FOOD QUEST: Hailam Kopitiam, Petaling Jaya

Hailam Kopitiam , PJ State

For the past few years, kopitiam or traditional coffee shops have been sprouting up in almost every corners of Malaysia. A typical kopitiam of the yester-years would normally serve the very basic roasted coffee, tea, the very popular Milo (malted chocolate drink), toast with butter or margarine and kaya and of course the lovely soft-boiled eggs which my friend Sanggat, for some reason only known to him, finds it disgusting! Some would serve a bit more extensive menu of toasted buns and chicken chops and kaya rolls. Nowadays, the new age kopitiam not only have very extensive menu ranging from toast to nasi lemak to fried noodles and chicken curry but they also provide free wi-fi for your web surfing pleasure while you sip your coffee and tuck away some comfort food.

So during one of the afternoon after some church function, my friends and I decided to hit some kopitiam just to have a simple no frills lunch. My friend Molly suggested this Kopitiam called Hailam Kopitiam. It was a place I never heard of . As far as my knowledge of kopitiam is concerned, it has always been the popular Oldtown Kopitiam and Pappa Rich. Since it is something new to me, we decided to give it a shot.

The Food

The menu is filled with the local favourites. To me, you can’t really go wrong with the so called ‘comfort food’ as any decent restaurant chef would be able to get it right. So we ordered :

Chicken Curry Mee

Hailam Chicken Chop Rice

Hailam Fried Mee

Hailam Traditional Chicken Rice

Nasi Lemak Special with Chicken

Sambal Sandwich Special

Vegetarian Rolls

For our drinks, we had :

Hailam Hazelnut White Coffee and Milk Tea

Fresh Dragon Fruit juice

Ice Blended Mango

The Verdict

We sort of shared the food and everyone had the opportunity to try everything. In general, the nasi lemak was nothing to shout about, chicken curry was nice over the chicken rice, the hailam fried mee was quite interesting and the chicken chop was ok. Err.. I have limited vocabulary to describe the actual taste of all these food but across the board, it was an acceptable standard for kopitiam. Nothing really hitz the spot except for maybe the ice blended mango juice on a hot day and the interesting fresh dragon fruit juice. What we didn’t like was the sambal sandwich and the vegetarian rolls. It was just plain boring or not tasty at all. Overall portions were decent and the prices too. I don’t usually hang out at kopitiams to make a comparison but I guest now I have to try out other kopitiam to come to a conclusion. Well, as far as i can remember, i have had Oldtown kopitiam before and I find this a wee bit better.

Ambience

The kopitiam these days usually try to create an atmosphere of nostalgia and make you reminisce about the good old days (if you are that old lah!) with their settings and décor.

The tables are nicely spaced out and not too cramped. Nice cooling environment away from the heat. There are 2 sections; outdoor and indoor (airconditioned). The front counter is filled with pictures of the crowd’s favourites.