Wanderlust: Mother's Day dinner at Mei Chi Xuan Restaurant, Dataran Sunway

Our Mother’s day celebration this year took us to Mei Chixuan Restaurant at Dataran Sunway.

The interior of the restaurant is simple but then again, we didn’t come for the ambience. We were there for the food and I’m happy to say that they didn’t disappoint.

We ordered 5 dishes which included Roasted Pork Trotter, Butter Prawns, Soft-shelled crab with salted egg yolk, Stir-fried Kailan, Shark lips and their house specialty, Braised tofu with needle mushrooms.

The braised tofu with needle mushrooms was the first dish to arrive. The mushrooms complemented the smooth tofu very well. We really liked this dish.

The stir-fried kailan was fresh and crunchy albeit a little bland. A more liberal sprinkling of salt would lift this dish. The pork trotter was really good. The meat separates easily from the bone with fat that literally melts in your mouth. The cucumber and mango chilli dip that came with the dish complements it very well. Very tasty!The butter prawns was a disappointment though. The prawns were big and fresh but I didn’t like the accompanying egg floss that seemed to be lacking something.I like the soft-shelled crab with salted egg yolk though. It was seriously addictive although a little oily. The best part was I didn’t have to get my hands dirty!The star of the show was the braised shark lips. We've never tried shark lips before and was recommended this dish by the restaurant. The shark lips is soft and gelatin-like and went really well with the gravy which was very much like sharks fin soup, except that it's without the fins. It was delicious and we mopped the whole dish clean. On my second visit recently with my colleagues, the restaurant recommended Eight Treasures Duck. I’m not a fan of gamey duck meat although this dish was pretty good. The duck was tender and stuffed with various ingredients such as mushrooms, roasted pork, chestnuts and a few other ingredients that I couldn’t make out. We also had the Lala in Superior soup. It’s not my favourite dish because I thought the ginger in the soup was too overpowering.
The steamed assam fish was a disappointment. The fish was a little tough, maybe due to its size and the assam gravy it came in lacked that special kick. I liked F4's version much much better.The house specialty of Prawn curry in coconut was good though. The curry was sweet and thick and went very well with steamed white rice. We also ordered the fish paste with asparagus and mushroom. The fish paste was springy, contrasting nicely with the crunchy sticks of asparagus and carrots.