Pao Xiang Bak Kut Teh @ Glenmarie, Shah Alam

Had a chance to visit Pao Xiang Bak Kut Teh when I went over to the Shah Alam office. The shop is set up in a more elegant coffeeshop kind of environment but still airconditioned-less. I've heard that this bak kut teh chain is quite popular in West Malaysia and has many outlets, including one in MidValley shopping mall.

Pao Xiang bak kut teh

interior of the shop

The outlet seemed to be popular amongst office workers. Many people were patronising this shop during lunch hour on a Friday. Drinking tea whilst enjoying bak kut teh is a given. Hence, the shop does have a tea basket with an assortment of teas for customers to choose from. However, my colleague prefers to bring his own.

tea basket

BYO tea

teapots and mini cups

The bak kut teh here is served in sizes suitable for 1 pax. Hence, if you are in a group, you can order a variety of the dishes to try. Unlike many other local bak kut tehs in Malaysia, the version served here whilst still retaining the dark herbal soup, the meats are not mixed. Meaning, if you order pork ribs, then that portion shall contain just pork ribs. In many other places, you'll get a claypot of a mixture of meats, intestines and mushrooms all in one pot. Hence, the difference in presentation.

our table of goodies

We ordered pork ribs, lean meat, pork knuckles, intestines, stomach, stir-fried vegetable and many servings of you-tiao (fried dough fritters). The dough fritters here is nice as the dough skin is thin but one minor problem. The meats are served in a bowl so tiny, it was rather difficult to dunk the dough in and to let it absorb the soup! And oh.. the request to add soup. It is rather a norm to request for additional soup but at this shop, this task seemed rather herculean! The waiter will still bring the soup but in a bowl even smaller and add like half a small bowl of soup each time to each bak kut teh serving bowl...

I found the pork ribs and pork meat here rather lean. The pork knuckles looked much more nicer! The intestines were firm and enjoyable. The soup here is tasty but the serving bowl made it rather precarious to sink the spoon into it to get the soup out! (because if press too hard, the bowl will tilt over!)

The experience at Pao Xiang is a novel way of presenting the common bak kut teh in a modernized setting. However, I still prefer the traditional way of one claypot to hold all ingredients.

The prices starts from about RM$10.90 per bowl of pork ribs.