Fortune Garden Restaurant, Kota Damansara

Currently in recovery mode, well meaning friends have been treating moi to meals which are supposedly nutritious and aids in the healing process of my poor illness- stricken physical self.

Now, if you were to ask any Chinese folks on what to eat or to avoid, be prepared to be bombarded with their two cents worth of advice, some plain outrageous, some noteworthy and some just plain common sense.

But all concurred on one thing, fish is always good for the body, brains, etc etc and etc.

So fish it is and I noticed that lately, a few outlets in the Kota Damansara vicinity offers a whole fish, steamed with the sauce of your choice for RM10.
(The ones I remember are Key Way Restaurant, ChaiLan in the food court and Fortune Garden Restaurant).

I gave a half hearted attempt at locating Lan Je, famous for its steamed fish head and when it wasn’t sighted after going pass 3 different streets, I surrendered un-regrettably since I don’t fancy fish head (gimme the whole fish please!) anyways.

The scorching hot sun pretty much made the choice for us. Fortune Garden Restaurant is air conditioned and the banner outside says FREE dessert (tong sui) for every order of a steamed fish.
Ahh.. free tong sui?? Yes yes, I’m definitely having lunch here

Once inside, I eagerly queried the waitress on the tong sui of the day only to find out that the tong sui for the day is not cooked yet.
Yup, at 2pm, they haven’t cooked the dessert of the day.
What a joke.

However, every item under the dessert section of the menu is available for order.
Sigh. Enough said.

To appease our hunger, I chose 2 dim sum from the cart while we flipped the slim menu.

Shark fin Siew Mai RM5.00

Not bad! The dumpling were plumply stuffed with jicama, prawn, pork meat and carrot. The vegetables retained its crunch and the meat was fresh.
If you look closely enough, you will spy some slivers of “shark fin” but of course, one can’t really be expecting the real thing for that price.

Pork Ribs RM4.20

These were fair enough in taste but forgettable.

We found out that dim sum items are on 10% discount when we got our bill but I’m not sure if this offer is valid for breakfast so do call ahead; contact is provided at the end of this post.

Our Ginseng Chicken Soup (RM6.00) arrived 1st and I loved it.
Way different from the anemic herbal soups sold commercially, this one packs full robust goodness of herbs and I felt rejuvenated instantly. For RM6, I’m already considering this as a weekly dose!

Other than our RM10 fish, a requisite dish of vegetable was duly ordered and I chose asparagus (my fav!) with sambal.

Stir Fry Asparagus w Belacan (Dried Shrimp Paste) RM10.00

Fried with the chopped dried shrimp added together with chili paste and sambal belacan, this was fragrant and slightly spicy with each stem young, crunchy and sweet.
Yup, no fibrous old asparagus served! So far, so good.

Our choice of preparation was ‘steamed in basic soy sauce’ (at the lowest price of RM10).
Prices are adjusted accordingly if you were to choose any other style (translating to more expensive loh) such as ginger and garlic, thai, etc.

Now, worthiness factor for RM10.
Size – Check!

Taste – check check!

Good stuff! The fish was fresh, with flaky sweet flesh, absent of muddy taste and the soy sauce used were of a comparatively good quality so overall it was a pleasant dish.

Our total bill came up to RM37.65, inclusive of 5% service charge. Undeniably a value for money “nutritious” lunch.
It certainly delivered on both the quality and quantity factor.

The menu is not extensive and they have 6-10 items for each category of vegetables, beancurd, chicken, seafood and pork dishes as well as some desserts.

Service is notably quick and efficient. One gets attended to immediately if you were to wave at any of the wait staff.

Address as below. It’s right opposite Wang’s cafe and Penang Village.
Do pardon the spelling. Must the printer’s mistake. Ahem.

No frills decor, with the typical old times Chinese restaurant set-up, complete with round tables covered with cheap cotton table cloth and those ubiquitous banquet chairs.

chinese, dim sum, PJ, tai chow