Ah Tuan ee’s Place

My latest gastronomic adventure took me to Ah Tuan ee’s Place in SS2. After I have had my lunch at this restaurant, I googled up the place and found that there are actually 2 branches of this restaurant. The other one is at The Curve. SS2’s branch is supposed to be the original branch.

Ah Tuan ee’s Place basically serves Nyonya cuisine. Ah Tuan Ee is famed for its delicious jeu hoo char (fried dried squid), perut ikan (fish stomach), and sambal prawns with petai. Stepping into the restaurant gave me a nostalgic feeling as it’s decorated with old Straits Chinese furnitures. The table top is made from white marble, ala kopitiam style. You feel like stepping back in time going into this place.

 Stepping back into time with kopitiam’s style furniture

 

 I ordered a plate of yellow noodle soup, a plate of honey ginger chicken and a glass of mango juice to complete my meal. As I was there early (read 12 noon) on a Sunday, I was the only customer to start off the business for the day. The waiters and waitresses nowadays are all non-Malaysian and from their skin colour, you can’t really judge from which part of Asean are they from. You can only tell that they’re from Indo-China. That’s all. Sometimes, you speak to them in English, they reply in Bahasa. At time, you ordered in English, they reply you in Cantonese and speaks much better Chinese than you do.

 My order came in less than 10 minutes. Hack, if they take longer to cook a bowl of noodle with only 1 customer, they can fold the business within 1 month. I was actually served with my drink first – mango juice. It was really a shocker to me. At RM5.80, I only get a cup of cordial mango juice. You can immediately tell outright that it came from a bottle of “off the shelve” cordial, diluted mango juice!

My main course of yellow noodle with shredded chicken and prawn came next. It was disappointment from the very first spoon! The soup was very plain. I just can’t wait to get out from this nightmare at lunch time. The drink was cordial juice, the noodle was blant. I wonder what can my side order turn out to be?

Yellow noodle with shredded chicken and prawns ( Mee Siam – RM12.80 )

As I was brooding on my chair, waiting for my honey ginger to be served, the saving grace reached my table. The look of the honey ginger chicken was good enough to be eaten. Biting into the chicken piece proved not to be deceiving. It actually turned out to be very nice! Ginger was cut into small bite chunks. Lightly fried I guess just to bring out the taste of ginger. Honey was diluted and mixed with the ginger, toss in the fried chicken pieces and voila, you have a dish of honey ginger chicken! At least something did turn out right in the end.

Honey Ginger Chicken ( Small – RM 20.80 )

Pricewise, the food here is priced above average and please, please go easy on the drinks. Don’t order the juice if you don’t want to be disappointed. Since this restaurant is more famous for its Peranakan cooking, perhaps I should give Ah Tuan ee’s Place a benefit of a doubt by ordering its signature dishes. Perhaps, it was my fault that I didn’t order the right dishes but instead opted for some non-Nyonya noodle. One day, I will visit The Curve’s branch and check out Ah Tuan ee’s Nyonya dishes…