KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Vampires and the rest of you poor, garlic-averse souls, look away now.
This may be a story about Lieong Kee Bae Good Teh, located along Jalan Development, Kepong, but eating there is as much about eating bak kut teh as it is about preparing yourself for assault by allium.
Having been around since 1977, Lieong Kee is part of this neighbourhood's old guard of bak kut teh joints. Just across the street, Chong San Bak Kut Teh represents the newer wave, though their original location in Sungai Buloh dates back to 1989.
This place tends to get really busy at night, so we visited on a Saturday morning when proceedings were decidedly more peaceful.
Like many other bak kut teh restaurants in Kepong, Lieong Kee offers a clearer, lighter version to the typical Klang variety and other common dishes like dry bak kut teh, braised pork and yellow wine with pork kidney.
The focus should remain on the soup, though there are two ways to go about it. First is to order a standard portion of bak kut teh (RM21), which comes with lean and fatty meat (half and half), stomach, intestines, your choice of ribs or cartilage (pai guat or lun guat) and finally, tendons, which are a speciality here.
I’d describe the soup as delicate, with subtle medicinal undertones that are punctuated with loads and loads of garlic. Sure, it’s on the mellow side, but a heaping handful of just barely blanched garlic brings a pungent character to the soup that I really enjoyed.
The tendons provided really good eating — instead of gelatinous and slippery, these were little springy rolls of elasticity that were a delight to chew on.
The second is for those who want something a little bigger, a little bolder. The sang guat pou (RM73) is another signature, though it’s ultimately just a much larger portion of bak kut teh with just ribs and tendons.
There was a big price difference, but there was also a shedload of ribs in the pot, which is cooked separately for a longer time. This yielded a much sweeter soup, which became obvious once we tasted them side by side.
More soup, more ribs and more tendons equals even more garlic, but the sharpness was made more enjoyable with the added sweetness in the soup.
It’s quite a bit to fork out for breakfast, but given the steep increases in pork prices over the last year, it’s a reasonable price for an amount of ribs that can easily feed two to three people.
As mentioned earlier, this place gets busy at night, but it is open practically throughout the day save for an hour-long break between 2.30pm to 3.30pm.
Parking is a bit of a free-for-all situation, but otherwise, this garlic-laden broth could be your breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and even supper. Just make sure you’re not kissing anyone afterwards; alternatively, leave them and get with someone who will kiss you despite your garlic breath.
Restoran Lieong Kee Bae Good Teh
23, Jalan Development, Taman Kepong, 52100 Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 7.30am-2.30pm, 3.30-11.00pm.
Tel: 03-6275 0102
Facebook: @Lieong Kee Bae Good Teh 良记肉骨茶-早市总行
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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