Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Steam Cuisine @ Restoran K.T.L, Taman Segar, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur


fish glorious fish - from the market to the table

Oh dear! I think I have blip fever. Instead of editing pictures and writing today's blog post, I have been searching for songs to blip. Weird stuff you find when you search. I even found some French music I used to listen to long ago aka the infamous Betty Blue theme song from Gabriel Yared. There's everything on blip; English, French, Chinese and Malay songs that I listen to. Most importantly they also have Zee Avi's songs, which is my current flava of the month. We absolutely love Kantoi, a mix of Malay and English lyrics.

everyone dines here - families and even fellas with ties despite the heat. Best dish ever, the smooth steamed egg custard

Back to food, which is what all of you tune into this blog of mine for and definitely not for my eclectic taste for music. Since Precious Pea is about to leave on a jetplane for Down Under, we have been cramming events with her. One was a long promised food crawl around Cheras (a place that I am perpetually lost!), we have been talking about for the longest time. Led by Precious Pea's Makan Gang, they took us for a whirlwind trip around the place. Our first stop was this shack in front of shophouses in an old area of Cheras where they get weird monikers like "lemak or fat in Malay" or "manis or sweet in Malay". Seems appropriate for this place since food is in abundance everywhere.

steamed chooks and pork come with loads of delicious sauce to drizzle over white rice so be prepared to load up your carbs here.

Famous for their steamed dishes, you drop by here for a taste of homecooked nostalgia. Their most famous dish here is the humble steamed egg custard (RM3 for a small portion). Albeit simple to make, perfecting it is a task that most cooks can't master. Here the wobbly custard (a mix of water and egg) is steamed to wobbly perfection that slides down your throat.

Another specialty here is the steamed fish (RM27 for steamed tilapia). Fresh from the market, we were so early that we saw the fish arriving by lorry before they were prepped for that day's lunch session. You get a variety of tilapia, pak soo kong (catfish) and etc here, that swim in their temporary tanks before ending up in the customer's tummies. The fish's flesh is smooth after steaming and goes so well with their own made cheong cheng (soybean paste) sauce. Other items we tried were the steamed chicken with chicken herbs (RM9), steamed pork with salted fish (RM6) and vegetables drizzled with fried garlic (RM5). While the chicken was nice, we thought the pork was slightly overcooked and the salted fish lacked much taste. Nevertheless, this place is a great find with its smooth egg custard and silky smooth steamed fish with a kick ass spicy sauce with soybean paste.

Restoran KTL
Stall No. 3A
Jalan Manis
Taman Segar
Cheras
Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 017-8727567, 012-308 7311

(Non halal. Open for lunch only and closed on Tuesdays. Place is in front of a 4D shop. For the google map, see this link. Sorry, no GPS as my phone's Maxis 3G decided not to work the whole day in Cheras!)

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here is entirely based on my personal tastebuds and may vary for others. This review is time sensitive; changes may occur to the place later on that can affect this opinion. The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from this place for writing the review.

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Other reviews:
  • SC from Food4Thot got lucky with the last fish of the day.

14 comments:

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

u got eat their sang yu..steamed with chillies..ohhh so nice..although it can get quite brutal when the maid virtually smashes its head and then cleans it up before landing in the wok to steam..

boo_licious said...

Thxs for the tip Joe. Yeah, it did get a little gruesome for us too.

sc said...

i remember this place! :D yes, i got the last fish that the cat brought in..hehe. yes, the steam egg was so smooth, very tasty indeed.

qwazymonkey said...

OOh I'm totally in love with Kantoi. Such a candid and funny song. Love the choice of language! Zee Avi rocks!

foodbin said...

i like the steamed Haruan and smooth egg custard.

Precious Pea said...

Seems like everyone raving about the haruan..shall we??

Chefspiration said...

nothing beats a perfectly steamed fish! ohh delicious :)

minchow said...

Ooh Zee Avi is such a breath of fresh air, and she's bona fide Malaysian as well!! I heard she was recording in the US with Jack Johnson's label, any word on the release date? I never thought I could be this excited over a thoroughly steamed meal, but hey I keep learning new things about food each day!

thule a.k.a leo said...

there are 2 bosses for this stall... my wife used to do one of the boss's SPA and therefore she'd tried their steamed fish here, but I didn't coz I have not dated my wife yet at that time...... long sigh!!
Cheras... maybe I should drop by this weekend! Jenn wants to look for her sis who lives in alam damai

Sean said...

gosh, at first i thought that guy in your pic was scooping the fish right out of a fisherman's net! hmmm, now u've got me craving fish for dinner...

Rarebeet said...

Was this that infamous food crawl you were telling me about? 12 hours? Maaan what dedication! Food looks good!

Sugar Bean said...

Love it if it's fresh, nothing beats the freshness of the fish. And steamed food is healthy too, at least it doesn't burn the throat like deep-fried food. :)

J2Kfm said...

zee avi? the Msian gal who's making it big in the international scene?

gotta download her tunes to see if popularity justified.

oh, and nothing beats steamed food after serious bingeing sessions!

boo_licious said...

sc - I love the steamed egg here; perfect proportions of egg and water to get that silky taste.

monkey - high 5! Zee avi is definitely the best ever.

foodbin - next time haruan.

precious pea - yes yes, must go again obviously.

Alexandra - yeah, very simple yet simply delicious stuff.

550ml - from the Star article, it sounds like the cd is out and distributed by Universal. Must go check the stores out. Been meaning to but keep forgeting.

Leo - hope u made it this weekend!

Sean - he was delivering the fresh fish and scooping it out to the net to transfer it to the tank.

Paprika - ssssshhhh! We ate so much that day, from day to night.

sugarbean - yeah, steamed is so healthy!

j2kfm - go to her youtube page as the songs are there. Hope you like it, she also has an FB fan page.

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