Mohd Chan Restaurant @ Glenmarie — Restaurant in Shah Alam

Having had the many opportunities to visit a number of places in China (from Beijing, Heilongziang, Shanghai, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shenzhen, Guangzhou to Hongkong SAR and Taipei) as a traveller mainly on sightseeing and gastronomic trips and the pleasure of dining at halal Chinese restuarants on many occasions while in HongKong, with my muslim friends, none of Mohd Chan's varieties of Chinese muslim food tastes remotely close to being 'Chinese' to me in any sense. Neither do these strike a chord with me as being Chinese in the local context as I have lived all my life in the Klang Valley where people are really blessed with fantastic cuisines of many great cultures in general, and Chinese in particular. So why the food served here is oft labelled as being "Chinese" remains life's greatest mystery to me! To be honest, their dishes seem more like some meats (or prawn or fish), vegetables, various sauces put together with rice or noodle in a mix that looks like Chinese food, but never in the savoury terms and texture. That's where the crux of this mystery lies. For thousands of years, the Chinese have centred their life mostly on eating or specifically on food as an important and integral part of their culture (hence the phrase "cari makan" 揾食as basic life philosophy to describe the raison d'etre for a day's economic activity) and in this regard, the art of cookery or how a particular dish of Chinese food is prepared for consumption after a day of presumably hard work, relates to how it tastes ultimately on one's tongue where the sensory taste buds are concentrated in order to get its fullest satisfaction. It comes as no surprise therefore, Chinese cuisine leans heavily toward appealing to the sense of taste, as opposed to the sense of sight, much like in the Japanese culture where food has to be colourfully decorated and arranged in orderly manner (think sushi dishes!) or to smell, as with cultures on the south Asian continent such as India, Pakistan etc (curry with its strong fragrance comes to mind instantly!). This explains the reason why someone who has the ability to taste a food well is often described as one with the ultimate "(Chinese) Emperor's tongue"! On this key measure, Mohd Chan's dishes fail the all important litmus test! Just give their "dimsum", "Hokkien mee" and Cantonese noodle aka "kong-fu-horfun" a try and you know what I mean, as it ain't simply what you put in as ingredients, or how your dish looks or smells like, it's what it tastes like that counts! However, if 'Chinese food' is described solely on its semantics, i.e. food cooked by a Chinese or just simply exists as a "brand name" or some dishes with appealing "Chinese look", Mohd Chan seems to address the need of people who look for a quick-bite which is different from the other run-of-the-mill muslim food outlets. Only to this extent and in this context can it be considered as a success of any sort as a "Chinese" restaurant. While the level of service here is average and the restaurant is well kept, not many would agree with the price level, given the quality of their "Chinese food" and its portion. Ratings : on "Chinese food": 1/5, Price : 1/5 , Ambience & Service: 2.5/5. [P.S. If you must sample a decent halal "kong-fu horfun" in the Cantonese cuisine tradition, head to Madam Kwan's at The Empire Gallery in SS16 Subang Jaya which is just a stone's throw...

I had a lot of hope before coming to this restaurant, I've seen this restaurant are always full of customers whenever I come across their branches, so it makes me wonder, how good are their foods?

I ordered nasi goreng cina & sotong butter.

Nasi goreng cina (8.7/10) standard flavourful nasi goreng cina, you can't go wrong with nasi goreng cina, heck, you can't even call yourself a chinese restaurant if you are serving below par nasi goreng cina. The portion is quite a lot, it also came with a portion of chicken popcorn nuggets which is delicious and some cabbages. Overall the nasi goreng cina is good enough for me.

Sotong butter (6.4/10) This is where the disappointment came from. First, the portion is huge, although I ordered the small portion (it got 2 servings, small and regular on the menu), I think it can feed 2 people. Sotong butter was served with a heap of flossed egg that covered the sotong. Presentation wise, it got 9/10 from me. But what I was disappointed with are the tastes. The tastes are too "jelak" for me, there are no other tastes than the butter, only butter, no kari taste, no savoury taste, it just feels incomplete. For me, butter chicken, prawn, squid etc must have these flavours working together to make a good butter-based dish (malaysian style lah). As for the textures of the sotong, it was crunchy and kinda fresh but overall ok lah.

Other things

Price: I paid RM42.55 for 3 items, nasi goreng cina (RM13.9), small sotong butter (RM22) and ais kosong (RM0.80) + 6% SST (RM2.2) & 10% Service charge (RM3.67). A bit pricey but not that pricey, slightly above average.

Car park: I came around 7pm, there’s a lot of parking space here at Glenmarie’s branch so don’t worry.

Service and atmosphere: Service is good, the waiters greeted and served you well, but the waiting time for me was around 20 minutes after I submitted my order. Quite a bit late but considering there were a lot of other customers who came before me so it was understandable.

In conclusion, I will give this restaurant another visit in the future, I believe the other dishes...

Ok lah. Not really authentic Chinese food. According to my Chinese Muslim friend, it's Very much suited for Melayu palate. The Chinese chili oil was not included in our dish..maybe no stock for halal ones. The fried dumpling was disappointing. Sauce not that great either.

Staffs aren't local I believe. No issues but they were a bit lost when we asked a few things. One customer who ordered a tapau had to reiterate and repeat his orders over and over again to at least 4 staffs. When the customer finally got what he wanted, they gave him the wrong order. Hope it turned out well for him.

Restaurant was full so you need to eat fast and leave. One old man asked us whether we were done or not. ( We were waiting for my friends daughter to finish her food as the dish came first...then finally the rice.🙄). Perhaps management should not allow this to happen. I hope the Oldman realised that we came so much later than some who were still eating and chatting inside the restaurant.

As for parking, you need to buy coupons which can be obtained from the shop. Helpful but they sell by the book at RM7.00. I ditched the idea as I am a KL boy and won't be dropping by that area anytime soon. No summons..so all's well.

Drinks were okay. Chendol Penang should be renamed Chendol Subang. It was NOT Chendol Penang. Be proud of your district lah. It's nice though.

So you know, I was living next to a Chinese Muslim family for years in KL. As such, all good makan made by Mrs Ibrahim were authentic Chinese Muslim food. As such, my comments may be prejudice. Also, judging by the crowd, Subang folks seems to like it.

The bill came to RM102.00 for 3 drinks, 3 dish, 1 plate of dumplings, 4 plate of rice and 3 drinks. Good dining experience but...