Enamored with Economy Rice… Chap Fan @ Pudu KL

Most people in KL go for Economy Rice (aka Mixed Rice or Chap Fan) during lunch time, because it is fast, convenient, value-for-money and the dishes can be considered home-cooked. Many folks have their favorites, and so do we. Apart form looking for tasty dishes at affordable prices, we also try to find one which is not so heavy handed on the MSG.

One such place is this Chap Farn shop in Pudu. It used to house the Restaurant Jiang Xiang, but no more. Now, the restaurant has been converted into a Chap Fan place and it sells a wide variety of comfort chinese food. Stalls normally have 20 or more troughs of cooked food, including meat, vegetables, seafood, eggs and tofu, but this one has easily 50. And you can certainly choose to eat this with porridge (congee) but we prefer these delectable dishes with steaming hot rice!

So I take a plate of rice, and proceed to heap it with as much food as I like, or as much as my plate can hold. I normally take half a plate of rice so I can get more meat dishes on it.

The dishes here are fresh, and freshly cooked, as the folks do the marketing daily, probably at Pudu Market for the ingredients. Most of the dishes rotate except for the staples (the Chef’s favorites,so to speak). And honestly, there are just too many dishes to choose from. I tend to gravitate towards Chinese Steamed Eggs (Ching Jing Dan), and pork dishes like Steamed Minced Pork with Preserved Mustard Greens (Mui Choy Kao Yoke) and Cumi likes his Sweet and Sour Pork and Tofu dishes.

This particular chap fan shop’s number of pork dishes, is just mind boggling. I counted at least 15 different pork dishes from, Minced Pork with Salted Fish (Yau Yee Ching Chee Yoke), Chinese Pork Sausages, Black Pepper Pork, Sweet And Sour Pork, Braised Pig’s Skin, Soy Sauce Pork, Ginger And Onion Pork to Pork Ribs and Luncheon Meat, etc.

And if Pork is not your meat of choice, they do as many types of chicken -The simplest of these is fried chicken – such and easy dish but not many people get the crispy skin right! Also there’s Lemon Chicken, Fried Chicken, Curry Chicken, Soy Sauce Chicken, Dried Chili Chicken (Kung-Pao), Sweet and Sour or Black Pepper Chicken, and even the normal chicken rice Steamed Chicken with Oyster Sauce to choose from.

Being a huge egg eater, I alway gravitate towards the eggs. Give me Chinese Steamed Eggs any day, but I also love Fried Egg Omelets (Fu Yong Dan) or simply Fried Sunny-Side Up Eggs with the yolk still runny.

Fish and tofu dishes are aplenty too – Steamed Fish in Soya Sauce with Fried Garlic, Fried Fish with Julienned Ginger, Curry Fish Head, Assam Fish, Sweet And Sour Fish, Black Bean Fish etc, you name it they have it. And for tofu options Braised Tofu, Yong Tau Foo, Fried Tofu and Fried Tofu Puffs, etc.

hmmm.. they look new around here.. how much should we charge em 😛 

Sometimes there is hardly space for vegetables but I still try to take at least one item like the Braised Mushrooms, Stir-Fried water Spinach (Kangkung) or Long Beans, French Beans, Braised Cabbage, Bean Sprouts (Taugeh), Spinach, Chinese Broccoli (Kai-Lan), Broccoli or Sweet Potato Leaves. The Kangkung at this shop is delicious and so are the Bean Sprouts. Almost as good as the Ipoh bean sprouts.. almost! Crunchy and fresh and cleaned properly.. that’s what I’m talking about!

In the end, no as cheap as the chap fan in Petaling Jaya, but we did heap our plates high.

RM13 for the two plates and we helped ourselves to the soup. Low in MSG and not too salty, this place has made it on to our favourite list!