Six One Restaurant, located at Taman Sri Langat in Kajang, occupies a corner lot in an area where parking isn’t too challenging an affair even on weekends.
As a “tai chao” place, the setup consists of the usual plastic tables and chairs in a well-ventilated interior aided only with ceiling fans. The cooking area, however, is open and semi alfresco.
The menu consists of a series of paper plastered on the wall with Chinese lettering. While this might make it hard for “bananas” to order, the server is helpful in giving out suggestions and clarifications.
The restaurant’s claim to fame is its signature claypot fish rice. It’s not unlike your typical claypot chicken rice, but with delightfully marinated and well-cooked chunks of fish on top.
Flavour-wise it isn’t as strong as claypot chicken rice, though it carries a unique taste that goes well with the accompanying fishbone soup. This soup carries umami notes and is further sweetened by red dates and cabbage – a nice combination.
The assam okra (ladies fingers) salad is another memorable dish, topped with crunchy deep-fried anchovies and further enhanced with shallots and cherry tomatoes. It’s a cold dish that just might pair perfectly with a nice beer!
There’s also pumpkin tofu and fried baby kailan – dishes you’d find at similar restaurants. Happily, the execution here meets expectations.
Then there’s this rather strangely named dish called “hua gu long”: a bit of Googling says it refers to a certain type of mythical creature that looks like a snakehead fish but with four limbs.
It turns out to be a deboned fish with the meat removed, made into a paste, reapplied into the skin, and then fried (entirely this writer’s guess). An interesting dish, it’s reminiscent of yong tau foo wrapped in fish skin.
Last but not least, there’s the “special golden dragon chicken”, another dish that probably requires skillful craftsmanship in its creation.
Yam and sweet potato are stuffed under crispy chicken skin covered with sesame seeds. It has a soft yet crunchy texture, although taste-wise it can be a bit complex and did not land particularly well for this writer.
Lunch for seven adults ended up at about RM300, or just below RM45 per person including Chinese tea.
All in all, Six One Restaurant offers a good change of pace from similar “tai chao” restaurants, and you might find yourself returning to try some of their other equally interesting dishes.
Six One Restaurant
68, Jalan Langat 1, off Jalan Reko,
Taman Sri Langat,
Kajang, 43000 Selangor
Business hours:
11am-2.30pm, 5pm-10pm (daily, closed on Tuesdays)
For location, click here.
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Trying to influence your cravings since 2005, Kar Yeong was Guest Judge on Versus 1001 Rasa Baba’s 2018, R.AGE Food Fight Judge 2015 and NTV7 Foodie Blogger 2014. To read more about Kar Yeong’s food journeys, visit his blog at KYspeaks.com.