New semester in UTAR brings about new food adventures for me. A friend from Penang recently joined UTAR and she mentioned about the claypot chicken rice that she heard was famous in Kampar. So on one random night, since all of us have not tried this before, we went to Kampar's old town for this! Its located along Jalan Idris right at the end just beside Watsons. We wanted to try once during lunch time only to be told it opens at night. When we arrived, the place was crowded with people. We can barely find a place to sit when my friend spotted a small empty table. Just enough to fit 4 person. We were first timers here so we're uncertain of what they have to offer. Ordered 4 cups of cold tea and then my friend who knows a little Cantonese went to order while the three of us who are not fluent in the language sits down and wait. Language can be a barrier when it comes to ordering here as people in this town speaks Cantonese. Back to the topic, she told the lady its for 4 person and she recommended to get a large pot and a small pot with vege. We waited for almost half an hour due to the crowd but the food was worth the wait.
The uncle managing the claypots over charcoal fire and this creates a really distinct flavour.
The front interior of the shop. As you can see, business is so good until they had to arrange extra tables and chairs outside.
The pot of chicken rice. :)
First time there so i didn't know that we could request to add chinese sausage or more commonly known as lap cheong and salted fish (ham yu).
Lettuce with oyster sauce and fried shallots. Simple yet delicious!
I can say that the claypot chicken rice is simply amazing. Everything is well cooked! I wonder how the uncle remembers which pot started cooking first. His memory must be amazing. The most important part is that all of these are cooked on charcoal fire. Everything cooked with charcoal is simply amazing. It gives a more distinct flavour. The rice isn't oily and the chicken is marinated well. The rice isn't burnt to a very extreme end and its just nice without the burnt smell. The rice bits is crunchy and it gives texture to the whole dish. The sesame oil gives fragrance to the rice. Moving on to the vegetables, I saw other tables opting for bean sprouts cooked in the same manner but we opted for lettuce. It was well seasoned with the oyster sauce and the fried shallot.
To sum up the whole thing, the food was good. Service was not as good as we expected to be but the food was good to keep us happy. There are a few more stalls which many others claimed to be nicer than this stall but i feel that at the end it is all about the personal taste and preference. As for me, i will still go back to this stall but i would also try the other stalls and will probably write another review here when i have tried all to make a comparison.
