Over 20 years ago, a college friend of mine introduced me to seafood bak kut teh. Bak Kut Teh in its original form is a clay pot dish with meat (predominantly pork) and vegetables. Some smart fella decided that seafood should be in the mix and voila, a concoction of a beautiful mess of seafood mixed with pork was born.
20 years later, I completely forgot about it and when I searched for the original place where my friend brought me to (I could remember the location), the shop doesn’t exist anymore. After a couple of searches on Google, it seemed that the previous shop owner has passed on back in 2016/2017. Sadly, I thought that would be the end of my fix and a lost opportunity to try it out again.
After more searches and getting a couple of mates to join me, we were off on an adventure to Klang again in search of another seafood bak kut teh.
Upon arrival, the shop was a standard coffee shop housed in an industrial lot. This meant that the place was larger than usual and the ceilings were abnormally higher. Tucked in the corner of the coffee shop named Restoran Yun Heng, is this little bak kut teh stall whose name I have trouble trying to identify as I can’t read Chinese.
I spoke with the owner and with my barely passable mandarin and combination of English and Malay; I got my order in. The place wasn’t packed as it was a Wednesday in the middle of the week.
The dish arrived and the smell really brought back memories of more than two decades ago. I remember the clams and prawns that used to swim in the dish together with chunks of fish. I remember the insane amount of chillies that my friends used to include in (I told the owner to keep it mild). After taking a bite of the dish, it was definitely something similar to what I had, and I was glad that my tastebuds could still remember the unique taste of it after so long.
Since it took us almost an hour to get to the place, we finished it all as if it was our last chance to eat seafood bak kut teh. We left the place utterly satisfied and even with the long drive there, everything felt just worth it. I can’t wait to return back again to have more seafood bak kut teh with more friends.
If you are curious about the place, I have included in the Google Maps link below so that you can go and have a taste of it as well.
