Pin Xiang Restaurant – A “Thumb’s Up” Gastronomic Experience

 

Bright signboard and located at a T-junction makes Pin Xiang easy to locate

 

 A recent dinner brought us to a new oriental dining restaurant situated at Aman Suria, Petaling Jaya. Thought it was raining cats and dogs, the hungry stomachs won the day. We decided to carry on with our reservation and reached Pin Xiang restaurant slightly over 6:30pm for our dinner. Pin Xiang is a restaurant that serves oriental dishes ie seafood & noodle. The restaurant is just facing the T-junction behind the corner Nasi Kandar in Aman Suria. Pin Xiang is also next to the Lotus Curry House and same row as the Guardian Pharmacy in Aman Suria. Occupying 2 shoplots and a extended corner, Pin Xiang caters to diners who can opt for air-conditioned sitting or open air dining.

 

Once seated, we were attended to promptly. Dishes were decided ahead before we reached the restaurant. We decided to have the Marmite Crab, Crispy Long Beans, Signature Tofu, Butter Chicken, Special Spare Ribs and Deep-Fried Tilapia as part of our gastronomic experience with Pin Xiang. 6 dishes althogether.

 

As we have pre-ordered our dishes, they arrived in a short period of time, no more than 10 minutes. First came the Signature Tofu. Since we ordered a large plate, the portion came deservingly for 8 person. The topping is something new to me as usually, in most Chinese restaurants, they usually top the tofu with minced meat, salted fish and spring onions. Pin Xiang topped it with fried, sweet preserved vegetables which I find blends quite well with the tofu.

From top left: Special Spare Ribs, Butter Chicken, Crispy Long Beans and Signature Tofu

The crispy long beans was everyone’s favourite, even Mum wanted to try this style of cooking the long beans in the future. The long beans were coated with flour and salted egg yolk before frying. Hence, you will feel the crunchiness as well as the saltiness of the egg yolk before you get to taste the long beans. As the dish was served right after they came up from the frying wok, you will still find the long beans hot and crispy. Do order this dish if you happen to be in Pin Xiang.

Signature Tofu

A self-profess meat eater will hardly go for a meal without meat. Here, we have the Special Spare Ribs to give us a different flavour to wet our appetite. The Special Spare Ribs came in a sweet and sour sauce. The special homemade sauce tasted like plum sauce in it. Pin Xiang uses a bigger cut of the pork ribs so that the diners can taste more of the pork instead. Pin Xiang also gave its diners a generous cut of the pork ribs as I can see each slice of it is about an inch thick. This dish also receive a thumbs up from me. Every piece of the pork ribs are evenly coated with the sauce that leaves you wanting to have another piece.

Special Spare Ribs 

 

Deep Fried Tilapia

Right before the final dish came the deep-fried tilapia fish. I know the photo above doesn’t do much justice to the fish but it was actually quite tasty too albeit some minor complain. I do like the fish deep fried and I don’t recall eating anywhere else having the fish topped with chopped garlic, chillies and lime juice. In fact, I initially mistaken the chopped garlic for cubes of cucumbers, sort of like a Thai style cooking. For a person who loves garlic, I somehow find that there were too much garlic on the fish instead. Hence, the strong aroma of the garlic overwhelmed the fish when you savour the fish.

 

The finale – Marmite Crabs

For a seafood fan, I’m not big-time on crabs. Like many people, I find it a challenge eating crabs. I’m totally hopeless in getting into the finer parts of a crab. This dish is more for my wife and my sis. We had a serving of 3 regular-sized crabs in the plate. As the name goes, the crabs were coated in a thick marmite paste. I do like the salty taste of marmite coated seafood. Marmite prawns would be a better option for me instead of crabs.

We topped the hearty meal with a glass of barley and bean curd drink. A nice sweet drink to go with a “thumb’s up” meal. The bill came up regularly to RM253 including taxes. Below’s the price breakdown of each dish:-

1. Marmite crabs (3 pieces) – RM99

2. Crispy long beans (large) – RM20

3. Butter chicken (large) – RM26

4. Signature tofu (large) – RM20

5. Special spare ribs (large-8 pieces) – RM40

6. Deep fried tilapia – RM24

 

Here’s the location of the outlet and my rating for the place.

Address: Lot H-18-G, Jalan PJU 1/45, Aman Suria, 47301 Petaling Jaya.

Location: 4/5 ( easy to find, just look for the Nasi Kandar restaurant and Lotus Curry House )

Ambient: 5/5 ( spacious seating with both air-conditioned and open-air dining available)

Food Quality: 4/5

Food Price: 4/5 ( for a large portion and in Petaling Jaya area, I think the dishes are fairly priced )

Service: 4/5 ( prompt service despite an almost full house on a Sunday evening)