HONG KONG-style cafes differ hugely from the Western ones that have been popping up here.

They usually offer a menu that covers lunch, tea and dinner, apart from the polo buns, thick toast, custard tarts and HK milk tea one would expect.

So, it is with Tsuen Wan Restaurant, a fairly new “char chan teng” in Megah Rise, Petaling Jaya.

It’s one that my friend who often travels to Hong Kong, approves of. We dropped by at lunch on one occasion, and we had the fried flat rice noodles with sliced beef, HK style, braised vermicelli with eggplant and salted fish, and a rich black pepper pork chop burger.

The braised vermicelli with eggplant and salted fish was the most flavourful, and I liked the generous slices of fried eggplant in the noodles, and a whiff of salted fish in the sauce.

The fried flat rice noodles (kwayteow) with beef turned out a tad oily. But we liked the wok heat flavour in the noodles fried with marinated slices of beef and beansprouts. I found the pork chop a bit dry.

At our second visit for dinner, we went for the rice dishes, such as the pan-fried lotus root mixed minced pork cake with rice, and the pork chop fried rice with tomato and white sauce.

The first had the lotus root minced with pork, with the fried patty placed atop rice, with a side of salted vegetables, and sauce to pour over the meat. It was delicious and satisfying.

I found the pork chop fried rice with tomato and white sauce a little strange.

A runny tomato sauce covered half the rice, while the white sauce topped the other half in a messy yin-yang fashion. It’s like East meets West and never met.

Underneath the sauces was tasty fried rice, and thick strips of fried pork chop.

We also ordered a mixed vegetable curry and plain rice to go with it. The curry had santan in it and tasted more like a Malaysian than a Hong Kong curry.

Eggplant, long beans, cabbage, lady’s fingers and fuchuk were in the zesty curry and we liked the aroma and spiciness of it.

Barbecued pork with lotus leaf buns had moist, sweet and smoky char siu filling the white buns. Altogether they made great bites.

Hong Kong cafes are well known for their thick toasts. We went for the French toast, served with golden syrup, as our dessert. It was well fried in egg, with a slice of butter in between.

I’ll be back for the peanut butter thick toast with condensed milk, my favourite.

Prices of food are reasonable, from RM8.90 for all the toasts, to RM12.90 for the BBQ pork buns, RM13.90 for the pork burger, RM17.90 for lotus root with minced pork rice to RM20.90 for the vegetable curry.

Tsuen Wan is on the ground floor of Megah Rise, No 3, Jalan SS24/9, Petaling Jaya. It’s also in Sunway Geo Avenue and Pearl Point Shopping Mall. – June 1, 2024.

* 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.