I headed down to Cheras over the weekend to check out June’s family’s bak kut teh place. It’s at Taman Segar, just a stone’s throw away from Cheras Leisure Mall (if you’re an Olympic grade shot-putter that is). I was particularly interested in the dry bak kut teh noodles – bit of a novelty there. 🙂
Xingang serves bak kut teh as its main fare, but being a neighborhood shop, it also has chicken rice, fish and other miscellaneous dishes. What is interesting about the bak kut teh is that they don’t use a lot of herbs to cover up the lack of pork flavors – this BKT broth really has been boiling for a long time.
Go early if you want to have the bak kut teh noodles – it is one of the highlight of the lunch. Xingang is built so it feels like you’re seating al fresco but there’s air conditioning coming from the vents on top. I noticed this provides the best balance for eating BKT (not so cold as to make your dishes cool down the minute it gets set down and not so hot to leave you reaching for multiple glasses of iced water).
Big Bone Claypot Bak Kut Teh
This is a huge shank of pork. I love how the meat falls of the bones. The broth is really good – full of BKT flavors and garlicky to boot.
The huge bone allows you to pick the meat choices that you like – lean, fatty and even tendons. Mmm…
Bak Kut Teh Intestines & Stomach
Intestines. Notice anything different? The intestines are stuffed with intestines, like what I imagine a Matryoshka doll’s innards would look like. 
You know, one of those Russian nesting dolls that goes into another bigger doll etc etc.
You can order a plethora of cuts from trotters (pig’s feet) to braised egg and it comes in a small side dish filled with the item and some BKT soup, KK style.
Xingang Special Mix Bak Kut Teh
This is where you can choose three types of meat to go into your BKT. We opted for the dry version which is absolutely fabulous. It comes cooked in a spicy claypot with the dried chillis and okra.
I found the addition of okra to be particularly delicious. The okra starts out raw and gets cooked by the claypot heat. It goes very well with the dry salty BKT pork and the hint of spiciness in this dry BKT makes it one of the best I’ve ever had.
Bak Kut Teh Noodles
This is what I came for! You can choose between the dry (RM 6) or wet (RM 5.50) version. I went with the former, which comes with a bowl of BKT soup so you won’t be left wanting. The noodles are hand tossed and served with dry BKT pieces and garnished with a healthy sprinkling of mouth watering scallions.
I had this for my main dish (although I had rice as well, which comes sprinkled with deep fried onions) and liked it a lot. I also had a bowl of tong shui but it’s something one of June’s aunts made so don’t expect to see it on the menu.
Xingang is located at Jalan Manis 7 and has one of the best BKT outside of Klang. I really liked how hearty the soup is – it’s been boiled with a lot of pork and you can taste the care that went into it. The BKT noodles is awesome too – there’s a side of cabbage to offset the spiciness of the dried BKT pork slices.
Thanks for the lunch June! I will definitely be going again. I hear there are some other attractions in the Cheras area that I should be aware of. Heh.
