My little family of three, who love any fish dish, would almost certainly be regulars if we found a local restaurant that served cheap and delicious fish and vegetable dishes. So, the restaurant we went to almost once a month is the restaurant called Mun Kee that I am writing about today.
This restaurant specializes in steamed fish head dishes and is located at the back of Berjaya Times Square Shopping Mall, about 20 minutes’ walk from Bukit Bintang, the city center of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
The restaurant has its own parking lot, so about 10 cars can park there. There is also a shrine under a very tall tree at the entrance to the restaurant yard. Also, as soon as you enter, on the left side there is a colorful, rainbow-colored fence that is common in kindergartens, and there is an air-conditioning room on one side.
Next, let’s look at the food menu. There are so many chicken and pork dishes you would find in a typical Chinese restaurant. Even though it is a steamed fish head restaurant, I am surprised that there are many tables having with several types of meat dishes with their chosen steamed fish head.
Also, there are so many side dishes using tropical vegetables and root vegetables grown here. One important point is that most of the customers are local Chinese Malaysians who come to eat here, so all the menus are written in Chinese characters and have a few short English translations.
Fortunately, the staff who greets and guides us every time, an elderly man in his late 60s, speaks English quite well and kindly explained the food and prices to us.
Speaking of the steamed fish dish I mentioned earlier, there are a total of 5 styles to cook, and the customer can choose. One fish dish might be enough for a family of three, but we have chosen two fish dishes on one day.
The reason is that out of the five cooking styles, my husband and I struggled to choose between different styles, and ultimately couldn’t decide, so we ended up choosing both.
Whenever we go, my family always chooses the menu item corresponding to D in the photo. This is a steamed fish dish in which raw ginger is finely chopped and minced, piled on top of the fish to a thickness of more than 2 cm, and steamed.
It is the default for my family. This is because my English husband doesn’t like to add a lot of dark or strong soy sauce, vinegar or somewhat strong and spicy sambal sauce and prefers to flavor it with natural spices or herbs.
In addition, if you don’t like ginger, you can choose A and go with steamed fish steamed with lemon flavor. A would be no failure at all.
However, we always choose D with a mountain of minced ginger, and the day I chose two fish dishes, I was greedy for a fish dish with Sambal sauce for item C, which I usually like very much, as a topping and adding flavor to the soup.
Whether we order one or two fish dishes, we always choose two vegetable dishes to accompany it. One is a dish in which sweet potato leaves are stir-fried over high heat with a lot of garlic.
The other is kangkong, a local spinach dish stir-fried in sambal and belacan sauce, a Malaysian-style favorite that locals sell in both expensive and budget restaurants, halal or non-halal.
Finely chopped red hot peppers and minced raw garlic are always placed on the table, so guests can eat them themselves. Soy sauce is also placed on the table along with chopsticks and spoons.
The red chili called padi chili is quite spicy, so my husband prefers minced garlic instead and eats quite a bit throughout the meal with the dishes we ordered, and my son, of course, both raw garlic and red chili are spicy, so he likes to eat soy sauce over rice.
After we’ve been to this restaurant a few times, we decided to venture out to other foods. So, among them, we ordered a yam(tapioca or cassava) basket, one of the things we always want to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The thing is that this yam basket dish is not sold at all Chinese restaurants. It requires a unique skill to make this food properly.
That said, this is because the mashed yams must be put in a ring-shaped mold and fried well in a short time. If it’s deep fried too long, it will become crispy like a snack and harden to the inside, and if it’s fried too short, it will leave a lump of undercooked paste with a texture like yam porridge. So, in this restaurant, we ordered with enough concern because we had painful memories of eating a yam basket that was really lightly fried and was moderately crispy on the outside, but still cold on the inside from the fridge and tasted like a flowing viscous paste.
Fortunately, it was our first time here as well, but we witnessed another table eating and gave it a try. We asked the kind elderly staff to drizzle as little of the sticky dark soy sauce over the yam basket toppings as possible. The main filling is pork. The meat is coated in flour and fried, and cashew nuts, onions, and dry red peppers are mixed in a sweet and sticky sauce and served in a yam basket all at once.
The great thing about this steamed fish head restaurant is that it’s located downtown, but the prices aren’t too expensive. Any steamed fish head dish is basically RM38 (about US$9). And, the price of vegetables varies depending on the number of people. For example, for a family of 3, it is common to order a small size. In this case, the price would be between about RM13 (about USD 3) and RM18 (about USD 4) depending on the type of vegetable.
Also, pork or chicken dishes usually cost more than RM30 or more (about US$7) a plate. The pork yam basket we ordered cost RM38 (about US$9), the same as the steamed fish head price. So, for a hearty meal like this, our family of 3, including our 6-year-old son, usually pays around RM120 (about USD 30).
Lastly, since this place is surrounded by trees, the only downside is that there are quite a lot of mosquitoes. So, in order not to be bitten by mosquitoes, wearing long pants and long sleeves are a must. Imagine how upset you would be if you were bitten by mosquitoes throughout your meal that you couldn’t enjoy your delicious food because of non-stop scratching!
Nonetheless, the delicious food here is undeniable. Anyone staying in downtown Kuala Lumpur who wants to eat delicious and inexpensive steam fish food like the Chinese locals must visit this place.
Address: Restoran Mun Kee Steam Fish Head
4926A, Jalan Seladang, Pudu, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
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