Uncle Chong Local Delights: A Time-Tested Recipe

“Curry Noodle one bowl with extra siham Table 4!”

“Nasi Lemak Goreng two plates and two Kopi Ice Table 7”

Orders like this ring out through the length of the shop on a typical day as the staff wade their way through a sea of customers coming in to get a fix of what they’ve been craving. Even before the roller shutters go up, a few customers can be spotted outside scrolling through their phones while waiting for the staff to open shop for the day.

Uncle Chong Local Delights was established in the 70s in Foch Avenue, now known as Jalan Tun HS Lee. In those days, it was a coffee shop that housed several stalls selling all sorts of food, from fried kuey teow to noodle soup, catering to those from all walks of life in bustling downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Uncle Chong had always been a fan of Curry Noodles and would travel around Malaysia tasting the different flavours found in other states but it was a small shop run by an elderly woman on Jalan Alor that really caught a hold of his taste buds. For those who lived and worked in Kuala Lumpur during the 1970s, chances are they’d tasted, and subsequently fell in love with her Curry Noodles too. But when the old woman passed away, the recipe was sadly lost. It was only a few years later, that under peculiar happenstance, or perhaps the designations of fate, that Uncle Chong stumbled upon the lost recipe. With a couple of tweaks here and there and some improvisation of his own, a renewed version of Kuala Lumpur Curry Noodles was birthed and rose to the fore.

“You must always monitor the timing and heat required to cook the curry broth. Failing to do either one will result in an overcooked pot or too raw flavours.” It so happened that a little secret of the recipe was that it specifically used curry powder from a particular temple in Kuala Lumpur. The nuns in the temple would produce a certain quantity of curry powder daily and then pass it on to the shop, hence the unique flavours loved by many but the origins of which are known only to a few.

Today Uncle Chong Local Delights serves a variety of dishes, familiar to most Malaysians as comfort food. Apart from the Signature Curry Noodles, the local classic, Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng, tops the list of favourites among regulars. Hainanese Chicken Rice and Ipoh Kuey Teow Soup are other popular options for those without a proclivity for spicy food.

“Being a Pork Free eatery means we get customers from all races in Malaysia, having grown a steady fan base of our food. We even have long lost customers from our Sri Petaling old shop who found us on Facebook and traveled across the city with their family just to have a bowl of Curry Noodle.”

With 2 outlets currently open for business in Bukit Jalil KL and Jaya One PJ, a third one is in the works and will land in IOI City Mall as the business seeks to expand under the faithful hands of Uncle Chong’s son, Vincent.