THE expected crowd wasn’t there when we decided to eat at Jeff Lee Kitchen in Sungai Buloh on a weekday.

Our strategy for this popular Chinese restaurant was right: go there before 12pm, after booking a table, of course. We had been there twice within a month and had no trouble getting a table at all.

Three pipa ducks hooked onto a metal frame came into view as we entered – ducks that had been splayed, flattened and roasted till golden.

Hung upside down, they did resemble the Chinese pipa, a four-stringed pear-shaped musical instrument. The pipa duck is a signature dish at Jeff Lee’s Kitchen, so we had to have that.

The golden roasted duck with the crispy skin and juicy, tender meat was served over a thick sweet soybean paste, and a plum sauce.

Initially I missed dragging the duck meat through the paste and thought it tasted a little bland. The bean paste enhanced the flavour of the duck when I had it again. The Pipa duck was RM38 for a half duck.

Crispy pork belly (RM20), also popularly known as wan dang far lum (Genting pork belly) is delicious and addictive.

Thin slices of fried crunchy pork belly in a dark, sticky sweet and spicy sauce were irresistible, and I kept going back for more.

It was also hard to ignore the pork innards porridge (RM18) or chee chap chuk, a childhood favourite. It was generous with crispy fried intestines and slices of pork. It was a smooth, tasty porridge, which was a meal in itself.

Salted egg pumpkin was good at first bite, the pumpkin staying sweet and firm when hot from the wok, with a thin coating of salted egg yolk. Somehow, the pumpkin cubes deflated and became soggy later.

The star of the lunch was surely the sang har meen or fried noodles in an eggy sauce with udang galah. On our first trip there, the four of us shared two large, meaty prawns (RM80).

Crunchy yee meen drenched in sauce with lots of ginger slices and spring onions, finished with egg and topped with the prawns were truly yummy.

We encountered the same noodles in another famous restaurant that were bathed in a starchy sauce.

At Jeff Lee’s the sauce was thin, runny and with all the right flavours. The noodles were just as good on our next visit where we had four prawns for the eight of us (RM160).

The steamed ginger fish (RM38) turned out well too. The head part of the carp (wan yue) was completely covered with a hot, zesty ginger sauce.

We had to watch out for the bones with this fish. It’s a cooking style with this fish that used to be popular many years ago and which I like.

We had a vegetable dish too – clay pot kangkung in belacan sauce (RM20). Perhaps we should try the standing chicken, pucuk paku salad, salted egg fried fish skin and claypot lo shee fun on our next visit. We find the food reasonably priced and overall, quite good.

Jeff Lee Kitchen is at Lot 4133 Jalan Perkhidmatan U19, Kampung Baru, Sungai Buloh, Selangor. Call to book on 03-6156-1817. It opens at 10am, and there’s a big car park in front. – January 8, 2022.

* Eu Hooi-Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published the cookbook Fresh Ingredients, and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.