Besides its namesake dish, Restoran Bubur Goreng also serves hokkien mee, crab noodles and other seafood dishes that can be ordered prior to your visit there.
What it is
To avoid confusion, first things first: ‘Teochew porridge’ and ‘Fried porridge’ sound strikingly similar in Mandarin. This particular dish came about when Mr Lin first moved from Kedah to Klang and found work as a chef a decade ago. His then-boss asked him to add a porridge dish to the menu to compete with the neighbouring Teochew porridge restaurant. In the porridge family, Teochew-style porridge is the plainest of them all – served kosong with a side of pickled veggies. In order not to become direct competitors with the neighbour restaurant, Mr Lin came up with the idea of frying porridge instead.
Preparation
To make fried porridge, dried shredded squid, dried shrimps, yam cubes (a Teochew favourite) and chives are chopped and then sautéed in a large wok until fragrant. After that, a few ladles of plain porridge are added into the mix (they use up to six tubs of freshly cooked porridge a day). The mixture is fried and tossed for extra wok hei, with an extra splash of soy sauce for colour and taste. As the finishing touch, the dish is topped with a sprinkle of golden pork cracklings and sliced yao char kuey (Chinese crullers).
Taste
If you think porridge is boring, think again. By the looks of it, this seems like a bowl of plain brown porridge with lots of extra ingredients. But upon the first mouthful, the rich flavours from the bits of sautéed squid and shrimp (sourced from Sekinchan) made all the difference. Plus, there’s crunch and texture from the pork cracklings, yam cubes and yao char kuey in the silky porridge broth. If that’s not exciting enough, Mrs Lin recommends adding a spoonful of their signature housemade green belacan chilli for some extra zing. If you are a porridge hater, this is the dish that will change your mind. It certainly changed ours.