and some other who-knows-what, my cousin practically licked the bones clean. Seeing her with the chicken drumstick, could only imagine how great it tasted. I didn’t have any of the tempeh because I’m not too keen on the taste. Quite the acquired taste for me.

terung sambal, kurma daging

The terung sambal is boiled/steamed aubergines topped with this chilli paste. definitely one of my favourite vegetables and I love it no matter how it’s cooked. The beef kurma was piled with potatoes and very creamy. As it’s a mild curry, it was neither spicy nor overpowering. Instead the taste was subtle and delicious!

keli cili & tempoyak, lontong sayur

Also had the keli fish which was deep fried and coated with pounded green chillies. The result? A spicy but aromatic fishy dish. Another old favourite. And last but not least, my favourite condiment – sambal tempoyak! have always loved tempoyak which is fermented durian. cooked with chilli and other ingredients, it can be truly your rice’s best friend. very fragrant indeed. love, love it. Another thing I love from Bawang Merah is their lontong which is nasi impit (boiled compressed rice cubes) drowned in sayur lodeh, a rich, coconut milk-based gravy with vegetables ( cabbage, carrots, long beans), vermicelli, egg and tempeh.

With the homecooked taste element, it’s no wonder it continues to be packed with customers everyday. we just can’t help returning again and again.

Kafe Bawang Merah
12A, Jalan SS12/1B ,
47500 Subang Jaya
Opening Hours: Daily (9am-10pm)
Tel 03-5621 6100

we were browsing the curve last week and found this interesting concept restaurant in the midst of training its staff. as it was only to open this week, we decided we’ll wait to check it out as soon as it opens. ah, mistake on our part indeed as the staff clearly hasn’t ironed out its opening kinks. service was frankly horrible. as most of them were foreigners, we could hardly understand the waiter nor he us. some of the waiting staff pretended not to see us when we tried hailing them. still curiosity got the better of us and the other patrons.

the concept is delightful. as it goes by the name of “the apartment”, the interior deco clearly tries to implement the homey and cosy ambience into this restaurant. there’s an outside “patio”, the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bar area, lounge, a reading nook and even an upstairs, complete with wardrobe! it’s kooky and delightful at the same time! even the menu is rather unique, using a clipboard with illustrated graph paper. the only flaw is that the pages don’t stay up! lol.

i wanted to start off with the “my aparment soup” but all soups were not available this time. decided to skip the tapas or the clams/mussels bowl as my colleagues didn’t seem keen. They all jumped into the mains as we were famished by then.

The first dish to come was the “Mediterranean Braised Squids” (RM16.80) which was squid stuffed with herbed breadcrumbs and dampened with lively tomato sauce. It was quite lovely though one colleague commented that the breadcrumbs had too strong a herb taste. but I totally loved the herbi-ness of it. reminded me of turkey stuffing, somehow. lol. The second dish was the “English Lamb Curry” (RM22.90) served with warm ciabatta bread fingers. The hearty meal of lamb curry with aubergines was rather good. And every bread finger was dipped into the bowl to clean it of its curry gravy.

The most disappointing dish of the night was probably the “Fish wrapped in Banana Leaf” (RM21.90). Cooked ala otak-otak style, the lemon sole is cooked in a rich coconut milk base with slivers of ginger, chilli etc. However the fish pieces in the middle didn’t cook well enough. I suppose the use of the banana leaf was to seal in the flavours and despite the fish smelling rather delicious when the leaves were opened up, it didn’t live up to its first impression. My colleague complained that it tasted rather bland and she kept adding salt and pepper. My choice was the “Roast Duck with Plum Sauce” (RM23.90) and it’s description said “roasted duck drenched in scrumptious plum sauce served with tossed french beans”. Drenched? there was barely enough plum sauce to go around. But then, the plum sauce wasn’t really the plum sauce I’m expecting. Instead it tasted as it was mixed with some other berries, almost akin to Ikea’s Lingonberry Sauce. But the duck meat was tender and easy to tear away from the bone and had a very subtle smoky taste to it. Mustard is drizzled onto the french beans which gives it an extra oomph. Quite delectable actually.

Ended the night with coffee, mocha latte (RM8.90) actually and cuppacakes (RM4 each). The rest had iced water which was served in a flourish. the waiter put the cups in a carrier thing and brought that over. a single lemon slice and mint leaf floated about in the water and I guess that’s why that glass cost RM0.50. Lol. The cuppacakes were from wondermilk and i loved the frosting! couldn’t taste much of the cupcake itself as these were shared between the 4 of us!

well despite the food being quite pleasing to my palette, i think i will make a return visit when the staff are more settled and well-trained. hope your visit there will be more pleasant than mine in terms of service!

the apartment (www)
Lot 72, 73 & 74, 152 Ground Floor,
Western Courtyard,
The Curve,
Mutiara Damansara.
Tel: 03- 7727 8330

i’m not a huge fan of the petaling street scene but on very weekends where I find myself gallivanting around that area, it would be after consuming this piping hot, heartwarming bowl of porridge from Hon Kee. i don’t hanker after porridge much as in my mind, one only eats it when they’re not feeling well. however, when i actually do make my way downtown on a weekend morning, it’ll be to visit this stall.

my personal favourite here is the raw fish porridge (鱼片粥). the smooth porridge is cooked slow and long with grounded grains and topped with spring onion. served with the raw fish slices on a separate plate with sesame oil, ginger slivers and coriander leaves, we are to mix the fish slices well before pouring the lot into the hot porridge. the heat of the porridge will then cook the fish perfectly. then, dip in some “yau char kway” (油条) and it’s just heavenly!

The other porridge I have tried it the Mixed Pork Porridge(猪杂粥) which has pig innards and is topped with crispy fried intestines and spring onions. the fried intestines is crunchy to the bite and reminds me of pork cracklings. yum yum. however, i still think that the mixed pork porridge I have eaten in Subang (review later) is more reminiscent to the excellent one we had in penang. Hon Kee’s version has its own merits though and we even ordered an ala carte portion of the fried intestines for that extra bite.

Hon Kee Porridge 汉记靓粥
Jalan Hang Lekir,
Off Jalan Petaling,
Kuala Lumpur.

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