Kuala Lumpur - Incredible Sweet Potato Flour Noodles at Pu Yuan

[klyeoh]

Pu Yuan at Old Klang Road must be the MOST inconspicuous restaurant ever! Housed in a little wooden building set away from a small lane which leads to Choong Wen Primary School on Old Klang Road, you wouldn't know you're standing in front of a restaurant if you don't look closely - they have a little sign in front, but no windows or glass door!

Inside are 2 large tables which can accomodate 8-10 pax each, and 7-8 smaller tables. It's air-conditioned.

We had:
- Stir-fried sweet potato flour noodles with fresh shrimps, Chinese cabbage & lots of pork lard. The gooey, transparent cellophane-like sweet potato flour noodles soaked up the flavors of the lard & flavorings beautifully. Absolutely addictive and a revelation!
- Stir-fried mung bean noodles (tung hoon) which is blander. Skip this if they have the rice noodles (bee hoon) fried with stewed pork (kau yoke).
- Hokkien meat-rolls, filled with minced pork, shredded carrots & turnips. Nice texture, a bit strong in its use of 5-spice powder, which can be overpowering.
- Crisp popcorn chicken, with crisp muesli-like coating. Very tasty.
- Stir-fried Romaine lettuce ("yau mak"), provided a light, crisp side accompaniment.

I'll definitely be back for the sweet-potato-flour noodles!!

Pu Yuan Restaurant
112, Batu 4 1/2 (look for the Choong Wen Primary School archway just before Old Kuchai Road market),
Jalan Klang Lama
58000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: [phone]
Operating hours: 11.30am–3.00pm, 6.00pm–10.00pm.

[klyeoh]

Back at Pu Yuan today after more than a year. The place still maintained its charming little-wooden-house-in-a-Chinese-countryside ambience.

We will not miss its fried sweet-potato noodles, of course.

The crisp-fried meat rolls were tasty and, this time, *no* over-powering 5-spice scent. In fact there could have been a mistake by the cooks on the version we had on our last visit (double-dosage of 5-spice powder?)

We also order 2 items which we did not try the last time:
- House-special deep-fried seafood tofu, cloaked in ultra-crisp tempura-like batter. They were delicious, if a tad greasy.
- Muar-style otak-otak (Muar being a large town in the southern Malaysian of Johore, bordering on Singapore). Many Singaporeans know about the street-hawker cuisine of Muar, and quite a number of us had tasted them as we passed the town enroute to Malacca, a favorite destination for Singaporeans on long weekends. The version served here was 100% authentic - super-spicy, firm fish-cake with the consistency of haloumi cheese, and the kick of a mule ;-)

[huiray]

Another lovely meal. A Hokkien place, I think?

This seems like a Tony Bourdain destination for his next Malaysian episode but let us hope not, as the multitudes (gwailo or not) who might descend on it afterwards would probably destroy it. :-P

You might be amused by this blog entry, if you haven't seen it already: http://www.j2kfm.com/pu-yuan-old-klan...

[klyeoh]

Yes, it *is* a Hokkien place. I felt so silly because I was lunching with a fellow Singaporean colleague and we *both* couldn't speak Cantonese fluently - then, after taking our order, the proprietress-restaurant manager (who couldn't speak Mandarin fluently when we used it on her) turned around and spoke in *Hokkien* to her cooks in the kitchen. GAH! We could have all spoken in Hokkien to each other from the start!! Both KL & Singapore Hokkien belong to the Amoy/Guanzhou dialect group, as compared to Northern Malaysia/Penang's Zhangzhou dialect. But we're all mutually intelligible :-D

[huiray]

Heh. Well, perhaps on your next visit you'll then be able to sweet-talk her in your most charming Hokkien into whipping up even more scrumptious dishes not on the menu? ;-)

[klyeoh]

Actually, the ONE dish which I think they cook, and which I really, really missed, is the fried "bee hoon" (rice vermicelli) with stewed pork leg (Malingor one of those China-produced brands). My fave spot for this dish is from a little cafe inside the Arcade in Raffles Place, Singapore. I'd not been back there for 2 years, so am wondering if it's still around.

Also miss "crab bee hoon" from back home.
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