BATU CAVES, Dec 5 — Industrial areas, with their huge, gaping warehouses and colossal trucks, aren’t usually the first places that come to mind when seeking a good meal.
A restaurant typically caters to its locale, and the same can be said for restaurants in these areas, which tend to focus on serving hearty, filling meals at approachable prices to feed the people around them.
Sometimes, this leads to some gems that only find their way out through good old-fashioned word of mouth.
No social media, no phone number, not online, anyway, but just a tip from someone who lives and works in the area.
This is what led me to Bee Leng Restaurant, in Taman Selayang Utama Industrial Park, surrounded by wholesalers and industrial machinery suppliers.
Though it is technically just down the road from 126 Hakka Yong Tau Foo in Taman Intan Baiduri, we’ve crossed the invisible boundary into Batu Caves.
I visited for dinner, when the roads are quieter, parking is easier, and the street is just a little bit darker.
It’s not so dark or silent as to cause concern; you’d only find this dingy if you’re the pearl-clutching type who gets spooked by your own reflection.
The interior dining room of the shop lot is even air-conditioned.
At first glance, Bee Leng looks like just another Chinese seafood restaurant, an assumption I was also guilty of making.
Closer inspection reveals offerings with a distinctly Teochew influence, such as classic Teochew-style steamed fish with tomato, tofu and preserved mustard greens, but also a bolder Teochew-style fried fish head (RM48) flavoured with taucheo (fermented yellow soybeans), chilli and Chinese celery.
The result is gnarly hunks of head with soft flesh tucked into little nooks and crannies, completely smothered in the sticky, flavourful sauce.
Salty, sour and slightly spicy, it’s worth ordering for the sauce alone, which is good considering there isn’t much meat in the head itself.
The Teochew-style recommendations kept on coming. We followed with a Teochew-style spicy fried shrimp (RM28), which turned out to be tons of tiny shrimp in a spicy, tomato-ey sauce, brimming with curry leaves and chilli that lent it a hint of kam heong flavour.
It’s this trinity of salty, sour and spicy flavours that informs many of the best dishes here, though the next few don’t necessarily stick to that trend.
The pork belly stir-fried with ginger strips (RM26) was also highly recommended, but the ratio of ginger to pork is heavily skewed towards the former.
The thin slivers of pork and ginger are coated in a thick, sticky sauce that is wonderful over rice.
To finish was a thoroughly satisfying plate of dry-fried yee mee (RM11). The characteristically spongy noodles were fried well with thinly sliced bell peppers, red onions, spring onions and fluffy specks of egg.
Not exactly life-changing, but certainly life-giving, which is sort of the point here, I like to think.
Bee Leng Restaurant
12, Jalan SU 22,
Taman Selayang Utama Industrial Park,
Batu Caves, Selangor
Open daily, 11am-2.30pm, 5-9.30pm
Tel: 016-307 6659
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
* Follow us on Instagram @eatdrinkmm for more food gems.
* Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more musings on food and occasionally self-deprecating humour.
