Restaurant Wong Kee

The sio bak (or siew yoke or roast pork belly) is to die for here! Thin crispy crackling skin with juicy tender meat.
I am not a big fan of pork and when friends hear me wax lyrical on the sio bak here, they know it is a «die die must try place».
I have been here twice in 2 years and the quality remains consistent for me.
The roast chicken is nice but nothing outstanding. The char siew is slightly better as it has a honeyed taste or maybe it is molasses sweetened. Maybe if you could request for the fatty char siew (we didn’t ask so not sure if they would accommodate the request), then it would be better. Our plate of char siew is a mix of lean and fatty meat. My friends definitely prefer the fatty bits.
I had heard about the long queues from my Malaysian friends who introduced me to this place and was told to get there before 12pm. On Friday (and possibly most weekdays), it was already crowded and hard pressed to find an empty table. There would also be a line forming. The line is for «takeaways», so just go straight to a table if you are dining in. Saturday was much better though the tables were mostly filled up by 1230pm.
The staff will go around taking your order. Then you wait and wait and wait till 1230pm when the master chef will appear and start chopping the luscious roast meat.
The price is on the high side for sio bak (RM16 per strip) but it is because they give you the best part of the meat. The odds and ends are not served to customers so all get the center parts of the sio bak. This place is quite old school and you can help yourself to the soup from the gigantic pot at the side of the coffee shop.
The rice served is chicken rice so it gives an additional fragrance and taste to the meat.
I am just thankful I don’t live in KL otherwise I can see myself coming here very often.
Note:
1, It is closed on Sunday.
2. Do yourself a favor and order a strip of sio bak for each person so that there is no fighting. The portion for 1 is not very big anyway.
3. Get the MyTeksi App if you do not drive as it can be hard to flag down a cab there. Also prepare your GPS map as not all taxi drivers know this place, the GPS will help direct the taxi driver and tell the driver it is near Times Square or the old Pudu jail area.

Don’t waste your time on their chicken rice and char siew. There are way better options elsewhere. In my mind, there’s only one thing worth getting here, and it’s their siew yoke. Crispy skin that crackles easily when you bite into it, followed by this spot-​on ratio of fat to meat that melts in your mouth. Sure, there are times when it is quite a let down (meat was too chewy for e.g. last week), but Wong Kee at its best produces the perfect siew yoke that’s almost heavenly. Until I find a better place, this is where I keep coming back week after week.
Probably more of a 4.5 stars to 4 given recent disappointments, but like I said, at its best, there is no better siew yoke.
Note: Come during weekends as there is less of a crowd. It only starts serving siew yoke at 12.30pm sharp, but people start flowing in around 12pm. No need to come too early on weekends, but make sure you come before 1.30−2pm because that’s usually when it sells out.