E Soo Yong Tou Foo @ Kepong

We don't usually venture this way for food (as it's quite a distance from where we live) but since we were on our way to collect something from my mom, we decided to have a bite first in the area before heading there.

When I think of Kepong, the many roast duck stalls, steamboat, bak kut teh and yong tau foo restaurants would come to mind.  It was late Sunday morning when we arrived at E Soo Yong Tou Foo @ Kepong.

From the restaurant's name itself, it's quite obvious what we were going to eat here.  Since yong tau foo is their speciality, we got down to ordering...which is through a chit provided where you just write the number of pieces of each yong tau foo you want.  The yong tau foo here cost RM1.50 a piece.

Besides yong tau foo, they also serve cooked dishes which you can eat with rice or to supplement your yong tau foo feast.

We ordered a whole lot of our most favourite yong tau foo types...the fried stuff like brinjal, sui kow (dumpling) and fu chuk (bean curd) roll.

The fried fu chuk roll you see in the pic is actually only half a fu chuk roll and that's because each piece of fu chuk roll is cut into two (before frying).  So, you can imagine the actual size.....pretty big, huh? ^_~

The difference with this fu chuk roll (compared to the rest I've eaten) is that the fish paste is usually a filling inside the fu chuk.  Here you get a bit more of both as the fu chuk is rolled together with the fish paste.  As you can see from the cross-section, they were generously stuffed with fish paste.  Nice and crispy...an absolute delight! ^o^

The fried brinjal pieces were well fried and not too oily.  They looked like they were freshly fried to order as they didn't look soggy or overly soft.  I like!

The crispy fried sui kow were jam packed with ingredients.  The vegetables (I think there were carrot, sengkuang and black fungus) brought the crunch.  I also detected the presence of Chinese parsley in the mix which gave the dumpling added fragrance (which I adore)...though some will beg to differ (like my son).

I also selected some non-fried yong tau foo like bitter gourd, ladies finger, white tofu and fish paste.  They arrived in a serving of clear soup with an unconventional vegetable of sayur manis (star gooseberry) that's more commonly found in pan mee.  I liked the taste of the soup which was very "ching" (subtle) unlike those where it had lots of "you-know-what" enhancer in it.

Other yong tau foo selection includes fried tofu pok, chillies, fried bean curd skin and soup dumplings.

Their chilli sauce and brown sauce also taste different from the norm.  The chilli sauce is a bit more tangy (leaning towards Thai chilli sauce) and I enjoyed the thicker brown sauce as it had more fermented bean paste taste in it.

As we had already ordered quite a few yong tau foo for the three of us, we only had space to sample one of their cooked dishes, the Deep-Fried Fermented Red Beancurd (Nam Yue) Pork @ RM20.  The pork was crispy and tender (the fatty parts a little chewy) and you can totally taste the nam yue in the marinated pork. The only thing I thought that didn't pair well with the pork was the Thai-style chilli dip.

Other cooked (mostly Hakka) dishes include vinegar pork leg, "mui choy kau yoke" (stewed pork with preserved mustard green), "char yoke" (braised pork belly with black fungus), "wu tau kau yoke" (pork belly with yam), various steamed fish, marmite prawns, curry pork ribs, steamed salted chicken, just to name a few.

My Personal Opinion

Judging by the crowd that morning, I think this is probably one of the more popular restaurants for tasty yong tau foo and I can certainly see why.  The yong tau foo, though slightly pricier than some other shops at RM1.50/pc, is still worth the price as it's also a lot bigger (and with plump fillings).

As I'm not familiar with the food in Kepong, I don't know how good this yong tau foo is (compared to the rest in this area) but I find it to be pretty decent (compared to some of those I've had elsewhere) and I definitely wouldn't mind coming again for just that...and to try more of their cooked dishes (especially the Hakka dishes).

Restoran E Soo Yong Tou Foo
55 Jalan 9/62A
Bandar Sri Menjalara
Kepong
52200 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 012-308 0727