Restoran Lai Kee 来來記西刀魚丸 — Restaurant in Iskandar Puteri

Where Lai Kee is located (about 20mins Grab ride from JBCC), the area is flanked by quite a number of local eateries, all bustling with local weekenders, and those from Singapore, but nowhere compared to Lai Kee, packed to the brim with hungry customers, young and old, complete with a queue under the mercy of the 8am morning sun, that continued to grow by the minute even after I was seated. 😅

Recommended by my KL colleagues who told me "die die must try", Lai Kee indeed serves up amazingly delicious house-made fish balls, meat balls, dried bean curd with fish paste, fish cake, and dry and soup noodles that I had not tasted for 50 years at least.

Simple and great tasting. I'm sure there's heavy use of MSG, but that's a quintessential culinary drug for Asians and in Asian cooking. 😂

SHIOK! SHIOK! SHIOK! 😋😋😋

The service staff was courteous and brisk, who begrudgingly attended to all my repeated asks for more soup. My bill was RM 26 (with a Coke), which was more than reasonable considering everything, apart from the yellow noodles and kway teow, were all house-made. 👍

Not by any means a small local old style restaurant, the experience was mind-blowing with the hustle and bustle social networking of eager and cheerful customers, the probable-millionaire but humble-looking owners who doubled as the chefs and servers, and enthusiastic and hardworking servers.

Will I be back again to Lai Kee? Hell, YEAH! I left mind-boggled, and extremely happy and...

Bad and slow service. Came in, nobody cleared the table even after approaching staff. Had to approach second time before one kakak help to clear. An old auntie took our order and we waited aimlessly for 20mins without the noodles being served. Other tables that came later all ate and left. Approached staff TWICE to ask about order, first approach got ignored by an old uncle. Second approach the old auntie that took our order just brushed us off saying food will arrive after it’s ready before we even finished saying our sentence. Like other reviews mentioned, all staff LOOKED busy mcm finding for things but don’t know what are they actually busy with (all look like lost birds not knowing what they are doing feels more like it). Finally last straw, we called the young chap over (not sure if it’s the boss) he told us apparently our order slip is not at the counter, maybe given our food wrongly to other tables. Apology said but no service recovery. Food is average, there are better fishball noodles elsewhere. Not sure why this place is so recommended by Jeff and Inthira but service is so disappointing. All staff are not flexible, only know how to follow a structure of taking orders and serving dishes. When order not fufilled they can’t be bothered. Come here to dine if you have a lot of patience to handle their arrogance from their apparent...

This restaurant offers Noodles with Fishball and related dishes ("Dao/Tau Kee" Fried Fish Paste Curd Roll, etc.

Atmosphere: 3.75🌟 Not enough fans honestly, it has 2 shop rows and the one where they prepare food will be even hotter. Luckily the place sometimes can be breezy so don't think this is the best spot to go during lunch. Decent gaps between tables. Tables and chairs are normal. Place isn't very clean but quite decent.

Service: 3🌟 Pretty fast service but I ordered from the entrance and the guy forgot to ask me for drinks. I think you can get a seat and then they will come to you for food and drinks orders which will give you a better experience. Upon food and drinks delivery, you will need to pay first. However, minus points for not enabling e-Wallet (Tough and Go) or being lazy to take it.

Food: Fishball Noodle (Dry) Noodle 2🌟, Fish balls 3.25🌟, Dao/Tau Kee 3.5🌟, Broth 3.25🌟 Noodle is quite bad, very oily and the spicy isn't tasty, better just eat it with chili Padi. Comes with 5 medium small fish balls and 1 of which is fried. The texture is quite nice and chewy. "Tao/Dao Kee" Fried Fish Paste Curd Roll is the best item I'd tried here. Crispy, flavorful and chewy fish paste meat. Broth is not bad actually, I think soup is the better option. Noodle priced at Rm 9, Dao Kee priced at Rm 6.

Drinks: Chinese Tea...