Restaurant Red Gold Steamboat

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Being relatively stuck in PJ, I have never actually ventured to Balakong. Well, in my old university days, I remembered Balakong as the place for Jusco where I usually watch movies at the cinema. This time round, I came here and realized that there are so many cafes here and one of them is Restaurant Red Gold Steamboat that looks like a kopitiam. There is one a/c room inside. This place has been opened for 13 years so being still there in the F&B industry means that their food should be good. I thought that this is a new cafe, when I first arrived. It is a 'no-nonsense' place. When I arrived at 2.30 pm, the place was still teeming with the Sunday late lunch crowd as the relative of the young boss, Mr Steven Tan, has been operating the Yong Tau Foo business for over 30 years elsewhere in the vicinity. Later on, they operates in the day time at this place because the "Dai Chao" is only opened at 4.30 pm onwards. Even so, the opening hours is quite special for it is opened at 4.30-11.30 pm every day whereas the Yong Tau Foo with noodles opens at 7.30am-4.30 pm every day. The afternoon shift sells Da Chao and also steamboat. The steamboat costs RM 17.80 for a set for 1 pax. 98% of the steamboat ingredients are homemade because Steven is also a seafood supplier. The first dish are giant Prawn Mantis with 'Pei Fong Tong', a famous Hong Kong cooking stye. This I can tell you, is my top favourite here. It is not everywhere that we can find prawn mantis. They are so fresh, succulent, juicy, fat and delicious. They have also cooked it in a very unique way, that is, with a lot of deep fried chai poh, spread all over, thereby contributing to the aroma of the dish. The Prawn Mantis costs RM 15 for each piece and there is a minimum order of 2 pieces. If you ever come here, never forget to order this and I guarantee you will leave satisfied! But make sure you master the technique of opening the prawn mantis from the tail. Eating this today, has brought about reminisce of my childhood prying open the small prawn mantis at home. The Fish Head Claypot is cooked with spring onions and ginger, resulting in a wonderful aroma that covers the smell of fish. Thankfully, most places would have cooked this with a lot of salt but not the chef here. I love this fish and wanted to eat more but could not because had to keep for the others. Though the fish looks simple, do not be deceived because it is actually from the giant Dragon Garoupa, a sea water fish, swimming alive in the aquarium. This costs more than RM 30 whereby every 100 g costs RM 10. The price is determined by the weight of fish. The boss showed me the real fish later and I was so shocked by the sheer size! Hong Kong Style Steamed Clams with Octopus (S: RM 30, M: RM 50, L: RM 70) were quite big. The clams are also alive, in the aquarium. The clams are cooked with a lot of ginger and chillies so much so that they are enough to rid of the fishy taste. The octopus is so fresh and delicious. There is no taste of sand or mud inside the clams. I also credit the chef for not making this dish salty and muddy as per tasted elsewhere. The Crab Claypot with Deep Fried Pork Fat is another signature dish here. If you are a big fan of deep fried pork fat, you would go gaga over this dish. The crabs here are so fantastic, fresh, hard. The shell is also so hard. One can almost feel the freshness with every bite. Do come here if you like crabs a lot. It costs RM 72 per kg and definitely worth every penny. The Fried Rice (RM 15) is simple and fragrant, with a yellowish colour that makes it look like pineapple rice. There are a few tiny prawns. I also like the fact that the fried rice is not too oily. The Pork Intestine (S: RM 15, M: RM 25, L: RM 35) are the best I have ever had in my life because they used a very special cooking style that managed to cover the smell of intestine. It is cooked with garlic using Hong Kong style and a bit of chillis and dried shrimp. The intestine parts are made a little crispy, small and tasty, It is cooked with cili padi and the result is simply amazing in terms of taste and smell. If you like organs of pig, you should order this. The next dish is Dragon Leaves (S: RM 15, M: RM 25, L: RM 35) with 3 types of mushrooms that are shimeji, jade mushroom and fresh mushroom. The dish has a little too much oil perhaps because they wanted to make it look tasty and shiny in the photo. This is my other favourite vegetable dish due to the combination of my favourites. After that, we had another star dish, the Salted Egg Crab (RM 80) whereby the lightly fried crabs are covered thoroughly with creamy non-oily salted egg sauce. The crab taste permeates my entire soul and I felt like I were in crab heaven. The crab legs are so fresh and hard. The sauce goes very well with the lightly fried and non-oily mantou which has pockets that deep enough to withstand the thick sauce. If a person who dislikes salted egg like me, say this is delicious, then you can be 100% sure of the taste that manages to satisfy me who is very fussy when it comes to anything with salted egg. The Prawn Sauce Fried Pork (S: RM 18, L: RM 36) has crispy edges and the middle is retained. It goes well with their accompanying sauce that is slightly sweet and not overly sweet. The Deep Fried Fish Cake that is made in a round shape is the BEST one I have ever had. It sounds cliche, but come on, I am again someone who dislikes fish cakes so believe me when I say this is tasty. The skin is very thin and though deep fried, it retains the soft insides as springy and not too hard. They used true blue 100% Ikan Parang. The fish cake is best eaten with their non-oily sambal which makes me happy. I am from Penang so I can never take it whenever KL kopitiam and restaurants serve me the oily version of sambal. There are seafood promotions all the time. The current promotion is for oysters whereby if we buy 1 dozen of raw oysters for RM 9 each, we can get 6 free oysters which bring the cost to RM 6 per oyster. The oysters are fresh, big and soft and all imported from California. The owner said that Malaysian oysters are not fresh, too small and may contain toxic from the factories. They serve the oysters with big bottles of tabasco. Check out my video on oysters today : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUjFZPjL3Ac&feature=youtu.be(more photos in my facebook)  continue reading