Naga Jolokia (Ghost Chilli) Yong Tau Foo
I grew up learning how to prepare Yong Tau Foo from my mother from scratch as Yong Tau Foo is a typical Hakka cuisine that comprises mainly Chinese beancurd that has either Spanish mackerel fish paste or a mixture of ground meat as its fillings. It is then deep-fried and served with the bean paste gravy. Nowadays, you can find variations of this dish which include eggplants, beancurd sheet, chili pepper and other vegetables, so many varieties that even the younger and older folks love eating them.
Being a Hakka, I love making Yong Tau Foo for my hubby (he’s Hokkien, by the way), but it takes a lot of effort in preparing the paste and patiently filling them into any vegetables I desire. One day, while watching Ho Chak (a TV show on 8TV), the hosts were introducing a local shop located at the Jinjang New Village that sells delicious homemade Yong Tau Foo. I quickly took down the shop’s address and we headed there the following week.
It was definitely not easy to locate this shop for a first-timer as there was no clear signboard on it. But after spending some time searching for it, we finally found it. It was just a small shack next to the La Salle school, but packed with customers despite the afternoon heat.
For your information, the shop is not equipped with air-conditioners and they have only a few fans. Be prepared, as the aluminium roof can really heat this place up besides the Naga Jolokia chilli 
Naga Jolokia is also called as ‘Bih Jolokia’ or ‘Ghost Chilli’, and it is one of the world’s hottest chilli with 876,000 to 970,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). By comparison, the bird’s eye chilli aka cili padi (popular in Malaysia) only has an SHU ranging from 100,000 to 225,000. It is so spicy that it actually burns and numbs your tongue and lips the moment you chew on it. Each beancurd sheet is wrapped around two pieces of Naga Jolokia chilli, before it is being deep-fried.
This delicious-looking fried crispy beancurd sheet filled with the Naga Jolokia chilli disguised how spicy it could really be. We played safe by cutting it into 2-3 smaller pieces and ate them.
Surprisingly, we were still able to tolerate its spiciness. However, things turned out for the worse the moment we had our second piece of Naga Jolokia. Slowly, the spiciness set in and started to infiltrate each and every of the blood vessel in our oral cavity. At that moment, I could see hubby kept gulping down his cold drink and tissue papers seemed to be his most important asset. I, on the other hand, could still tolerate it by just drinking more water (those who know me well will know how spicy I can eat). But trust me, this chilli’s spiciness is really not something you should underestimate.
Besides of its Naga Jolokia, all the other homemade Yong Tau Foo is also highly recommended. You can taste the freshness of the paste in each and every bit of the crispy fried and non-fried Yong Tau Foo. For those non-fried Yong Tau Foo, it will be served in a bowl of clear hot soup with a generous amount of fresh spring onions whilst the fried Yong Tau Foo that you order will be deep-fried on-the-spot for you.
The soup is rich in its broth sweetness that will not cause you to have excessive thirst after drinking them. The generous amount of fresh aromatic spring onions, served with steamed rice is arguably the best combination ever. Besides, the owner also will generously refill the soup for you.
If you could not tolerate the spiciness from chewing the Naga Jolokia, but still wish to have some spiciness in your food, fret not as they have their in-house chilli paste, also made of Naga Jolokia. All you need to do is request for it at no extra cost.
The shop’s operating hours are from 8:30am till 4:30pm and it is closed for business every Monday as well as on the 1st and 15th day of each month in the Chinese lunar calendar (except for Saturdays and Sundays).
Every Wednesday till Friday it serves its in-house specialty dishes e.g. pork stew, assam fish head, ginger wine seafood clam aka lala and etc. Up till today, we have only tried the pork stew as the others will be too sumptuous for 2 people. The pork stew was made of three-layer pork belly which made it so juicy and tender. The gravy on the other hand, tasted like the Bak Kut Teh soup with aromatic herbs. Definitely a must-try dish, especially for pork belly lovers. I will surely try the other dishes in the future with my friends or family, after witnessing a lot of customers ordering them.
Wonderful news? No 6% GST and service charges for all the customers!
Naga Jolokia Yong Tau Foo is located at 2314B, Jalan Jinjang Indah 11, Jinjang Utara, 52000 Kuala Lumpur (coordinates: 3.214739, 101.662170). For reservations: +6016 282 8631.
NOTES:
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