Zi Zai Restaurant 自在饭店, Paya Terubong

Zi Zai Restaurant, Paya Terubong (19 May 2017)

Zi Zai Restaurant 自在饭店 (GPS: 5.38742, 100.27395) is a Chinese cooked-to-order restaurant in Paya Terubong, Penang. It was established in in August 2009 by Chef Tan Hock Chai, who comes from a family involved in the food business. Chef Hock Chai specialises in creating homestyle dishes.

According to Hock Chai, it was meant to sell dishes from his beloved grandmother's own secret recipes. In the beginning, business was very slow, due to the remote location of the restaurant and lack of visibility. In 2011, Hock Chai created his own style of preparing Poon Choi ("dish in a basin"). That Poon Choi sold well, and it helped boost the business, attracting more people over to try his Grandma's old way of cooking.

Address

Zi Zai Restaurant
1239-G, Ground Floor, Jalan Paya Terubong,
11060 Penang, Malaysia.
Contact: 04 826 5713 (Hock Chai) 016 421 7392
Business Hours: 6:00PM- 10.00pm (Closed On Every Tuesday)
Phone: 016 421 7392

Featured Promotion at Zi Zai Restaurant

Zi Zai Meal For 5 Promotion

This is a meal for five persons at Zi Zai Restaurant, priced at RM128.

Details

Zi Zai Restaurant's signature dishes
©Zi Zai Restaurant

Meals at Zi Zai Restaurant

My wife and I had the pleasure of dining at Zi Zai Restaurant. This is the first time I've met Chef Hock Chai, who bears a keen resemblance to Chef Gusto of Ratatouille. The dinner was organised by Mr Criz Lai of Criz Bon Appetite, and brings together our gang of food and lifestyle bloggers.

Criz is attempting to break the record at Zi Zai Restaurant for having the largest number of dishes ever ordered there. The previous record of 16 dishes was shattered that night, with an order of 21 different dishes, which left the kitchen and arrived at our table at conveyor-belt speed. No sooner had we photograph one dish that another appear, and another, and another!

All the dishes were very tasty. They are best taken with white rice, and I had to put aside any desire to diet, for I ended up finishing my rice and asking for a second helping, which I also finished!

Here's a list of all the dishes we had that night:

1. Mistake Pot 不對鍋 RM68 (S) RM 98 (B) today is large **
2. Three Flavour Black Pomfret 三味黑鯧 RM 40
3. Kang Kong 馬來風光 RM 12
4. Beansprout Salted Fish 鹹魚芽菜 RM12
5. Yaomak Chinese Cheese 腐乳油麥 RM12
6. Dark Soy Sauce Pork 黑肉 RM14
7. Steamed Pork with Salted Fish 鹹魚篜豬肉 RM14
8. Trotters in Black Vinegar 豬腳醋 RM20 (S) RM35(M)
9. Original Lala RM13 原味拉拉
10. Belachan Chicken 馬來煎雞 RM12
11. Ah Ma Fried Chicken 阿嬤煎雞 RM12
12. Sour Plum Chicken 酸梅雞 RM14
13. Chicken with Sesame Oil 麻油雞 RM14
14. Assam Prawns 阿三蝦RM40 (m) RM20 (S) RM50 (L)
15. Sambal Prawns 三拜蝦 RM26(S) RM40(M) RM50(L)
16. Clams in Hot Bean Sauce 灘 RM13
17. Signature Fish Fillet Claypot 魚肉豆腐 RM26(S) RM35(M) RM50(L)
18. Assam Curry Fish RM60
19. Super Curry Chicken 超級咖哩雞 RM20 **
20. Chung Ling Sambal Egg 碎蛋 RM6(S) RM10(L)
21. Braised Fish Fillet with Bean Sauce 豆醬魚片* RM 26(S) RM35 (M) RM50 (L)

* Signature dish at Zi Zai Restaurant
** Dishes marked like this have not been added into Zi Zai Restaurant's menu yet, so we were pre-tasting them.
Dish size is marked as small (S), medium (M) and large (L).

If I have to pick just a couple of dishes that stood out for me, they would be the Chung Ling Sambal Egg and the Sambal Prawn. I love the Assam Curry Fish too. The curry goes very well with white rice.

One of Hock Chai's newest creation is called Mistake Pot. He invented it by accident when he was refining his recipe for the Korean Hot Pot Budae jigae in 2013. Originally, Buadejigae is an army base stew. It is a type of thick Korean soup similar to Western stews. Soon after the Korean war, food was scarce in Seoul, so people made use of surplus food from the US army bases in the Uijeongbu area to create a traditional spicy soup flavoured with gochujang (red chili paste) and kimchi. Budae jigae is still popular in South Korea to this day. It often incorporates prawns, luncheon meat and lots of melted cheese. Other ingredients include chicken, baked beans, rice cake, tofu, chili peppers, garlic and seasonal vegetables.

Friends who tried the new creation felt that the taste could not challenge the authentic Korean Hot Pot. As he does not use a beef soup base, his hot pot would not taste like the real thing. So he decided make it his own way, changing some of the ingredients and preparation method. The result suits local tastebuds. Mistake Pot is available at Zi Zai Restaurant, but considering the preparation work involved, it needs to be pre-ordered.

A dish that was prepared the way Hock Chai's grandmother prepared was the Lala or saltwater clam. Called the Original Lala, it was a stir fry with bean paste and their signature sambal belachan. That sambal belachan recipe has been a sort of family heirloom.

One of the important dishes at Zi Zai Restaurant is the Braised Fish Fillet with Bean Sauce. According to Hock Chai, in recent years, diners have a change in their preference. This dish address it. It is braised fish fillet in bean paste with a hint of tamarind juice.

Hock Chai is an alumnus of Chung Ling High School. The Chung Ling Sambal Egg is based on a recipe which is favoured by alumni of Chung Ling who frequent his restaurant when they return to Penang.