Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Fried Hockkien Mee - Kajang Story

If you look at the aerial view of Kajang Town, you will notice to the right of the roundabout and also the right of the Shell Petrol Station, that is the location of Kajang Bazaar and due to development they have all moved to various places like behind Mendaling Street and Medan Selera on the right of the Kajang Market. In those days other than Satay the other talk about food is the fried Hockkien Mee (thick chinese noodles). I use to frequent this busy restaurant called CHIN KEE RESTAURANT located in store no. 57, Kajang Bazaar. It also boast of a record dishing out a huge 80kg of Hockkien Mee in one night, that is roughly equivalent to serving about 800 person at this restaurant. Chin Kee Restaurant chief cook and proprietor was the late Mr. Low Lee Chin

Today you can savour this original taste of Chin Kee Restaurant style of cooking handed down to his youngest son Robert Low who operates a fusion of asian and western restaurant call FELICIDAD RESTAURANT & CAFE (please ask him what the name means) located at No. 75A Jalan 1, Taman Sri Langat, Jalan Reko. In the 60's my family and myself included used to frequent this hockkien mee along with other dishes which is just as tasty. In those days there weren't many food stalls and sometimes even at 2.00am when we feel hungry, we would just grab a bicycle and come out here to eat this favorite tasting mee (definitely better than instant noodle).

Robert Low who also happens to be my childhood friend is also a Yo-Yo expert who had traveled to countries like Japan, Columbia, China, Hong Kong, Brazil, USA, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Jordan, Thailand & Singapore to participate in Yo-Yo competition. He achieved a world ranking No. 8 at the 2000 Proyo Challenge in Phoenix, Arizona USA. While traveling, with cooking still in his blood he would always find opportunity to learn various types of dishes and one such dish is the Hungarian Goulash taught by an Austrian, Mr. Wolfgang.

Well I found his restaurant in a very unique setting compared to his fathers' and the Hockkien mee is still as good as before mmmmm. He decorates his cafe with Yo-Yos, and collections of his hobbies, interesting. We used to play yo-yo when we were about 12 years old, I stopped but he hasn't, imagine a elderly looking guy playing with yo-yo and if you talk about yo-yo ask him to show you his collection from antique ones to very high tech ones, about 700pcs in his collection. Well if you are not a fan of Hockkien mee you can always try the Hun....Gou.... gee...! I wonder how you pronounce it. If you were to ask around the older generation, I wonder whether they can still remember Chin Kee Hockkien mee.

11 comments:

Ellen Whyte said...

Robert's food is excellent. Well worth checking out. Used to love Robert's cooking too at Feel pub, an earlier incarnation of Felicidad.

Kc and Yk said...

Ellen, Robert will be happy when I inform him tonight about your comment. And I happen to own 3 cats.

Anonymous said...

hmm?i dont think i tried robert's hockkien mee...i mean... i dont even noe who is he x) the best hockkien mee i've eaten is also at taman seri langat's restoran 68 ~ and one more is at somewhere ,i forgot the name though =P well,i know the most reliable burger stand is ramli's burger opposite my taman ~ =D

Ellen Whyte said...

Flipper, as a cat lover and food critic... you've been tagged! Your turn to list 5 Reasons Why We Blog ...

madness said...

his wife has an attitude problem, no matter how good his hokkian mee is, she is certainly NOT getting any of my money. there are much better hokkian mee shops in kajang besides ms grumpy face with serious attitude problem......swore never to go there again.

Anonymous said...

Yea I agree. I've been there a couple of times and boy, is she RUDE!!!

Honestly, one day, I'm just gonna just snap back at her or something if she scrunches up her face whenever I give "special" requests. i.e. no vegetable or whatever.

Either that or....permanently rearrange it!

Not like it needs any help or can get any worse already.

Ellen Whyte said...

Nancy often seems a bit abrupt but she has a good heart. Complain if you like or avoid going but threats of rearrangement are quite uncalled for.

Anonymous said...

who's Nancy?

Anonymous said...

Hi, This is Robert, I just want to say "Sorry" if ever your visits to my restaurant is unpleasant, for the comfort of our patrons we have divided to 2 sections namely smoking and non-smoking, sometimes patrons may have been offended due to non-compliance and sometimes..make that most of the time.... it is just "STRESS" you can relax yourself at the pool table or play darts or just make new friends or just have drinks. Once you get used to the atmosphere I am sure you will just feel comfortable and ignore the negative feelings. And I wanna to thank you for your patronage and we hope to improve more as we get along.

Anonymous said...

felicidad means celebration in spanish right?

Kc and Yk said...

To be precise, its "Happiness"