You can’t miss the red and gold lanterns, colourful oriental knick-knacks on the walls & ceilings, the quirky posters and of course, that constellation of kois (I’m told there are 56 of them) suspended in flight on one of the walls.
Oh don’t forget the vintage bicycle mounted onto a front wall, one of its wheels forming the “O” in ONG LAI. Of course there are also a number of decorative pineapples strewn around the premise – it is their mascot, after all. Ong Lai (meaning “luck comes” in Hokkien) is the latest made-in-Malaysia fast casual restaurant to hit the dining scene with its first outlet in Sunway Pyramid.
Ong Lai is set to impress with its all-day dining menu listing more than 80 Malaysian pork-centric favourites from snacks to soups, porridge, rice and noodles .
Rosehip Julep & Lemon Sour Plum Tea
Now there’s no need to travel all the way to Melaka for pork satay. Ong Lai serves a similar version with bigger chunks of pork on the skewers @ RM10.88 for 6 skewers and their nutty satay sauce has pineapple in it too, lending it a light sourish taste.
Pork Satay
If you like innards, you’ll love the Pig Intestines Satay too – they are tender yet have that certain amount of likeable chewiness.
Pig Intestines Satay
Then there’s the rice porridge – our favourite being the one where all kinds of innards are dumped in. That’s the Pig Intestines Porridge at RM11.88/pot. If that’s too funky for you, opt for the Deep-fried Pork Intestines & Homemade Pork Balls Porridge (RM12.88) where the chopped meat still retained a good degree of tasty bounce and those crunchy intestines were really addictive. Positively comfort food, those claypots of porky porridge, I tell you.
Pig Intestines Porridge
Let me tell you my other favourite stuff here: Steamed Minced Pork with Century & Salted Eggs Rice (RM12.88), Wantan Noodles with Honey-roasted Char Siew (RM13.88) and their Roast Pork with crusty golden skin. The wantan noodles here are thin and stringy with a nice al dante bite to them, just the way I like my noodles. Diners can choose a variety of toppings for their noodles like char siew, curry pork belly, roast duck etc. Personally I think their Char Siew Wantan Noodles are the best.
Steamed Minced Pork & Century and Salted Eggs Rice
Wantan Noodles with Char Siew
3-Combo Roast Meats
Noodles with Curry Pork Belly
Ong Lai’s Prawn Mee with Pork Ribs (RM14.88) came with chunks of chopsticks-tender pork ribs, besides the usual condiments of prawns, boiled egg and pork slices. It’s a generous portion and the prawn broth was decent but admittedly not spectacular. But if you were craving for prawn noodles, then this version would suffice and satiate most cravings, I believe.
Prawn Mee with Pork Ribs
A typical Hokkien comfort dish is Braised Pork Leg (RM13.88) in dark soya sauce. Ong Lai serves this with plain white rice or even with noodles, if you so desire. The bowl piled high with cuts of glistening trotters was a welcome sight. The flavours were deep and robust, the trotters having been braised well. On days when things are a bit rough, have a plateful of steaming white rice with these – comforting for the stomach and spirit, for sure.
Braised Pork Leg
Pork Dumplings in Spicy Sauce
Desserts here include some of our local favourites like ABC with Ice Cream (RM7.88) while the Bubur Cha Cha and Barley Gingko are at RM5.88 per bowl.
ABC with Ice Cream
There are still many other items I’ll be going back for, like the double-boiled soups, pork chop and the pork ham bo lo bun.
Cheers!
So yes, believe it when they say “Ong comes to those who eat” and “Huat comes to those who stay”. The good folks at Ong Lai swear by this.
ONG LAI
Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall
OB.K9 Ground Floor
No.3 Jalan PJS 11/15
46150 Petaling Jaya
Tel: 03-5613-6678