Local style zi char (煮炒) and Chinese food aren't our default food options. The man and I don't know of that many good restaurants, or old names, unless these happen to be located in the vicinity we lurk in. The friends took us to Lee Do Restaurant (麗都飯店) on the ground floor of Automobile MegaMart at Ubi Avenue 2. On a rainy weekday evening, we made up a happy table for dinner.
It's apparently a Fuzhou restaurant, and offers red wine chicken soup and mee sua, steamed cabbage and other traditional Hockchew dishes. None of us are keen on it, so passed on that. Half of the table was there for the famous double shelled cold crabs, and the other half (me too!) was there for the steamed fishhead with tau cheong.
After the cold crabs, the prawn rolls were served crisp and crunchy. A lovely first taste of the savory dishes with a sip of sake! The resturant used the head of the ikan kurau (specifically the Indian threadfin), and steamed it in fermented bean paste with lots of deep-fried lard. Hurhurhur. The stir-fried slices pig's liver with kailan were done so well!
The restaurant allowed us to bring our own alcohol. So we brought two bottles of sake, figuring that it would be the easiest to complement the food. The restaurant offered an ice bucket, and that kept the sake chilled through the evening. It only had two other tables (who ate earlier and left), and it left us the berth to make some noise and be a little more boisterous than usual. Wooot.
The dishes aren't mind-blowing by itself, although the older folks and die-hard cold crab lovers swear by Lee Do's version. The dishes that appeared at our table were superbly dependable and consistent with the taste that our parents generation grew up with. That makes it a surprise, and it's hard to beat. Many of these flavors aren't found in the run-of-the-mill stalls at the foodcourt, and neither are they found in the restaurants. There's a homecooked tinge to every dish. Dinner was so enjoyable!
The restaurant has been around since 1964. That's a good length of time, considering how many other good ones have closed. Its current premises are spacious, and while old-school, it works. I can totally see why it's so popular with families who are dining out at big gatherings. The family-run restaurant is helmed by 69-year-old Mr Tang Kwok Tong who still oversees the kitchen today. I hope the food at this restaurant remains consistent. It'd be a shame to lose more and more flavors of the yester-years.
2 comments:
Post on Dancing Fish. I love Dancing Fish too since I discovered it last year. Though it's Indonesian cuisine, I was surprised that it's actually from KL, and yet it's so good!
they don't seem to have stinged on spices yet, so that's great! we can continue eating there for a bit!
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