Porky Affairs at Cristang

On Wednesday night, I was invited by WL and Yip to Cristang at 8 Avenue PJ, their regular joint for a good porky meal. Yip has been a regular, dining in this place, almost twice weekly for a hearty meal of pork.

I love a good cheese burger – thick, succulent beef patty with pickled cucumber, tomatoes and generous dose of cheese. I guess a pork patty for a change would be great! Yip raved so much about the pork burger that I had dreams of pork burgers for a few nights, while waiting for porky Wednesday to arrive.

Before this dinner, I check online for the meaning of Cristang. I guess I was expecting some Portuguese mixed food since I didn’t get the spicy dose in Macau.

According to Wikipedia, The Kristang are a creole ethnic group of people of mixed Portuguese and Malaccan descent though many people of this group have Chinese, Indian and other ancestries due intermarriage.. Well, I had been to Malacca a number of times and tasted Devil’s curry a few times – that doesn’t make me an expert but I guess I would roughly know a little how Portuguese food would taste like!

We arrived at this cozy little shop at 8 Avenue before 8 pm. There were a few tables already being occupied. We didn’t expect a crowd but there were more tables occupied that night compared to other nights. They do pretty well for lunches though. Usually, only two tables are occupied at most. I guess that is because there is a promotion every Wednesday night. You get 20% off any of your choice of pork burgers! Malaysians are so damn kiasu! LOL!

Service was kinda slow because lack of staff. But the only waiter there is very courteous and tried his best to accommodate to our needs. Even the boss, Mr Gerald had to run around, made drinks and served the customers himself.

Bacon and mushroom lasagna

We pre-ordered a big pan of bacon and mushroom lasagna with 7 layers of different cheese. If you ask me, I probably don’t know if the cheeses are of 7 kinds. Most cheese taste the same to me. LOL! Anyway, this was quite a delight to tuck in. Ethan, Yip’s cute and not-so-little nephew enjoyed this and had a second helping. This dish is not on the menu. So, if you would like to try, perhaps, you may call to pre-order two days in advance for the cook to prepare the ingredients. This big pan of lasagna costs RM170.

Bacon bone ambila curry

Next on the table is the bacon bone ambila curry. WL prefers this to the usual pork ribs and said it was tastier. This dish is rather salty so it would be best to eat with rice. Oh, let me tell you about the rice. The moment the waiter served the rice on the table, you could get a whiff of very fragrant pandan leaves. I think one needs to have an acquired taste for ambila. I didn’t take a liking to it, but it was okay. RM37++ for two small servings.

We ordered honey chili chicken. It was slightly sweet. Of course! What am I saying? It’s cooked with honey, hello? I find it to be quite mediocre. RM15.80. We had the pie-tee too. Quite mediocre and the cup was not crispy enough – according to the food connoisseur Jane. RM6.80 for 5.

Yip’s favorite pork burger

Then the quarter pounder pork burgers finally arrived. They have a separate pork burger menu and labeled each type of burger like parking lot from P1 to P6. LOL. I ordered a P3 – grilled pork patty with back bacon, minced pork with chili con carne. They even have one with petai but.. I don’t think so!

Not that I had tried many pork burgers before, but this is quite delicious! I learned that the meat patty is handmade and not manufactured. I like the chilli con carne that came with it. It’s made of sambal with kidney beans, green beans and garlic, and other stuff that I could not decipher. It’s quite a mouthful and quite a delight to the taste buds. I guess it’s true when they said, if you want a good pork burger, you can come here. Yip can attest to it because he has been having pork burgers till all his colleagues and friends knew of his new obsession. Haha! RM14.90 onwards depending on which parking lot.. errr… I mean, which type of burger you order.

The pork belly vindaloo is quite tasty as well. How many times can we actually have pork with vindaloo? Most vindaloos are vegetarian based. This is a fairly new experience to me and it’s good to have it with the fragrant rice.

Cookies & Cream with oreos

We completed the dinner with two desserts – cookies and cream with oreos and banana-apple pie. Again, the cookies and cream with oreos is not on the menu yet and it’s still on experimental stage. It was a hit with the kids and adults alike. RM18.90. As for the banana apple pie, I think it has quite good stuffing but we were a little overwhelmed by so much food earlier on that we failed to savour it to our heart’s content. Perhaps, for my next visit, I would probably go for banana-apple pie ala mode! Again, I don’t think it’s on the menu. It needs to be pre-ordered and one pan is good for a family of 10. RM90.

All in all, slow service and the silly parking lot* aside, I guess this place warrants a second visit. I think I would like to have an entire pork burger to myself and no more sharing!

Cristang Restaurant
Section 8, Petaling Jaya, Selangor
B-G-19, 8 Avenue, Jalan Sungei Jerneh (8/1)
Petaling Jaya. (behind the Courts Mammoth, Wisma Thrifty)

You can check out direction and menu in facebook.

*Even if you park at the ground floor in front of the restaurant, you need to drive down to the basement to pay for your ticket before going out.

P.S. Sorry Yin Mand! I think I need longer time to consider being a vegetarian.

Tags: portuguese