My colleague has mentioned this place at least five to six times in the past 6 months, which has really tickled my curiosity. But driving to Bukit Tinggi for dinner is something that has to be planned and some recommended dishes had to be pre-booked. And according to my colleague, the owner of this restaurant (a certain Mr. Chan) can be a wee bit on the eccentric side, and can choose not to serve you if you come after 8pm. So we played our cards right, gathered some foodies, called to reserve a table, pre-booked dishes and arrived before 6:30pm. I can’t remember when was the last time I had such an early dinner…
For those who know how to get to the Bukit Tinggi exit (with the shops flanking both sides of the Karak highway), you’ll probably notice the BHP petrol station too. And the restaurant is right behind the petrol station. The restaurant itself used to be part of the petrol station, and served as a car wash.
The interesting part of the restaurant is not of the organic vegetables growing behind it, but of the decor. Empty wine and liquor bottles line the “walls” of the restaurant and signed umbrellas are hung proudly from the ceiling. I can only wonder of the dust and dead insects that collect on and in the bottles and brollies respectively. Hehe.
First up was a rice dish, or named by the proprietors as “Wu Li Dan Dou Fan”. It’s not a pretty sight to be honest as it looked more like a jumble of leftovers poured over rice. But it tasted quite good, and had quite a lot of different types of vegetables in it, ranging from carrots, capsicums, pumpkin, cabbage, dried vegetables, brinjals, tomatoes, potatoes etc and some minced meat in it. The broth is light and I felt like I was a child again, eating rice flooded in soup. Hehe.
I was looking forward to the Seafood Pot (海鲜煲) most of all. Not your typical chinese seafood pot, but this served the seafood as simply as can be. An array of seafood, mostly crabs, prawns and clams (sometimes mussels and scallops too) is steamed over clear stock and thus, most of the seafood essence is retained as it drips into the stock. The whole steamer pot is served unto the table and it’s delightful tucking into the fresh seafood. Then when the seafood is cleared off, the waitress whisks away the pot and adds leafy vegetable and oyster mushrooms into the stock before re-serving it as vegetable soup. A 2 in 1 deal, but for a rather steep price of RM95. Still this was one of the clear winners with all of us.
Another highly rated dish was the BBQ Lamb rack. As they don’t make a lot of this dish, we were reminded to pre-book to avoid disappointment. We liked the combined taste of the smokey skin and the juicy meat and when paired with the self-concocted mint sauce (which was tangy and apetite whetting!), it absolutely heavenly. However, when the lamb rack cooled down, it didn’t taste as good anymore. So I would say, tuck in as soon as this is served! Also one of the pricier dishes, at RM90 for this portion. And judging from the number of wine bottles here, this would be a perfect pairing with the wine.
We also had the Sea Salt Crusted Tilapia (雪山飞狐)which was another winner with all. Some of them are especially sensitive to the “muddy taste” of freshwater fishes but there was none of that here. The fish is stuffed with red onions, chestnuts, garlic and green chilli which seems to add to the flavour. And of course the presentation was a plus as the salt crusted scales were peeled open to depict the “snowy mountain flying fox” bit. Hehe.
When we asked for a chicken dish over the phone, we were only given one choice, the signature chicken dish. It does seem that the owner, or chef is highly confident of their style of cooking as most the dishes are only prepared in ONE way, apart from the fish, which can be steamed as well. Anyhow was a tad surprised to see the BBQed chicken served with gravy. But it was quite tasty, and the meat was easy to tear off and had soaked up the gravy to become very flavourful.
Who would have thought Green Chillies could become a dish in itself? But this came highly recommended again so we decided to go for it. The chillies are stripped clean of the seeds and caramelised in a special house sauce which is a sweetish blend of dark sauces. The big chillies were crunchy at first bite and had only a mild spiciness to it. At first it tasted too “green” for me despite my penchant for spicy food. But the more I had them, the more I started to enjoy this. And the sauce coating them was the key to the enjoyment of this dish so make sure your chilli is properly coated to fully appreciate the blend of flavours.
The entire dinner for our table came up to RM341 which is somewhat expensive but when you really think about it, the style of cooking is also unique to this restaurant and somewhat justifies the cost. I’m sorry I didn’t breakdown the cost of the other dishes but the bill is somewhat encoded with only symbols and scribbles which just doesn’t make much sense to us. Definitely eccentric, the people behind this place. Lol.
Restoran Bukit Tinggi BBQ 武吉丁宜烧烤村
PT 15792 & 15793, Jalan Bukit Tinggi,
28750 Bentong, Pahang.
Tel: 09-233 0330/ 012-3577111
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