Excellent lontong in Chong Pang - they make their own rice cakes, the tofu is so soft, the vegetable curry so tasty, the sambal chili is not too spicy nor salty. $2.50 a serving is good value though it is just the size of a big snack.
Chong Pang Market & Food Centre is a very busy hawker centre. Haji Ali Cook Food is one of the stalls that sport a queue. It serves familiar Malay fare like mee rebus, mee siam, lontong, mee soto, gado gado, nasi lemak, etc.
I joined the queue wanting to try their soto (Indonesian style spicy chicken soup) but it was not available. So, I settled for this lontong as I saw that this seemed to be the most popular dish with Haji Ali Cooked Food's customers.
Seeing that Haji Ali Cooked Food stall make their own rice cake really piqued my interest. Most lontong stalls just use factory made rice cakes.
It's squares of rice cake, a boiled egg and tofu doused in a yellow colour vegetable curry. The dish is topped with a dollop of sambal chili and a heap of serunding kalapa (fried grated coconut flesh).
The yellowish curry is redolent with sweet coconut milk and vegetables like cabbage, long beans, carrot, etc. The vegetables are all soft, given up all their sweetness to the curry and infused a bit of spice and coconut milk taste. The spice flavour is mild and I can feel the bits of aromatic spices in the curry. The sweet savoury spicy sambal chili added a bit of spicy boost to the curry. It's a tasty concoction.
The rice cakes were excellent - quite unlike the factory made ones. The house made ones are less dense and softer than factory ones. In the mouth, it feels, tastes and smells like tender-soft rice (unlike factory made ones which are denser and made with rice flour etc blends.) The house made lontong also infused a bit of curry flavour as the rice cakes were not too dense.
The tofu was a surprise - I mean it's the softest tofu I ever had in a lontong whether in Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia. The bean curd is soft, smooth with a subtle bit of texture and has a slight sweet soy bean taste. Great with the vegetable curry and perfect complement to the soft rice cake.
Lady boss told me she got the tofu from her regular supplier and lightly fry it.
After eating my lontong, I went back to stalk the stall. The big pot of vegetable curry.... sudah habis (sold out).
More good food at Chong Pang food centre ๐ click
Written by Tony Boey on 7 Mar 2021
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