I was introduced to this restaurant by ex colleagues in my in previous business trips and I have been missing the food from this place since then. I jumped on the opportunity to bring my travel mates to this restaurant this trip to introduce them to some of the best Cantonese dishes offered here.
The restaurant gets its name from the Cantonese province Shun De which is one of the biggest Cantonese areas in China. In fact the restaurant is done up in a style that resembles a traditional Cantonese town house with green bricks and wooden roofs. The tables and chairs are also simple wooden seats with nothing fancy.
There are some very interesting appetisers in the menu and they are mainly very simple dishes as the Shun De province used to make up of some poor villages.
Like this braised radish sticks in soy sauce which is as simple as it sounds and looks. Radish is soaked in soy sauce to let them absorb the flavours of the soy sauce and these can be used as a main meal for poor families as it is full of flavours and at the same time has a good crunch texture to go with rice or porridge. Personally, I find the radish sweet and salty at the same time is a really good snack.
This next dish is really simple as well and is made of cucumber, black fungus and chilli. With simple ingredients which are widely available in farms, this dish is savoury and spicy at the same time.
This next appetiser is a dish of meat pancakes which is minced meat mixed with vegetables and deep fried till golden brown. I am not a fan of this dish as there is really nothing special about this dish.
The dish that I miss so much from this restaurant is this Chinese styled clam soup. Pretty similar to Vongole soup, there is a lot of garlic, parsley and chilli used in the soup. Unlike Vongole, there are also Chinese cabbage and cucumber to add to the sweetness to the soup. As we all know in many Chinese soup, cabbage can be used as the soup base to sweeten the soup so as this entire pot is heated over fire, the cabbage softens and adds on to the sweetness of the soup. The clams served were humongous and fleshy and there were at least 2 -3KG worth of clams. The soup itself was extremely sweet from clams and the cabbage itself added to the clear broth. The chilli provided a sharp kick as well.
This dish of home town bean curd braised in meat and soy sauce does not look very pretty or even as appetising as other dishes but boy this is really very fragrant and delicious. The tofu itself was very soft and has strong bean flavours. The meat sauce also complements the tofu very well and this is a rice stealer dish.
As the cabbage was so sweet, we decided to order another steamed baby cabbage with vermicelli noodles. This dish was lightly seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil and fried onions and steamed in the sweetness of the cabbage itself. The cabbage was extremely tender and the noodles soaked up all the sweetness of the vegetables.
For desserts, we had this red bean rolled pancake which had crispy skin with sweet red bean fillings. I quite liked this dessert as it is not overly sweet or greasy like other dessert pancakes.
Overall, Shun De Gong serves very good dishes and while all the dishes might not be plated in the best looking way, and the ingredients used are all very simple, the good taste naturally clean and delicious with the natural taste and sweetness of the ingredients. There is one more item worth mentioning which is the garlic provided, while it looks raw, this garlic is the bomb. Add this to any of the dishes and it just adds on another layer of sophisticated taste. The garlic has been treated beforehand with hot oil so it does not have that raw taste or spiciness. Instead, it has a nice sweetness and punch to it which you can add to almost all the dishes. So do ask for more plates of this garlic.
Address: lot No.D5,ground and mezzanine floor,block D,fahrenheit Fahrenheit 88, 179, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Operating hours: 11.30 am to 2.30 pm and 6 to 10.30 pm
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