A Whiff of Lemongrass

When we came back from our three-week vacation, most of our plants were either dying or dead. I’m not sure if I willed it. What used to be our pride and joy turned out to be the neighbourhood eyesore, just because we were too involved in our own lives to do anything about the garden. We used to tend to our garden lovingly, and spent many hours admiring the blooms. We knew which plant had new buds. We welcomed the sweet scent of the white ginger in the middle of the night. I painted glass jars and put tea lights in them and hung them out on the tree, and its branches would be illuminated by the flickering flames. Sometimes, I’d cook dinner and we’d have it out on the patio, so that we could drink in the colours of the garden, and be entertained by the sounds of the water feature. And occasionally, we’d have a guest – Tom, the frog. He’d hop over to us like an old friend, and he knew we’d never do him harm. Tom doesn’t visit us anymore. He’s probably found a nicer garden.

It was time to bring back the colours and scents to my garden.

Home is not far from Sungai Buloh where nurseries stretch as far as the eye can see. Which is convenient if one wants an instant garden. 🙂

I got into my little car and drove to my favourite nursery owned by Albert. I was euphoric as I selected plant after plant for my garden. Eventually, I knew I had to go home as every tiny space in my car had been filled with plants.

Driving back, my gastric juices started acting up. Without hesitation, I drove straight to Subang Permai where Restoran Teck Kee is located. Subang Permai is located about 5 minutes from home (Bukit Jelutong) and if you’re coming from Bukit Jelutong, you will have to skip the Guthrie Corridor expressway and use the trunk road to reach this place. Upon arriving, I knew what I wanted. If you read my blog last week, you will know that I had an unsatisfactory meal of ginger wine chicken. I still had cravings, so instead of ordering bak kut teh like everyone else, I got myself a meal of ginger wine chicken with onion rice.

The ginger wine chicken here has got generous servings of ginger, chicken pieces and wine. Lots of wine. It was an interesting combination of sweet and hmmm…how does one describe alcohol? 🙂 Eaten with the onion rice and side servings of chopped garlic in soy sauce, it was a very satisfying meal. The meal, priced at RM10 for one person, was worth every cent.

I’m probably going to make it my mission to find the best ginger wine chicken in the Klang valley.

Teck Kee
Jalan Alfa D
Section U6
Subang Permai.

The formation of the Makan Club and our friendship began approximately six months ago with the anticipation of two events – eating char siew at Salak South and eating “lard noodles” at San Peng.

Pretty Pui, Bouncing Barbie and I were initially taken aback when the guys waxed lyrical about lard noodles. Seriously, how can anyone be excited about lard? Lard in this context is crunchy fried pork fat which is used in various chinese dishes like char koay teow, hokkien mee, and in this case, prawn noodles.

Bizzy Bertie and Ecstatic Eeyore described the dish as prawn noodles where half the bowl is filled with lard. Naturally, I wasn’t too impressed with the description.

The stall is located at Jalan San Peng, just after the flats and opposite a TM building. There is an open air carpark (which is actually just a vast piece of empty land) across the stall, so parking is not a problem.

A normal bowl of prawn noodles at this stall contains a generous portion of prawns and kangkung (water convolvulus) with noodles of your choice in a thick murky broth of prawn and pork soup. The lard is added according to your preference. This is a picture of Smokin’ SOB’s bowl of noodles (with a normal serving of lard):

Ecstatic Eeyore’s bowl looks like this:

Eeyore normally consumes a pot of chinese tea after eating his noodles in the hopes of washing down the fat and cleansing his system, but who’s he trying to kid? 🙂

We normally order a plate of steamed chicken together with our noodles. The steamed chicken is served on a bed of crunchy taugeh (bean sprouts) and is drizzled with aromatic sesame oil which adds a smooth texture and enhances the flavour of the chicken.

My initiation took place some time in July 2006. I have since returned to this stall several times.

It was a very hot Wednesday afternoon and we decided to drive out for lunch. We had heard about the famous ginger wine chicken in Pudu and were keen to try it even though we had no idea where the restaurant was. Perhaps the heat coupled with our hunger brought out the adventurous side in us.

On an aside, I am now laughing, alone, while writing this as it is highly amusing to think that this is what I would classify as “adventurous”. hehe. It must be the age thing.

After some very skillful parking at Jalan Yew, we trudged along the old shoplots, the smells of the market still in the air as workers swept up the debris from the road. Directions were promptly obtained from one of the shopowners.

We are big fans of ginger wine chicken, and we were trembling with excitement at the thought of savoring the dish in a matter of minutes.

Our order of fishballs stuffed with minced meat came first. I felt like I had bitten into a cottony-soft pillow. Our excitement grew.

The mee suah (wheat noodle) in red ginger wine soup arrived. Mee suah has traditionally been the stuff one would eat when sick. Pretty Pui wasn’t too excited about the noodles, but was willing to overlook that for the sake of the soup.

I love mee suah, so the entire dish sounded perfect. Served with sliced ginger and black fungus in a thin red wine soup and generous portions of chicken, it looked rather interesting (the soup was red, after all) but nevertheless, appetising.

One mouthful, and the bubble burst.

Sigh.

Hup Yick
No. 30, Jalan Yew
Pudu, 55100 KL