On my annual trips home, by the last day of my stay my friends are so sick of me that nobody makes the effort to see me *bawwwl*. Probably a good thing, most of the time I would only start packing on the last day. However, this year proved to be different…I left the house at 9.30am for breakfast with an old friend – and was joined by another at around 11.30. Left bacon at home to pack as he couldn’t get up for the 9.30am morning call. Before you accuse me of animal cruelty, I did pick him up for lunch around 1 with franks and his better half.

This was the second time that I met Serene, and they introduced us to good ol’ home cooking Cantonese style. True to Franks’ style, he knows someone who knows someone…heh. However, the chef of this restaurant happens to be his friend’s mom, and franks kinda grew up eating at her kitchen and telling her that she should have a restaurant. And she did! And so here we are!

The clean interior of the restaurant.

I have known Franks for more than 10 years now – but the one thing I refuse to do is to go to his house. The one time I offered to drive him home (alone, at 4am) it took me 30 minutes before I could find my way out from the urban jungle that he lived in. Apparently Serene manages to return to his house after being there only once. Its probably one of his criterias for choosing girl friends .

Anyway, back to the food. I let Franks loose on the menu seeing that he grew up with it, and he did not dissapoint.

First up was the special yong tau foo. Yong Tau Foo is a Hakka dish that is pervalent in Malaysia,, usually this is fish paste stuffed in tofu, chillies, aubergine, bitter groud ect. This is then steamed and then served in a soup. Hakka is a chinese dialect/clan that is not area-specific unlike most chinese dialect. One of the numerous dialects spoken by the chinese people in malaysia.

Anyway, back to this special Yong Tau Foo. Unlike the usual fish paste stuffing, she had used mui choy (preserved chinese vegetable) mixed in with minced pork. This is then stuffed into a paper-thin casing of fried tofu pok, basically air-puffed dried tofu. Served soaked in savoury meat and salted vegetable stock, this dissipates all that I know about yong tau foo. Gone are the rubbery fish paste and flavourless tofu/vegetable – this small package is an explosion in many different levels in my mouth, assulting my tastebuds in ways that it does not know exist. OHMIGOD.

Second up was the sour-spicy vegetable. The Hokkiens call it kiam chye boay, or salted vegetable ends. My mother and her mother made it out of bits and ends of leftovers (i.e. roast pork and soy sauce chicken ect), throwing in flavourful preserved mustard lettuce, tamarind pulp and slice with a handful of dried chillies.They did not use leftovers here (doh) but it was equally filled with the zing and taste. A very pleasant change from the safety of the yong tau foo.

Then the pig arrived. I honestly have no idea what this is called, but it looks like a very dry version of char xiu. It was coated with seasoning, and seemingly deep fried, giving it a very crispy outer coating, whilst the inside remain moist and soft as you can probably see from the above. Biting into it gives you a satisfying crunch, and the meat just melts in your mouth to compensate for the crunch. Mmm Mm good, slightly like KFC. Heh.

The pig continues giving, this time going to the ribs. Well marinated and grilled to a perfection, the sweet-savoury sauce that topped this plateful makes it excellent with a side portion of rice. Just plain white steamed rice to soak the juices up. The perfect grilling gives this dish a crunchy top layer as well, before introducing you to the moist flavourful yummy flesh around the ribs.

The required vegetable dish of the day was kailan stirfried with garlic. Plain, as it’s meant to be, this provided a respite from the endless array of pork that we had been scoffing down.

Love it!

I decided to order dessert as well, just needed something sweet to cap it all up. Seeing that we’re in a ‘traditional’ cantonese restaurant, I ordered soybean with white fungus. I know it sounds disgusting, but it was absolutely delicious..as I love soybean and white fungus.Again, not overly sweet, allowing the delicious flavour of soybean milk to shine thorugh.

And being the boss she is, the chef even sent us a plate of fresh fruits – emphasising that the mangoes were delicious.

I don’t actually have any idea how much the bill was, as Serene just literally picked it up and paid on her way to the toilet. Thank you! Bacon is feeling very strange as my friends keep picking up the tab. I can honestly say that none of his friends had ever ever picked up the tab for us before, unless it was their round at the bar. So this was all very strange for him.

I love this place, if I were ever to move back to KL, this will definately be one of my haunts. Clean, delicious, reasonable ( I think average price per dish was around RM15), bright (excellent lights for pix!) and easy parking on weekends. For those of you familiar with Subang Jaya, it is just behind the old Gazebo. If you were to head towards Subang Parade from SS15′s KFC outlet, turn right just before the old Gazebo, it will be on your right at the end of the road.

Gao Ren Guan (Branch)
43, Jalan SS15/4E,
Subang Jaya
Tel: 03- 5621 0966
email: info@gaorenguan.com

Gao Ren Guan (Main)
07-01,09-01 Jalan Kenari 18B,
Bandar Puchong Jaya
Tel: 03- 8076 8766

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