Hong Cha, OUG

Played house all weekend and was feeling the early symptoms of cabin fever, so off we went for a drive to shake it off.

Lazing around does take its toll - inertia begets inertia. We simply couldn't exert energy to go too far so Fat Tulip's idea of Hong Cha, near-and-dear pork noodles place in OUG, had to do.

For me, OUG's a tough one to get excited about, simply because of the questionable state of hygiene generally - there's so much good food within and if it was maybe half as filthy, we'd be eating there a lot more often.

Rats the size of cats aside, Hong Cha was the best pick that lazy evening - warmed us up plenty, paving the way for even more lying around and catching up on film downloads.

Fat Tulip got the Hong Cha special - liver, minced pork, sliced pork, intestines, seafood, everything but the kitchen sink!

The more modest version of just minced & sliced pork, with a raw golden egg to break up the colour code, perfectly complements nicely blanched noodles drizzled with soy.

Dry Lou Shu Fun

The menu at Hong Cha also featured, oddly enough, some standard Japanese fare. We saw many tables digging into sushi rolls with their steaming bowls of pork noodles - cross-cultural appreciation redefined!

Tonkatsu, with a side of potato salad. Meat was a bit too tough to leave much of an impression. Had to leave this unfinished, even if that goes against every grain of my being.

The mixed vegetable tempura set served its purpose. Ordinary enough to tough it out with the Japanese mom & pops' version around, crunchy enough to add another dimension to the already-hearty meal.

Hong Cha, evidently already well-known and well-loved

And best film of the weekend, by the way, had to be Mike Leigh's Another Year. Sad, funny, scary all at once. Deserves a bigger audience and all the accolades in the world. If you haven't seen it, make it a point to download it via your friendly torrent client!

Hong Cha

Jalan Hujan Rahmat 3

OUG, Kuala Lumpur

An Unfinished Ritual, Mai Ramen at Jaya One

To me, rituals often present themselves as a bunch of obligatory chores which have been put to reinforce some expired logic from the past.

Recently, however, I joined a choir singing a different tune. Having concluded that we were constipated by a whole host of soul-sapping habits, a few friends and I decided to create a new ritual of purging. The idea was we would make handwritten personal lists of the nasty forces we'd foolishly allowed to infiltrate our little lives, recite them to one another as some sort of a poetic and serious pledge and then conclude by burning lists in a bonfire (or well, in the interest of containing the threat of open burning, a scaled down version in a Milo tin).

So this one afternoon, huddled over bottles of prosecco, we scrutinised and dissected our lists in great detail. Before long, our wills to rid ourselves of these ill compulsions and elements were fortified by ridiculously optimistic cheer and approval. The bubbles helped too, of course.

Alas, before the fiery finale, we decided to make a quick dinner pit stop, which led to unfortunate truncated proceedings.

Mai Ramen, brand new at Jaya One replacing Simply Fusion, called out to us as we stumbled a little, trying to find our footing at dusk after all that unfeigned motivation. I had been hankering for a robust bowl of ramen for weeks now and with all that alcohol swirling around in us, we were hardly in the state of mind to trouble ourselves with options. Makes sense that a recurring item on our lists of things to eradicate is the abuse of alcohol to solve all of life's most trivial problems.

I immediately called loudly the Buta Kakuni (Braised pork belly) Ramen. Ever since my sister Mag inducted me to the lavish flavour of this dish which takes days to prepare, I have not been able to look at another pork dish the same again.

All ramen dishes share the same tonkotsu broth, thick, milky white, not as common as the clear shoyu ones available in other local ramen joints. I had expected the soup to be heady and overly salty, similar to the leanings of Tokyo ramen bars but was pleasantly surprised to find it a milder version.

The Jikasei Chasyu (Homemade barbequed pork) Ramen got the same enthusiastic reception. Check out that accompanying half of a bona fide Shoyu Tamago done right - moist, slightly underdone, creamy yolk, yes!

The Tamanegi no Takana Ramen with spicy vegetables - not entirely vegetarian given the broth but my selective vegetarian friend enjoyed it to the last slurp.

The ramen used here isn't the standard, slightly curly yellow noodles but a thinner, straighter version in pale off-white. I still prefer the thicker bite of the former but this still makes a pretty luscious bowl of noodles.

Mai Ramen's main courses come with the set option which includes 3 pieces of Gyoza, a side salad and tea. We enjoyed the Gyoza thoroughly - medium thickness of the skin, right dollop of meat & chive stuffing dipped in vinegar dressing.

The let-down of the meal would be the Soft Shell Crab Okonomiyaki, which was a soft, doughy, nondescript mess. I've long established that I am no fan of okonomiyaki so an inferior execution would do it even less justice, even when it comes topped with a whole soft shell crab.

Perhaps the highly gratifying meal interjected my ritual logic for when it came for time for us to resume the final step, I declined. I reasoned that I needed to keep my handwritten list to remind myself what I was letting go, although in hindsight, I was simply too drunk and too tired to bother with the Milo tin inferno.

But no matter, the unfinished ritual was truly liberating and the source of interruption, deliciously comforting. Meal was very reasonably priced too, about RM90.

Mai Ramen
Block C, Ground Floor
Jaya One

I Not Stupid, thanks to Pork Noodles at OUG

Having been strongly traumatized by my own ineptitude and missing my flight back to Penang this weekend to see Ollie, celebrate Mother's Day with the home crew and get my hometown food fixes, I had planned on getting my prawn mee fix at the famous stall in Taman Sri Sentosa but alas, did not make it out of bed in time.

You mean, you booked on the wrong flight route coming back to see me and realized only when you were checking in at the airport? And you're how OLD? Little Ollie gapes at the foolishness of the nitwit he's supposed to call Aunt.

Ho-hum.

I can't take the scrutiny any longer! Some other type of noodles will have to do, so I swing the car into OUG, park the car near the OUG wet market square and bundle out, sleep still in my eyes.
There are plenty of good eats around here, but I like the look of the Auntie who was serving up bowl after bowl of steaming noodles at Restoran Lucky.

Dry lou shu fun, slippery, cooked just right and finished with the nectar that is dark & light soy sauce and lard.

The accompanying storm in a blue plastic bowl arrived, murky liquid and flooded with minced meat, shredded pork meat, liver, one whole egg, vegetables and plenty of other unidentifiable wreckage from Auntie's fearless commandeering.

The broth is wonderfully sweet and concentrated on all flavours pork, instantly diffusing any self-doubt from this weekend's episode of ditz. The calm that follows the storm of this serving of Pork noodles (RM4.30) settles in. I forgive myself, and also decide that with the abundance of faith-restoring meals like this in KL, my Penang food cravings can wait a couple more weeks.

The stall is situated in Restoran Lucky, opposite the BHP station, for those seeking mercy in a bowl.