KW Restaurant @ Pandan Indah

When we were having a bak kut teh dinner in one of our neighbourhood shops one evening, I noticed (and heard) some serious wok-ing action and sounds coming from across the street at this KW Restaurant @ Pandan Indah.

I don't remember seeing the shop active in the evenings before.  So, I decided to check them out during one of my weekday dinners and true enough, I was told that the coffee shop used to open in the day only with only Thai food available at night.  That Thai stall has since moved to a shoplot of their own and new stalls took over at night.

And boy, was I glad to have stumbled upon this place as it is home to one of the very few siu chow (literally translated as small fry) places that's good in our taman.  We have many tai chow places in our housing area where families order a few dishes to eat with rice...but siu chow (or, at least, good siu chow) is much harder to find.  Siu chow is what we call those one-dish rice meals (much like a donburi in Japanese cuisine) where a meat (or vegetable) dish is served over white rice.

So, I tried out a couple of single-type dishes for some of my weekday dinners just to test out their cooking to see how they fare.  These dine-ins were before our last (and hopefully final) lockdown.

Kong Fu Chow Yin Yong (Cantonese Fried Kway Teow + Meehoon) - the sauce/flavours were good and there was a bit of that necessary wok hei though I wish they'd use a thicker type of meehoon for this dish as the thin meehoon disintegrated too easily into the sauce.  The kong fu yee mee is nice too.

Fried Hokkien Mee - I did try this with a combo of fat noodles with meehoon but prefer it with just the thick noodles (well, you know the meehoon's outcome).  This fried hokkien mee is a bit wetter which I don't mind at all especially when only thick noodles are involved.  The fried pork lard is always fresh and crispy (though there's only very few).

Sweet & Sour Pork Rice (with add-on egg) - this certainly has a place among some of the better sweet & sour pork I've eaten where the pork nuggets are crispy (when eaten on site) and the sauce has that nice balance of sweet and sour.

Braised Tofu with Vegetables - the dish (and the sauce) is similar to kong fu chow except this had the addition of tofu.  Besides pork slices, I liked that it came with two fair-sized, fresh and sweet tasting prawns too.  Most of the single pax noodle dishes cost around RM7 while the rice dishes are priced around RM9 (RM10 with add-on egg).

With the dishes turning out to be a success in terms of taste, I was confident enough to introduce them to my family (since my husband typically prefers a meal of dishes with rice for dinner) as it can be easily turned into a tai chow meal (just pay a little bit more to get them served in separate dishes).

So, I ordered Butter Milk Chicken (fragrant, crisp, creamy...and boneless!).  You can opt for this same style of cooking with pork as well that's just as nice.

The Sweet & Sour Pork (again!) is a must-have!  As much as I love sweet & sour fish and would order that in a heartbeat, I can't do that here since they use dory as their fish of choice as it's cheap, I guess.  The tastiest fish to use for this dish would be snakehead (as in haruan or sang yue) of course and not snakehead (as in toman) though more often than not toman is usually used (which is the next best thing after haruan, at least still better than dory!).

The Braised Tofu with Vegetables is ideal if you're looking for a sauce-laden dish to banjir/flood your rice with an all-in-one dish that's well balanced with meat, prawns, tofu, egg and vegetables.

We usually have that together with two fried eggs, perfectly fried I might add, frizzy and crisp at the edges with a runny yolk in the middle.  So, this meal of ours cost just RM30 with two rice...very cheap indeed.

Another time we had the Pork Belly with Salted Fish, Sweet & Sour Pork (of course) and Stir-Fried Choy Sum, again with two fried eggs and two rice.  Total damage was RM32.   Oops, can't find the photos...must have been too hungry and dived right in.  Since discovering this place, I've been eating here quite regularly (before the pandemic).  But if seafood (fish/prawns/squid) is what you're after, I'm afraid you won't find it here.  Siu chow places are all about cheap, economical meals that's convenient, easy to eat and (hopefully) balanced (meat + veggie).

But on our last visit, when the dishes arrived, I wasn't too happy when the portions shrunk.  We had Sweet & Sour Pork (yet again) and Roasted Pork stir-fried with Choy Sum (ok-lah, this one looked a bit miserable with its small portion...roast pork is expensive, I suppose, but they should have at least thrown in a bit more choy sum!). >.<

Our third dish was the Brinjal with Minced Pork & Salted Fish (flavourful dish that requires more rice) together with two fried eggs and two rice as usual.  This meal cost us RM36 (but the portions were a bit small...hope this was just a one-off)! >_<

This shop is also home to possibly one of the more decent Shredded Chicken Hor Fun (or kai see hor fun) @ RM7 you can find in my housing area.  Of course, it doesn't quite compare to the better one I've eaten in Taman Shamelin or my best/favourite one in Pudu area.

This is the Poached Chicken with Taugeh @ RM11 which you can have with rice just like any chicken rice shops.

Or have it with a kosong (or plain) kai see hor fun.  If I don't wish to travel beyond my own housing area, this shredded chicken noodle is satisfying enough being so near.

My other recommendation here would be the Chinese-style nasi lemak.  Though their sambal isn't anywhere near good, their curry chicken is rather decent with plenty of other side dishes to choose from.  And the best thing is the prices are really cheap for a sizeable portion.  We usually opt for takeaway at this stall (so, soree, no pics to show).

My Personal Opinion

Siu chow is typically a one-dish meal that's ideal for one person, so it's a very convenient for working people or those who don't have time to cook.  I much prefer this to chap fan (even though you can have a variety of at least 3 types of dishes with rice) as it's served hot since it's cooked a la minute when ordered unlike the already cooked, barely warm (sometimes stone cold) dishes in the chap fan line.

It's a good place for a variety of siu chow dishes, a pleasant enough kai see hor fun and a fair tasting Chinese-style nasi lemak at decent prices.  The benefit of eating in this shop is that if a family member feels like eating something else other than a one-dish rice meal, he or she has got other options (there are quite a few other stalls here including a Thai stall).

We've been patronising this coffee shop regularly for the past 8 months (tapau saja-lah when no dine-in allowed) as it's a great option for weekday dinners....and I quite like their drinks too...always frothy! ^_~

KW Restaurant

1G Jalan Pandan Indah 4/6A

Pandan Indah

55100 Kuala Lumpur