In the midst of rushing for deadlines before the Chinese New Year holidays, we were still itching to have a nice lunch together with colleagues. A number of us cannot resist yue sang and if there is an opportunity to eat it everyday, I think we’d do that!

I’ve blogged about Woo Lan before, but I wrote about the different noodles served there. This time, we ordered dishes, and our old friend, JT, coincidentally ordered all my old favourites. I’ve graduated from these dishes and moved to several new ones, but like old socks, it is comforting to eat what I term “happy meals”.


First up was the plate of yue sang which we promptly finished, right down to the last sesame seed. It pays to have guys in the group who are not ashamed of being seen as desperately hungry, haven’t-eaten-for-one-week blokes.


In 2001, I was a big fan of fried pork belly. This simple dish is made of thinly sliced, deep fried, crispy belly stir-fried with chunks of cut onions in a slightly sweet and sticky dark sauce.


In 2004, I discovered butter squid (sotong). The sauce is very similar to butter crabs, which is a creamy milk sauce, and the squids are fried in this sauce together with a substantial amount of curry leaves. I remember in the old days, I used to finish up all the sauce as that was the best part of the dish. I even licked the curry leaves dry. 🙂 This dish takes a longer time to prepare, so order this only if you have time to spare.


Yau mak (romaine lettuce) was my favourite in the 90s.


The salted chicken dish was too dry; it would have been better had the sauce not leaked out of the packaging. But the flesh was tender and moist, although it was too small a portion for a table of 6.

Woo Lan (map here)
19, Jalan Scott,Brickfields, 50470 KL.
Tel: 03-2274-8368

Opening hours: 11.30am – 3.00pm & 5.30pm – 10.00pm