Popagandhi

What I’d rather be eating Sunday weekend food blogging

lala

I’ve been extremely hungry lately. So hungry that during a question and answer session following my presentation on Malaysia’s minority relations, in response to a comment from a foreign student “why don’t Malaysia’s minorities just move somewhere else?”, I actually said, “are you kidding me, the food is so gooooood.”

Anyway.

Last weekend, I made the trip up to Malaysia to see some friends and to do some serious eating. I had dinner with Renee, S., Pey, and some of their housemates, at Lala Chong in Subang (I’d never have made it there if I was living in KL proper instead of Petaling Jaya, and didn’t have transport). I had high hopes for it as I really wanted to make it to Sarang Murai this time, but (1) didn’t have the 10 people necessary for a reservation (2) nobody knew how to get to my admittedly vague description of the “place where we eat in the jungle… in Selangor” (”Selangor got a lot of jungle…”). So Lala Chong it was. Those of you familiar with seafood in Malaysia and Singapore will know that lala is the vernacular name for clams, so the name Lala Chong is fairly odd. I realized later on that Mr Yim, owner of the restaurant, is called Mr Lala by his customers (source), and Chong is presumably his family name. It follows that their zao pai cai (signature dishes) would be lala. Our lala came in a subtle gravy which I liked for its herbal (Chinese wine?) qualities; I’m sick to death of clams in garlic or chilli (I do like them, but sometimes you wish the chefs could be more innovative). This version here held up very well. The gravy was herbal, thick, full of the goodness of clams. Being a herbal soup-nut, I drank it all up.

Crabs here were the other highlight. We had two versions: chilli crabs with fried and steamed buns, and crabs in salted egg. Chilli crabs were excellent; the gravy/_kuah_ was full-bodied, tangy. The salted egg crabs (pictured right) were something of an acquired taste; some people didn’t like it as much as I did, but the choice of batter made them very different from your standard crabs. They were the sort that grows on you, and when it does, you lick your fingers, lick the outer shells, and still can’t get enough.

Oysters were going for cheap at 12 for RM28. The entire bill for 6 people amounted to RM171, for four crabs, a dozen oysters, sambal kangkong, and lala; or less than RM28 per person (less than S$14) for all that food.

The halal-ness of this place is debatable, patrons, staff and Malaysian food forum members and bloggers alike claim the place is halal though I believe the official nature of the place is in fact “pork-free” (which is not the same thing), so if you’re strict you should take note of that (though taking into consideration that most seafood is halal, and I don’t see any haram items like frogs or hairy crabs, so most of this is halal but I’ll leave the nitpicking to the people whom this issue really concerns.. I’m only good at eating..).

I’m hungry again and it’s a good thing I can’t drive and don’t have a car, because if I did I’d be driving up to Subang for dinner at Lala Chong. Eating at Malaysian Chinese restaurants always makes me regret refusing to learn Cantonese at an earlier age, because it’s the only time when I can’t order, can’t understand 50% of the food items and descriptions, and can’t jot down notes about them. I get lost somewhere in between kam heong and tai loke mee because ngoh um sek t’eng…

Address
La-La Chong Seafood Restaurant
Lot PT 6824, Terminal 3,
Abdul Aziz Shah Airport
Subang

Tel No: 03 - 7859 1906 (add +6 in front of the number if dialing from abroad; proficiency in spoken Cantonese a plus)