Joo Huat Restaurant Zhu Char/Zhu Chao @ Perak Road!
Well, it was Saturday night and a rather free night. So, KayaButter, together with Butter’s sister and her boyfriend went out for a zhu char/zhu chao dinner at Joo Huat Restaurant.
Zhu Char/Zhu Chao or Singaporeans love to call it as Zi Char. Zhu Char/Zhu Chao/Zi Char literally means cook and fry in English. Zhu Char/Zi Char is in Hokkien and Zhu Chao is in Mandarin. Zhu Char is a Chinese stall selling all kinds of home-style dishes in ala-carte style. You can order many kinds of Chinese dishes depending on the stall’s menu and available ingredients. Usually, zhu char is quite economical but it depends also on which kind of dish you order. 😛
Usually many Chinese families go for zhu char during weekends. Some of them just want to go out and have a gathering. Some of them wish to let their mum or grandma to rest for a day without cooking. Some just wish to enjoy good food at their favourite zhu char stall. 🙂 Most of zhu char stalls are without air-conditioning while some are restaurants with air-conditioning and uniformed staffs. 🙂
Without saying more, let’s see what this Joo Huat Restaurant has to offer. Kaya heard that this zhu char is operated by famous Cameron Highlands Cafe’s zhu char stall’s son. It is said that it is quite tasty, serves fast and price is quite competitive.
Sorry for the quality of my photos ya. I am using my Galaxy Note 2 to do all the photo takings. Lazy to bring my D7000 bazooka. 😛
芙蓉蛋 Stir Fried Garlic Egg RM7.00
An average dish. It seems to be prepared in a rush and has very little taste.
甘香鸡 I-dunno-what-to-call Chicken (Small) RM7.00. 😛 Really sorry.
This is the winner dish for the night. The herbs and spices used really make our appetite grows. The chicken is not too hard and nice to chew. And we literally finish up everything on this plate including its gravy.
肉桂苗 Long Beans with Minced Meat (Small) RM7.00
This is a bit disappointment because the minced meat given is so little. And the long beans is so thin. Not within our expectations. 🙁 The taste is a bit bland and not enough flavour. Butter’s mum can cook better. 😛
铁板豆腐 Sizzling Tofu with Salted Fish RM7.00
The gravy of this dish is very good to eat together with the white rice although it is a bit too salty. This is because they use salted fish. Good for those who love salty fish but not too good for the health-conscious ones. The tofu and the eggs blended very well with the gravy. Overall, not bad.
紫菜汤 Seaweed Soup with Fish Balls and Mushrooms (Small) RM7.00
The amount of fish balls given is not many. 3 fish balls given if I am not mistaken. Not too salty and loved the seaweeds. They say it is good for our hairs? 🙂
The speed of the dishes served is quite OK. We need to wait around 15 minutes++ for all our dishes to come out. The total damage is RM41 for 4 of us inclusive the 4 plates of white rice. The white rice is generously given that the girls have a hard time to finish it and in the end we the guys need to help them to finish it. Well, that’s part of a guy’s responsibility right? No wonder we get all the high blood, high cholesterol and diabetes 😛
Overall, this zhu char is not bad but still below the standard in term of tastiness compared with our old time favourite zhu char at Cameron Highlands Cafe in Batu Lanchang. Kaya always wanted to post a review on that but always didn’t make it. Kaya will try to post the review one day.
Disclaimer: The quality and the taste of each dishes differs daily depending on many factors such as the amount of orders, the chefs, the mood of the chefs and ingredients given. So, whatever Kaya and Butter feels for this zhu char might be different than yours. Do give your comments below if you feel otherwise, so that we can give a more balanced review for this zhu char. 🙂
contact information
Joo Huat Restaurant
336-I-G, Jalan Perak, 10150 George Town, Penang
GPS: 5° 39′ 84.99″ N, 100° 31′ 5.35″ E
HP No: 012-4227988
business hours
Day: Kaya didn’t manage to confirm
Time: Approximately 7:00pm (Kaya didn’t manage to confirm)