meat, bone and tea...

 As a Klang boy, I had always been a Bak Kut Teh fan. 

My dad would usually take us out on the Sunday morning for the dishes. 

Everyone had a No 1 Bak Kut Teh in the heart…I usually go to Ah Poh Bak Kut Teh near my house.

How good is the Klang Bak Kut Teh? Darn good I should say…

I had this classmate GSW who is currently manning a good clinic in Sarawak. During my service in Klang, he had come to KL for a visit and had put up a night in my house. I had taken him to this Ah Poh Bak Kut Teh and during the meal, he had told me that he had finally realized that why I am not keen of eating the Bak Kut Teh they had cooked in the hostel, the taste here in Klang is so so so tasty…

Lem had also came to visit me once in Klang and I had taken him to the same shop and we had added the soup for 3 times….

I had asked Yun a question last night…does Bak Kut Teh really contain tea ? (Bak Kut = meat with bones, Teh = tea)…

After a few seconds, she answered me that yes…

The answer was “No” and I had told here the below facts:

Bak Kut Teh doesn’t contain tea at all. In the past, when tea was expensive, most of the people who went to the shop will only ordered Bak Kut (meat+soup and rice) but only the wealthy would ordered Bak Kut and Tea so

The poor -> Bak Kut

The rich –> Bak Kut Teh

However Chinese tea had become cheaper and cheaper, later, all of the customer would order Bak Kut Teh and it had become a name for the dishes…

Frankly speaking, the tastiest Bak Kut Teh uses fresh pork and it had to be slain early in the morning thus most of the pork are not checked by the health institution for disease. Well, gotta take risk if you want good food…

The traditional Bak Kut Teh comes in bowl and later the clay pot style becomes popular. One of the oldest shop in Klang is the one named “Tek Ti” located just beside the klang bridge – behind the Jalan Masjid Indian. Unlike the other shop where you can order the part of meat you want, they served it like the dim sum shop; a waiter would carried few bowls in a tray and walk around the tables. You picked which bowl that you like…. And  NO EXTRA SOUP would be added. If you want more soup – please order another bowl… that is one of the reason I don’t go to the shop – soup is the most attractive part of the dishes….

I really missed it…. But still, Ving is going to cook it this Saturday…… grace indeed for a Klang boy in Taiwan…