KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Eating at Chinese restaurants demands the magical feat of knowing what to order to best showcase the chef’s skills.
A fellow food lover had raved about Chef Tam Cantonese Cuisine, her mainstay for Chinese food, so we wanted to experience it with her expert know-how.
During the heyday of dining in Selayang, where fresh seafood shops packed a well hidden light industrial area, Chef Tam Restaurant was where your fresh catch from the tanks would be cooked to perfection.
Now, he has moved to Eco Sky, a more intimate space that can accommodate four large round tables, requiring one to book ahead to avoid disappointment.
In the able hands of Chef Tam, the food served here isn’t fancy but simplicity rules in his dishes.
Double-boiled soups are the cornerstone of Cantonese cooking and of course, it’s a must-order to kickstart a meal here.
The restaurant offers Chef Tam Signature Soup (RM68) – a fun lucky pick – giving rise to different flavours that are rotated daily .
Our draw in the soup game arrived in a deep pot like a mystery guest, which we eagerly attacked with a ladle.
“What soup is this?” we all asked as it was red in colour!
As we dug deep inside, clues emerged with each dip of the ladle, revealing chunky carrots, potatoes, gourd and a chunk of pork ribs with meat falling off the bone.
Sweet Sour Pork is served with crunchy thin slices composed with Iberian black pork just coated with a tangy sauce that keeps the crunch even after sitting on the table for some time. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
Everyone started to piece things together, concluding that this must be their version of the homestyle ABC soup. a staple item every mother has in her repertoire of recipes, played on a continuous loop.
Its roots are hazy with many speculations on its moniker, whether it’s named after vitamins or the ease of brewing this soup at home.
The soup loosely uses a combination of vegetables and meat, without a specific recipe.
Every family has their own secret ingredient, and in chef Tam’s case, it was the knobby Szechuan vegetable, also called zha cai or cha choy, depending on which dialect you use.
Steam Minced Pork is a rice killer dish, where that pork patty with sauce will have you asking for second helping of rice. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
That pickled mustard stem balances out the sweetness in the soup from all the vegetables, making it a hug in a bowl which we all drank until the large pot was empty.
Sweet Sour Pork (RM98) may be an everyman dish, appearing in almost every eatery serving Chinese food but executing an excellent rendition for such a simple dish is not an easy feat.
This version is the thin sliced type, a more modern style compared to the old school ball-shaped version.
Using sliced Iberian Black Pork, the meat is tender with a light flour coating with knobbly bits, giving it a lovely crunch.
Prawn Paste Fried Chicken is the ultimate ugly delicious food with its crunchy exterior hiding moist meat and a hit of ginger juice. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
The test of a chef’s skills is how much sauce coats each piece of the crunchy pork and this one passed with flying colours as it was dry bodied yet sufficiently coated with the enticing tangy sauce.
Most importantly, it remained crunchy even after some time, allowing one to slowly relish the pork slices.
Even the sauce is more natural without that sharp tang from too much vinegar nor is it too sweet.
Claypot Prawn Glass Noodles is a pot of goodness as the glass noodles soak up the milky broth spiked with black pepper. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
Steam Minced Pork (RM48) is homestyle but given a luxurious treatment, where the pork and fat is hand chopped to form a firmer bite.
This version falls a little short as the texture doesn’t have that bouncy bite but it’s still the best friend of rice, putting our efforts into rationing our carbohydrates intake in peril.
Prawn Paste Fried Chicken (RM38) was a surprise add-on item, ordered using that usual “spy” method, where a friend had seen or in this case, smelt that distinct har cheong wafting from the next table.
It was pure luck as that “ugly brown” dish with its craggy fried bits, turned out to be stellar.
Each piping hot bite had an ultra crispy crunch, followed with a surprise hit of old ginger juice mingling with juicy meat infused with that potent fermented prawn flavour.
That touch of ginger was ingenious, eliminating any greasy after taste lingering in the mouth, allowing one to continuously dive in for one more piece.
Claypot Prawn Glass Noodles is a pot of goodness as the glass noodles soak up the milky broth spiked with black pepper. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi6. Fried Beef Hor Fun is a tangle of slightly chewy broad rice noodles with tender beef slices. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
For those who eat chicken wings, they may be staring at these spindly thin golden brown pieces in puzzlement.
Turns out the chef only deep fries the inner part of the drumette, yielding moist meat with an addictive golden crunch, that vanished quickly and had us fighting for the last piece.
Claypot Prawn Glass Noodles (RM98) is served with small sized prawns that were bouncy and sweet, an indication of freshness, but the real treasure was the glass noodles, which had soaked up that milky broth spiked gently with dots of black pepper.
Every strand of those delightful noodles were slurped up, down to the bottom of the claypot.
Fried Beef Hor Fun (RM88) or kon chau ngau hor, another classic dish, had slightly chewier, broad flat rice noodles served with tender beef slices, which weren’t drowned out with oil.
Unlike the usually smooth skin beancurd that resemble perfect rectangular golden soldiers on parade, Chef Tam Signature Homemade Taufu (RM28) resembled jiggly fried beancurd with a dimpled brown skin, like it didn’t visit the plastic surgeon for Botox jabs.
Chef Tam Signature Homemade Taufu (left) are jiggly, soft bites of soybean milk curd and the restaurant inside Eco Sky (right) is a cosy, dining space that requires pre-booking. — Picture by Lee Khang Yi
Once you bite inside, it yields a wobbly, creamy mass of soy milk curd, pairing well with the light brown braising sauce and tender petola.
A second visit is warranted, for the chef’s skills in steaming the prized Soon Hock fish or even the deceptively simple fried rice.
Restoran Chef Tam Cantonese Cuisine,
Lot 1-30, First Floor, Eco Sky,
6 1/2 Miles Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur.
Open:12pm to 10pm. Closed on Monday.
Tel:03-62418938.
Facebook: @ChefTamCuisine
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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