Fifty Tales

I would not have visited this cafe on my own if my colleague had not brought me there for a late lunch

Located at Seapark, Fifty Tales is a modern Malaysian Chinese restaurant offering its unique take on popular local noodle dishes

The space is modern and dressed with minimalistic furnishings from the long wooden table to individual tables, complementing the overall woody and warm decor. The Chinese name of the restaurant is Wu Shi Tiao – playing on the English name of Fifty Tales, and also cleverly incorporating the word ‘strands’ representing noodles

They have 2 different menus, noodles for lunch and sharing dishes for dinner. I visited them for lunch, so I had a choice of 4 noodles and 2 rice dishes priced between RM 18 and RM 26

I had the 50-tale Nonya Laksa, which came highly recommended by my colleague. Different from other laksa, there were cucumber strips and raw onion slices, which reminded me more of assam laksa. You can have it as a vegetarian meal, which is RM 22, or add toppings of beer-braised pork belly at RM 28 and poached chicken slices at RM 26. While the broth of the noodles was coconut-based, it was surprisingly light and paired well with chewy noodles and pork belly. The added cucumber and onions added a refreshing crunch and spice to the noodles, which helps to cut some of the lemak from the coconut milk

My colleague had the Emerald Dragon, which is made up of braised preserved salted vegetables, qing long vegetables and spring onion pesto sauce on top of handmade noodles. There is a choice of toppings from beer-braised pork belly (RM26) or poached chicken slices (RM24). You can top up mala for this dish to make it spicy by adding RM 6. The pork belly was melt-in-your-mouth, and the pesto sauce gave it a nice garlic flavour from the spring onions. I think the noodles were a little dry and would be better with more sauce

Other than noodles, they also had small plates for add-ons like soy egg, pork lard, duck ham, dumplings and steamed eggplant. We did not order any of the additional items, but had their drinks as they had some unique offerings. For drinks, we had the fizzy luo han guo and kuk fah ginger soda. Commonly known as monkfruit, this fruit is usually used to make traditional Chinese herbal drink for their cooling propeties to soothe sore throats, reduce phlegm, and relieve coughs. While Kuk fah is the Cantonese name for chrysanthemum tea which is used traditionally to combat the effects of spicy or fried foods and also cool the body. Both drinks were delicious since I am someone who loves Chinese herbal drinks but first timers might not like the taste of them

Overall, I like the environment of Fifty Tales with a relaxing atmosphere and great comforting food. While the noodles I had were not mind blowing, they were simple enough with their small twist in flavours to give you a nice surprise beyond the traditional flavours you might be used to and I could see how this can be a nice lunch hangout

Address: 19, Jalan 21/11b, Sea Park, 46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening hours: 12 pm to 3.30 pm and 5.30 pm to 10 pm