Ai Jiak Penang Food — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

For the Penang foodies who have lived in KL/PJ long enough, you'd probably be aware of the restaurant inside the Chung Ling Old Boys building in PJ which served authentic Penang nonya dishes. It became a runaway hit, and outgrew the Chung Ling Old boys venue in terms of number of guests they could serve.

So the proprietor packed up and decided to open his own restaurant here in the heart of SEA Park. Located directly opposite Public Bank, it's humble setting belies the success it has enjoyed the past few months since opening, forcing the owners to take up the shoplot next door just to accommodate more seating,

The setting s rather simple with a few rows of tables and chairs. Good use of the side wall as they turned it into a seating area by constructing a plinth jutting out of the left and right walls. During the pandemic, these tables became booths, as temporary partitions were set up.

The food - Standard Penang Nonya fare with a few suprises. The usual jiu hoo char (fired cuttlefish), tau eu bak (soya sauce pork), hong bak (braised pork belly), Choon pneah (spring rolls) and so on all grace the menu. But the little bumps in the menu also include Penang Chee cheong fun, Duck egg char koay teow, assam laksa and many more.

The food is well prepared,, and one of my favourites here is the Hokkien Char. Unlike the ones in KL where it's just dark soya sauce fat noodles, the Penang style is different and honestly, much more tastier. Lorbak might be a bit of a hit-and-miss for some. For me, it's good. The curry kapitan was much wetter that I knew my childhood days, making it more like a curry chicken. Otak-otak was fair, the saving grace was the nice chunks of fish meat in this savoury fish egg custard.

Prices are reasonable and you won't burn a hole in your pocket for a good home-cooked style meal.

Parking is a bit of a nightmare in this area, so if you're planning to come for lunch on a normal weekday, it's advisable to take a cab or Grab here instead. But if you insist on driving, good luck. However, it's...

Decided to try this over a weekend and here's my review. First we ordered the Penang Chee Cheong Fun and it comes with the chili sauce, sweet bean sauce and prawn paste. Overall taste is nice as in Penang equivalent but I wish they were a bit more generous on the sauces especially the prawn paste. It's a bit sweet, spicy, hint of saltiness and bitterness from the prawn paste. The Cheong Fun was smooth and slightly chewy. Too bad it was rolled, I'd prefer the flat type. Nevertheless it's a good plate of Chee Cheong Fun. Then comes the Penang Char Koay Teow. Honestly it's good but not the best, lacks that strong wok hei, and its a bit on the dry side. A bit more spicier would have elevated the taste further. Not bad! Not bad! Bonus, it comes with crab meat topping or garnish. Next is the Lobak, the prawn fritter and meat roll is really spot on, Penang standard spot on and so are the 2 sauces. Just wished the tofu was the smoother type instead of the firmer type. A must try if you like the Penang Lobak. Lastly is the Crab Ball, at first it looks "meh" just like any deep fried meatball but the taste is just perfect, meaty and juicy from the mix of meats and either sengkuang or water chestnut. Another nice side dish. Their drinks menu is quite limited but there are some unique Penang drinks such Pat Poh and Nutmeg. Verdict, this place is a must try for Penang Foodies and its very affordable, slightly over RM50 incl 2 drinks . This place would have gotten a 5 if they improve on the Chee Cheong Fun and Char Koay Teow. Still the clean plates...

Was here around 12pm right before the whole lunch peak hour started and we were the next in line, thought it was ok to wait since we will be seated next, which took about 45minutes. And at the same time we noticed that most of the tables had not been served yet. Was contemplating whether to continue waiting or to leave, but with that thought that we are almost there... so we waited on.

Crowd management was really bad, there was already a long queue behind us, and some customers came in to order take away, and there doesn’t seem to be any system for dine in and take away customers and in the end dine in customers waiting in line got their queue cut by take away customers. Staffs were all over the place but no one bothered to organise the queue of dine in customers even thought there are already empty tables. Some of the dine in customers waiting in line were starting to get impatient due to the bad management.

Food was mediocre, not sure if it’s due to the lunch crowd, char kuey tiao, hokkien char and certain dishes were not available as we were informed that it will take about 30mins wait. Their signature hokkien mee(prawn mee), was also a bit of a let down, maybe with the much hype on the publicity that they received, we were expecting more, in my opinion, nearby Choon Prawn Mee House tasted better. The chee chiong fun was not bad, but not enough to compensate the bad crowd...