KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 25 — The skin is a bright, strong shade of yellow. It rests atop meat that’s pretty much fat-free and so, a little chewy. It is this texture and the moreish flavour the meat imparts that chicken lovers look for because it tells them that the chooks were bred the traditional, organic way with no harmful steroids, antibiotics or hormones to fatten them up.
Instead, the birds roam and graze freely in open spaces so their meat tends to be more firm and lean compared to farmed chickens.
That is what diners get at Ng Ng Mooi’s restaurant, Ban Shan Zou Di Ji, at Salak South New Village in Kuala Lumpur. Drive around the laid-back village and you will spot the restaurant’s simple and straightforward signboard.
It carries the name in Chinese only but even if you can’t read the characters, you can figure out what their signature dishes are, as indicated by two photographs placed below the text. One shows its namesake steamed chicken in all its yellow skin glory while the other is of a fish blanketed under a thick, fiery-looking sauce.
The latter is a given in this village, where every other restaurant claims to be a specialist of steamed fish head. “I knew I needed to be different, so I chose to have free-range chickens as my signature instead,” Ng Mooi explains.
A veteran of the food and drink business, prior to this restaurant, she operated a mixed rice stall for over a decade. She still keeps it going, at the Pusat Penjaja Kg Baru Salak Selatan, but leaves the operations to a partner while she focuses on the restaurant.
Opened over a year ago, Ng Mooi herself handles much of the cooking, with the assistance of a few local staff. There isn’t much to speak of in terms of décor or design; Ban Shan sports the typical Chinese restaurant aesthetic of plastic chairs, large round wooden tables, and some semi-outdoor seating under a zinc extension.
Next door is her business partner’s family home, and where the guest toilet is located. The restaurant itself may not be much to look at, but it is perched on a small hill (the ban shan in the restaurant’s moniker means “half hill”) directly opposite the Ti-Ratana Welfare Society Malaysia, and affords views of the city skyline as the backdrop against the village’s rustic wooden houses.
During the day, if the weather is clear, a soothing vista greets you. At night, it transforms into a firefly-like display.
The views are a bonus; of course, it’s the food that draws the crowds — who are mostly city folks — here. “The people here are not willing to spend on food... most of my customers are from outside the village,” Ng Mooi reveals.
Ban Shan’s menu lists about 30 different items, including their two main bestsellers that can each be prepared in several different ways. The other dishes are familiar and popular comfort food the likes of braised pork, vinegar pig’s trotters, clams in superior soup and salted egg squid.
Their bestselling free-range chickens are steamed (pak cham kai) and served with minced ginger. On its own, the chicken has a natural sweetness, which is complemented by the soy sauce mixture it is bathed in.
For those who love ginger, the mince is a must as it adds another layer to the taste profile and Ban Shan’s version is a delight in itself — spicy and well flavoured, making the perfectly steamed chicken even more enjoyable.
You can also order chicken cooked in yellow rice wine, coated with oats and deep-fried, cooked kam heong style, or buy fresh whole chickens from them to cook at home.
Their other signature, steamed fish head, comes in several variants as well — with a spicy fermented bean sauce, with minced ginger, or with soy sauce. If you prefer a whole fish, opt for tilapia, which is also offered in the same three variants. That was my choice and Ng Mooi recommended the cheong cheng (spicy bean sauce) style, which I was happy to go with.
There were only two of us lunching so we asked for a small portion, but the fish that arrived at our table was pretty substantial. We didn’t think we’d be able to finish it, but the moist and fresh flesh coupled with the well-balanced flavours of the thick sauce made for an appetising dish that we polished off with little difficulty.
To balance up the meats, we ordered paku-pakis (ferntops) stir-fried with sambal. I stepped into the kitchen as Ng Mooi was preparing to cook this. The vegetables are first flash fried and removed from the wok.
She then added a generous scoop of her homemade shrimp and chilli sambal onto the vegetables, before throwing everything into the wok again but not before ramping up the fire.
As the vegetables and spicy sambal sizzled away, copious smoke arose from the hot wok — talk about good wok hei! A few quick tosses later, the dish was done. The ferntops were crunchy and the sambal aromatic, spicy, and savoury.
Feeling hungry (and a little greedy), we also ordered the wood ear fungus with pork belly, a wholesome dish that’s robust in taste yet light on the stomach as it’s steamed. Ng Mooi’s experience and deft hand in the kitchen shows in all the dishes we tried.
She doesn’t scrimp on flavours, delivering balanced flavours in every dish and most importantly, keeps the cooking simple so as to let the ingredients shine.
Another highlight is the rice itself, fluffy long grains that she steams in a big wok. “Steaming gives the rice better texture,” says Ng Mooi but adds that it does take longer than using a rice cooker, so on busy days like the weekends, she has no choice but to switch to modern technology.
You should also be warned that Ban Shan’s chickens are of limited supply as their farm, located just 10 minutes away, operates on a small scale. If you plan to visit on a weekend, Ng advises calling ahead. “You don’t have to book a table, but reserve your chicken if you don’t want to be disappointed!”
Ban Shan Zou Di Ji
Lot 16106, Jalan 13B,
Salak South Bahru (Desa Petaling), Kuala Lumpur
Opens 11am-3pm & 5pm-10pm, Tue-Sun; closed Mon
Tel 019 332 8285/016 314 9486/018 275 4161
www.facebook.com/banshanzoudiji
Vivian Chong is freelance writer-editor who is always on the lookout for the next good story, be it in travel, food, people, or the arts. Read her other stories at http://thisbunnyhops.com/
