Restoran Ye Lok - Sri Petaling

Restoran Ye Lok – Sri Petaling (opposite The Store)

This is a place I like for a quick dinner with family and friends. Often packed with patrons from 7pm onwards, we usually arrive here just about 6 to get a nice table, often beside the counter where you have unlimited access to chilies and garlic. To be honest, there isn’t much to shout about this place, but the dishes available here are decently delicious with minimal MSG and reasonably priced. To get to this place, head to The Store located in Sri Petaling and you’ll find this restaurant in a corner lot along the shophouses opposite The Store’s main entrance. Other landmarks include Janbo Restaurant and an AmBank branch in the same row.

This time, the 7 of us just wanted a fast and decent meal on a busy Friday night before we adjourn to our individual activities. We had the following dishes:

Pork Ribs in “Marmite” sauce.

Nicely done, a firm favorite every time we’re here, but I’d wish they had a lil’ bit more gravy to go with the rice. For those who don’t enjoy ribs, they can even use pork chunks (de boned) for an easier and faster ‘assault’.

Clay Pot Pork Strips with Dried Chilies and Salted Fish (Harm Yue Fah Lam Poue)
MY FAVORITE dish. The pork strips had a 3:1 ratio of meat to fat, while the gravy was not too oily unlike some places and I can just have this with plain white rice on a daily basis. Here though, I have to admit that it’s only average for I’ve tasted better ones than this.

Steam Fish with Black Bean (Cheong Zheng Yue)
Topped with deep fried pork lard, this was a nice dish but when you’ve already ordered the 2 dishes mentioned above, I think we had too many salty dishes for a dinner. For this, the fish was steamed right on time, the gravy was rich and the tiny bits of the lard made it absolutely superb.

Clay Pot Tofu (Nga Poue Tau Foo)
My mom’s favorite dish, and she’s been consistently ordering this every time we go out for meals. The gravy here is less starchy but lacks flavor which is a must for this dish. It wasn’t flat but you could sense that something was just missing. Still, a great dish to balance the saltier ones we’ve ordered. Besides tofu, you get lots of vegetables, squid, prawns and pieces of roast pork (Siu Yoke) in it.

Fried Chicken with Onion Rings (Yeung Chung Kai)
I’m not a fan of this dish at all, due mainly to the fact that it is often served with heavily battered, deep fried onion rings which leaves the onion flat and tasteless. However, the onion rings here are lightly battered while the chicken pieces are crispy fried with sweet and sour onion sauce. Hence I can proudly that I like this dish here.

This was one dinner too much for us. Not just in terms of meat but the serving was also big, despite us telling the lady boss that we would prefer medium servings for the pork and chicken. Price was RM 94 inclusive of a pot of Chinese Tea and 2 bowls of additional rice.

My tummy rating: 8.1/10