You get into a fast food fried chicken or pizza joint, scour for a seat, go queue for and order your bucket of chicken and it’s served perhaps five minutes later (sans queuing time, probably another 4 minutes). Or maybe, you sauntered into a pizza place and wondered for a while what new fangled cheesy stuff they came up with this time to entice your dollar, ordered it and had chomped on it only some 10 minutes later or your “money back guarantee”. That’s exactly the time Chef Kong Fatt Chen and his cooks took to serve some stunning ala minute, ala carte dishes from their kitchens, and I’m not talking about minute vegetables or some pre-braised meat that came off a huge pot made in the morning.

What's for lunch? - The walls are plastered with vanguard sheets
on which Mr Kong's 90-item menu is hand-written.

Chef Kong has been scuttling up and down his little cheerful fluorescent lit and barely air-conditioned eatery in Petaling Jaya (PJ) since 2001. He was one of those diligent little kids then who knew he had to fend for himself as a strapping 14 year old in Perak over 30 years ago in a era when “there was not much other jobs to do”. This man is very confident and friendly who knows just what diners want when they enter his premises, “ a good meal that comes fast, with little fuss and at a reasonable price.”, is his believe. PJ is a huge, largely Chinese estate located just 20 minutes from Kuala Lumpur(KL) and accessible by their LRT trains, their people mover system. Once your palate has become jaded with the bright touristy attractions and lights of KL and Bukit Bintang area, your well intentioned friends there would very likely to scurry you off to PJ for some serious makan well loved by locals there. I have devoured the stuff Mr Kong churns out on four occasions before and each time I think about writing it, the thought gets buried in his red tilapia steamed in laksa sauce. So on this occasion, I had to fend off all the usual distractions that would make this the fifth time.

Our group of four was served, first, with his signature vegetable dish barely moments after we settled in and ordered – the Sei Tai Teen Wong (four heavenly kings), it came with chunky eggplants, fresh ladies finger, crunchy four winged beans and firm yet soft inside string beans tossed in dry kum hiong (golden fragrance) sambal, made with hints of pounded dried shrimps, and topped with crispy ikan bilis. You cannot pre-do these dishes, as they will come out sloshy, mushy and flat- a total disaster and you cannot blame us all for wolfing it down in four minutes flat.

Drool-Worthy - The tilapia steamed in laksa sauce
is a best-seller at Mr Kong's restaurant.

Then he brings out yet another soulful and simple signature of his, home made tofu with minced pork sauce. They make their own tofu by settling it in a pie shaped container and deep frying so it gets firm outside and jiggly soft inside. The meat sauce is just a bonus, especially when you scoop in into the mouth with some fluffy soft steamed rice. No guesses for how fast this one went in.(clue, it was over in six big greedy scoops by four desperate diners). But what sets the palate alight and sends a tingling sensation creating premature salivation down the sides of the mouth is his steamed red tilapia in laksa sauce (a rendition of the assam pedas sauce). It is hard to find a tilapia short of fresh in his kitchen and when it comes half submerged in a warmed steel platter with this piquant, tangy, sweet, sour and spicy sauce, the freshness of the fish is just a bonus. The whole orange coloured sauced platter is accented by fresh mint leaves, red cut chillies and flecks of petai (stink beans). Totally captivating and I can understand why Mr Kong shifts about 50 plates of this fish each day. It was indeed quite easy to wolf it down.

To calm all that sour and spice down, we can only logically think of neutralizing it with his steamed Pating (a river grass carp fish) done simply with soy, ginger, spring onions and coriander. Logical isn’t it, especially when the flesh is so soft, sweet and fresh and devoid of any muddy hints from this bottom feeding creature.

One note on “fast”, Mr Kong says that if anyone is not served the first dish in 30 minutes, that dish comes fast. So try ordering the tilapia in laksa sauce first and pray for a freebie! Yeah, like that’s gonna happen here.