Soon Heong Teow Chew Restaurant

SOON HEONG TEOW CHEW RESTAURANT

By Stephen Ng

For 27-year-old Ng Meng Guan, it is love at first sight with Teow Chew food that made him decide to enter into restaurant business.

Having returned home from Hong Kong, he was trying out different kinds of food until he came across this one in Desa Aman Puri, Kepong.

Being Teow Chew himself, Ng literally fell in love with the Teow Chew food here, and he decided to take over Soon Heong Teow Chew Restaurant, when its original owner wanted to sell off the business in order for him to expand into his motor spare parts business.

Soon Heong, which had started business about three years ago, was bought over by Ng, but the chef, Heng Mok Jang remains the same.

Although admitting that he is a “freshie” in restaurant business, Ng’s efforts paid off because business has been better since he took over the management of the restaurant. He hopes to inject his entrepreneurial skills into the business to make it a success.

On weekends, the restaurant is packed to the brim, and a number of tables have to be placed outside of the restaurant. The style of cooking here follows the Sour Spicy Teow Chew style.

“I am a big fan of the Chef Heng myself, and I used to enjoy his food as a customer,” he said. “I would visit the restaurant and eat the food here almost every week.”

While Chef Heng concentrates on producing the best Teow Chew dishes, Ng manages the restaurant. “I believe with some entrepreneurship, the restaurant can do very well. The food is good and the Chef has his own unique style of cooking,” said Ng.

For Ng, eating is more than filling the stomach. “It is an exotic experience,” he said, giving the example of the Claypot “Tong Sat” (catfish) that they serve here.

“It has very a spicy and sour taste and for those who really love spicy food, you can eat until you sweat,” he laughed. “A lot of customers come all the way just to eat this spicy tasty dish.”

Chef Heng, himself also a Teow Chew, has over 20 years of experience as a cook. He gained his experience, technique and secret recipe from his father, the former chef and owner of the famous “Lau Heong” Seafood Restaturant in Sentul.

“Chef Heng is an expert in Seafood with Spicy Sour cooking style,” added Ng. “His talent and experience makes him not only able to cook the family secret recipe dishes, but also he has come out with a lot of tasty and unique dishes which are different from elsewhere.

Their signature dish is the Assam Steam Pomfret, which has the sour, spicy, curry and Tom Yam taste. “Our Assam taste is unique, designed by our Chef using his own special ingredients,” Ng said. “Most of the people like our Assam Steam Pomfret, which is suitable for the whole family.”

Office Secretary, Melinda Cheah, who was invited to taste the food, said her favourite is the Assam Steamed Pomfret, because being a Teow Chew herself, she found the dish to be “special.” “I have never tasted anything like this,” she said.

The Chef’s Salted Egg Crab is served with “Man Tao” (Chinese bread) to create the wet, creamy salted cooking style. “In the Klang Valley,” Ng said, “people usually have either `Dry Salted Egg Crabs’ or `Creamy Milk Crabs’, but we combine the features of these two cooking style into our `Wet Salted Egg Crab’.”

Their Sze Chuan Stingray is prepared with a bit of spicy Sze Chuan sauce, and served warm on Banana Leaf to bring out the freshness of the banana leaf.

The X.O. Four Heavenly Kings – which has long beans, sweet beans, lady fingers and baby French beans – is cooked using special Chef Heng’s special X.O. sauce and served with slices of Abalone.

A favourite among younger children is their Special Squid and Prawns, as the sauce used is not spicy. “We know that children also want to enjoy good food,” said Ng. “Therefore, besides the Squid and Prawns dish, we have another dish for them – the Prawn Sauce Fried Chicken Wings.”

The Curry Fish Head using a special curry sauce concocted by the Chef’s father is another best seller at Soon Heong, besides the Salted Egg “Praying Mantis Prawns” which is served with salted egg sauce from the fishing village.

“Some of our customers like to eat the praying mantis prawns with beer,” said Ng.

Soon Heong Teow Chew Seafood Restaurant is located at No 3-68A, Block P, Jalan Desa 2/3, Desa Aman Puri, Kepong. Tel: 03-6277 7167/012-671 2899. Website: www.soonheong.com. They are open seven days a week. Opening hours: 10:00am to 3.00pm / 5:00pm to 11:00pm