Stall In Rawang Offers Home-Cooked Food

By LIM CHIA YING


There are no frills about this place — simple, basic, and down-to-earth. Even space appears rather limited.

But it has not stopped customers from patronising the Fei Kee Food Stall at a quiet, offbeat path in Rawang located amid a housing estate.

The outlet has been operating for more than two years now, manned and managed by husband and wife team of Lau Lian Kee and Lai Tsuey Ngoh.

The owners were previously selling chicken rice before venturing out to offer more home-cooked dishes for its patrons.

Its signature dish is the Home-Style Steamed Fish Head, done in three steam styles — the black bean, the soya sauce, or the ginger sauce.


Signature dish: The Home-Style Steamed Fish Head that has become a must-order among patrons.

Lau does not term his place as the usual ‘tai-chow’ (stir-fried dishes) type of outlet, but rather, a specialist in cooking fish head.

“The fish that I use is the Chinese carp (called tongsan in Cantonese) - a freshwater fish that is rarely used by other eating outlets in this area. Many of them use the tilapia, so I thought that I’d do something different with a different type of fish,” said Lau, 51.

He said he received his fish supply from a fish breeder-cum-supplier.

“It’s not easy cooking this fish as it involves a lot of thorough cleaning to rid off the earthy smell in the flesh.

“After washing through I’d use coarse salt to marinate it,” he said while preparing to bring the fish to steam at his humble kitchen area.

“The sauce that we use are also of good quality, to bring out the flavour,” said Lau.

While the soya sauce may appear a little sweet for my taste, however, the fish head was “full with flesh” and sufficient to feed even two or three persons, making it value-for-money for the RM19 or RM20 that one pays.

Next up was the Claypot Curry Prawns, which uses the evaporated milk — a healthier though costlier alternative than the usual coconut milk.

It is interesting to see Lau weighing the prawns on the weighing machine before cooking them which he said would help with the orders of small, medium, or a big claypot.

“Although evaporated milk is more expensive, we use it as coconut milk makes you feel heavy after the meal. But we still use a little bit of the coconut milk to enhance the taste,” he said.

Another popular order is the Pork Knuckle Black Vinegar, where Lau said the pork had to be first blanched over hot water for a few minutes before being fried with ginger to drain off the ‘porky’ smell.

“Only good quality vinegar is used so that the dish doesn’t turn out too sourish, which is the problem with cheap, low-grade vinegar,” he shared.

Also recommended is the Steamed Kampung Chicken strewn with herbs like wolfberries (kei chi in Cantonese), and herbs like the Chinese Angelica root or rhizomes (also known as Dong Gui in Chinese).

Lau said he picked up his cooking skills from friends who were good at cooking different items.

His wife, Lai, told me that they have customers coming at least three times a week to her place.

“Our lunch crowd is quite packed as working people from nearby offices and factories patronise the outlet. For dinner, the crowd usually comes in during weekends and not so much on weekdays,” she said.

FEI KEE FOOD STALL, NOC- 1, Kampong Datuk Lee Kim Sai, Jalan Batu 18/3, 48000 Rawang. (Tel: 012-2031938 / 016-6947309). Business hours: Daily; 11.30am to 8.30pm. Closed on Wednesdays.