Cottage Delight (Bak Kut Teh)

Our trip to Cameron Highlands has been very hit and miss this time. Our favorite restaurant in Tringkap, called Restoran Tringkap (of course) has closed and moved. In their place is a place called Old Frenz which is very popular with the local farmers for economy rice. We decided to give it a try but lets just say that it is not worth writing about here.

Our attempt to try some steamboat at the famous Organic steamboat place (made famous by the Taste with Jason TV show) was thwarted by the fact that they required a minimum of 2 pax and did not have any a-la carte dishes. What can be better than a pot of steamboat (hot pot) ? Well how about a steaming pot of bak kut teh ? It was pouring down and we were looking for a place for Jeremy to have dinner and this was the closest place that was open.

For a place that supposedly specializes in bak kut teh, we found the offering here to be not particularly outstanding. Maybe we prefer the Klang Hokkien version, which tends to be thick and with strong herbal taste. The version here is lighter, but that's not to say that it was not good. The meats had been cooked until tender and the herbal flavours were apparent. Good but not outstanding. RM9.00 per serving.

What was outstanding though was the braised pork trotters (chee keok shin). The pork trotters has been braised in a thick sauce with vinegar, dried chillies and preserved black beans (tau cheong) which was rather unusual. The beans lent an additional flavor dimension and made the gravy really tasty. It was so good that we decided to go back the next day for more of the same. RM9.00 per serving.

Now Cameron Highlands is the source of most of the vegetables we get in our local markets so you would expect the vegetables sold here to be fresh. And our expectations were met when the simple scalded green vegetables with some light soy sauce and fried garlic reached our table in a suitably fresh and crunchy form. Simple and excellent. Servings are from RM6.

The lemon tea and honey lemon tea were thick and nice.

Location : No. 4, Jalan Pasar Bandar Baru, 39100 Brinchang, Cameron Highlands, Pahang
Telephone : 012-5166848
Open from 7.00 a.m. until lunch and then reopens for dinner at about 6.00 p.m.