KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — Fire and time. That’s the secret to a bowl of “old fire” soup or lou foh tong that offers nourishment with its essence of the ingredients used.
Restaurant Four Seas under the care of chef Michael Cheong practises this soup philosophy — creating rich, intense flavours patiently — by simmering carefully selected ingredients over a charcoal fire for at least two and a half hours up to four hours.
This sets them apart from other places who prefer to play the double boiled soups theme, a more time economical way to prepare the restorative broths diners look for.
The moment you step into the restaurant’s compound, it’s the rows of claypots on charcoal fire burners that catch your eye (and phone camera) straightaway.
Inside each pot, there’s meat (chicken, pork and even mutton) paired with various herbs and ingredients to create the best-for-you broths, tailored to chase away any ailments you may have.
Using double filtered water, no artificial additives and reducing the soup by half, the broth has a thicker consistency without any murkiness and concentration of flavours in each spoonful.
It’s even picked up an Asean record that recognises it as a culinary destination for traditional soup making.
Sha Shen, Sweet Apricot Seed Chicken Soup (RM68) is a crowd favourite that counts Hong Kong celebrity chef and food critic Hugo Leung as a fan.
The golden broth is believed to help purify the lungs, perfect for coughs and wheezing, which is what we tend to suffer from with our flip-flop hot and cold weather.
I can see why this soup has won over so many diners with its slight sweetness from dried longans and just a hint of tangerine peel and all of the chicken goodness in every spoonful.
Often, the dregs are left out and ignored, deemed unworthy for diners as long boiling has squeezed every bit of its essence but here, it’s proudly served together with the soup.
Precision for time and control of fire, has left these dregs still intact and retaining some flavour, like the pull-apart free range hormone-free chicken.
With a total of nine soups on the menu, some soups will be familiar to those who often dine at home. Soups like the Lotus Root Peanut and Pig Tail’s Soup (RM48).
It’s not the clear tasteless soup often found in eateries but this deep brown soup, a product of long simmering which renders the Vietnamese sourced peanuts into a fragrant, creamy bite.
Even the lotus root crumbles easily in the mouth when one bites into a piece.
The use of pig tail in soup that has been ingeniously boiled over a slow fire sees the collagen melt away to give each piece a luxurious mouthfeel.
This may be a homey soup but here it’s a magnificent rendition with its varied textures that for one second you will forget it’s designed to clear away any dryness and heat in the body.
Other home styled soups available here include Old Cucumber and Dried Cuttlefish Soup and Watercress Pork Ribs Soup.
Complete your meal here with their assortment of home style dishes served on metallic dishes reminiscent of a simple home setting.
Solo diners can opt for roast meats too paired with rice for a quick lunch.
With the soup dominating most of the meal, as each claypot yields around five bowls of soup, order a few dishes like the Stir Fried Clams with Specialty Sauce (RM30 for small).
The thick white shelled clams have juicy molluscs, drenched with a spicy savoury sauce dotted with crunchy lard fritters.
Stir Fried Bitter Gourd Egg (RM16 for small) is a good way to pair protein with vegetables, where this dish features scrambled cooked eggs mingling with sliced bitter gourd.
Perhaps the next round, it will be the Hot and Sour Fry Fish in Claypot with its spicy tangy nuances, as recommended by a friend but one thing is certain, their soups are the star of the show here.
Restaurant Four Seas
No. 2, Jalan Suppiah Pillay, Third Mile Jalan Ipoh
Sentul, Kuala Lumpur.
Open daily: 11am to 3pm, 5pm to 10pm.
Tel: 012-2132938
Facebook: @Restaurant-Four-Seas
Instagram: @sihailaohuotang
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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