PETALING JAYA, Aug 25 — Gather here, you night owls.
Finding late-night supper options outside of the unyielding glow of a mamak or fast food joint has gotten harder in recent years, with many former haunts now closing earlier due to staffing issues or shuttering entirely as a result of the pandemic.
The city centre still boasts its fair share of gems, but the pickings become decidedly scarcer as you head out to the suburbs.
However, commercial areas are usually a good bet – even better if it has a club in the immediate vicinity.
9 Hao Restaurant & Cafe stands on the corner of a commercial square in Kota Damansara, near The Strand.
By day, it is your average kopitiam with plenty of hawker stalls to choose from; the curry mee is particularly popular, sometimes running out as early as 9.30am.
At night, the operation expands: tables and chairs spill out onto the road, a different line-up of stalls come out to play and the kopitiam switches from economy rice to Teochew porridge.
My friends and I arrived at about 10pm, well and truly approaching supper hour. Most patrons sat outdoors, enjoying buckets of ice-cold beer under the clear night sky while grazing on the variety of offerings available: Thai stir-fry, nasi lemak, satay, pan mee, bak kut teh and claypot frog and chicken dishes.
It was quiet when I walked in to order the porridge. The selection of side dishes for the night included small bites like braised peanuts and salted eggs, as well as staples like fried dace with salted black beans, braised pork with potatoes, stewed pumpkin and the beloved Malaysian classic of ikan bilis fried with petai.
Vegetables included stir-fried green beans with fish cakes and a stew of potatoes, carrots and mushrooms.
The total cost was RM25, which covered one portion of each dish with unlimited refills of porridge included.
True to Teochew porridge style, most of the side dishes were particularly salty to complement the plain, slightly watery porridge.
We enjoyed most of them, but the fried dace and salted black beans (a Cantonese icon, funnily enough) were my favourite; the fish had an oily, slightly chewy texture, packed with an intense, savoury flavour from the black beans. I could’ve easily eaten three bowls of porridge with this alone.
We had also surveyed and sampled food from some of the stalls outside, but one stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Sporting a bright yellow sign, the claypot stall offered chicken and frog cooked in claypot in various styles, and also claypot porridge, though it is the thicker Cantonese version.
Their signature dish, the “golden claypot chicken” (RM12) featured juicy pieces of chicken thighs and thin slices of okra in a dark, sticky, slightly sweet sauce that sizzled as it arrived at the table.
It comes with a plate of rice, which my friends promptly thrust upon me, having unanimously appointed me the fan tong of the group.
No matter how complex the carbohydrates, I love them all the same. The sauce was the best part of this dish – luscious and distinctly flavoured with black pepper, but in a pleasantly warm and fragrant way.
I chatted with the husband-and-wife duo operating the stall, who revealed that they pound the whole peppercorns themselves to get a rougher grain, which is key to avoiding that slightly bitter flavour and pungent burning sensation of finely ground pepper.
We also tried their gong bao okra (RM8) and gong bao claypot frog (RM26). The former was moreish, threading the line between slimy and crunchy.
The latter was unfortunately less impressive – the sauce packed plenty of heat, but lacked much of... anything else, really.
It was unable to find the balance between sweet, savoury and fiery, so it fell flat. I’ll be sticking with the chicken next time around, which I envision to be fairly soon. A late-night feast at this price is a hard bargain to beat.
9 Hao Restaurant & Cafe
1-G, Jalan PJU 5/20E, The Strand, Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Open daily, 6am-4am. Claypot stall opens from 5.30pm-3am and porridge is sold from 5pm-3am.
Tel: 03-6151 1334
Facebook: @9HaoRestaurantCafe
Instagram: @9haorestaurantandcafe
*This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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