Kuala Lumpur Chinatown Shin Kee Beef Noodles 新九如牛肉粉

I was done for the day of food hunting in KL's Chinatown and was making my way to the Pasar Seni MRT station when I walked past Shin Kee Beef Noodles 新九如牛肉粉. I walked well past the little shop but did a double take while I waited to cross the road. Isn't that the lady boss from the side lane beef noodle stall inside KL's Chinatown?

That beef noodle stall was my first meal in KL's Chinatown, over two decades ago.



Well, the only way to find out is to eat it - our taste buds have memories that make elephants envy.

So, I turned back and found myself a seat in the busy little eatery. The tight squeeze in here is part of the charm of this quaint little place. The tiny restaurant was busy even at 3:30pm.



I sat down and ordered this noodle with beef soup for RM12 (added on 5 beef balls which were my favourites).



The yellow noodles came partially blanketed with a thick mound of stewed minced beef. A sprinkle of chopped spring onion completed the dish.



I gave the noodles and minced beef a good toss. In the mouth, the thick yellow noodles had a slight crunch and tasted a bit sweet (there was no alkaline taste at all). The sweetish noodles were complemented by the savoury stewed minced beef.



The soup was light bodied and clear except for suspended coagulates. There's tripe, beef balls, beef slices and pieces of beef inside. Made by boiling stock beef bones, the soup's flavour was mainly mildly savoury salty with subtle underlying beefiness.



I like the meaty pieces of beef inside because they were soft-tender, juicy and had nice beefy sweetness.



I also like the thin beef slices which were done slightly pink by just dropping the raw beef into the hot soup.



My favourite thing in the soup were the hand made beef balls. They had a nice mild savoury beefy taste with good firm bounce to the bite.

Shin Kee's fans like their spicy sourish salty chili sauce. Some dump whole spoonfuls of chili sauce in their soup to make a spicy soup. It's quite zesty but nowadays I like to eat my food neat 😄 A sign of advancing age... ? 😂



After enjoying my beef noodle and soup, I asked the busy lady boss if she was from the stall inside KL Chinatown.

She said "Yes".

Bingo 😄

Ah Lai had worked in Singapore in her 20s and returned to KL after marrying Koon, whose parents ran Shin Kee in Chinatown since the 1930s. Ah Lai remembers and knows Singapore's Chinatown of the 1980s well (before the time of Chinatown Complex and streets cleared of hawkers).

Ah Lai has stopped operating the (night shift) iconic side lane stall at the intersection of Jalan Petaling and Jalan Hang Lekir (in Chinatown) for about four months now. She focuses on this little shop which opens now from 10:30am to 7:00pm.



I asked Ah Lai what type of beef noodle does she serve. She replied "Hakka, my husband is Hakka" as she showed me a scoop of stewed minced beef.

The connection became obvious - Shin Kee serves the beef version of the pork type of Hakka noodles.

👉 Shin Kee Beef Noodle 新九如牛肉粉 is one of KLites' favourite beef noodle shops. Founded in the 1930s, the popular shop is now in the third generation.



Restaurant name: Sin Kiew Yee / Shin Kee Beef Noodles 新九如牛肉粉



Address: 7a, Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Kuala Lumpur (5 minutes walk from Pasar Seni MRT / LRT station)
GPS: 3°08'42.5"N 101°41'48.9"E | 3.145124, 101.696929
Tel: 012-673 7318
Hours: 10:30am - 7:000pm (Weds off)

No pork, no lard, no Halal cert

Date visited: 4 Jun 2018



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