Little restaurant by the highway
Humble outlet draws the crowd with delectable dishes
FOR an unassuming outlet located next to a highway, Old Street Kitchen offers authentic flavours of a wide variety of Chinese dishes.
This little restaurant in Taman Kajang Sentral has surprised many highway users who tried out the outlet for a quick meal, but keep coming back for more.
Photos on the wall in the restaurant show that even Hong Kong celebrities come here for the culinary delights.
Even though it is a simple establishment, the restaurant pays meticulous attention to details to offer the best flavours.
The ingredients are carefully sourced and whenever they can, ingredients such as beancurd are made in-house.
Restaurant operator Wendy Tan attributes the restaurant’s extensive offering to the rich experience of the chef, Lew Tin Sun, who was trained under chefs of different specialty before he took to lead a kitchen himself. “We offer home-cooked flavours, but our dishes are also fit for major celebrations,” said the beautician turned-restauranteur.
The diversity of the Chinese dishes served here, ranging from Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, Shanghainese to even Mongolian, also appeals to many Indian customers who frequent the restaurant for some spicy and intense flavours.
Lew’s quest for better results does not stop here. He often tries out different food with friends to invent more delicacies.
Shark’s Fin with Egg Floss and Crabmeat is the first dish recommended by Tan. Priced from RM40, it is said to be a traditional dish rarely found in local restaurants.
Egg floss and crabmeat, stir-fried to have a bit of smoky aroma, is paired with shark’s fin and savoured with fresh lettuce. The dish pleases with an interesting mix of tastes and textures.
Shanghai-styled Garoupa in Claypot tantalises diners who like light flavours. It is a large pot of soup filled with garoupa chunks, white fungus, squid, beancurd, ginger, enoki mushroom, hence its sweet notes. The light soup is appetising, and I especially liked the use of white fungus for a savoury soup as it enhances the dish with a crunchy texture.
Do include any of the soft beancurd dish in your order. Lew makes trays of beancurd every morning which are usually sold off within the same day. The white, velvety chunks are really tender, smooth and full of soya beans’ original flavours.
Mongolian Chicken is one of the bestsellers. Combining the creaminess of fresh milk and the spicy hints of curry leaf, this delight lures both Chinese and Indian diners.
Fresh Water Prawn Noodle is a crowd favourite, too. The prawns imported from Indonesia are huge, lending rich, creamy flavours to the fried noodle soaked in egg gravy. The price of the prawns is seasonal but it is usually at RM10 per 100g.
If you are here to celebrate an occasion, pork trotters prepared the traditional way is a good choice. The dish involves a time-consuming process of frying and stewing and is served with dark herbal sauce. When savoured, the deep-fried crispy skin cracks into pieces to reveal tender meat inside, bursting with rich herbal flavours.
OLD Street Kitchen, 69-G, Jalan TKS 1, Taman Kajang Sentral, Kajang. (Tel: 03-8739 8628/016-993 3878). Business hours: 11am2.30pm, 5.30pm-11pm. Closed on Mondays. Non-halal. This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by Star metro.