Unless you are a Setapak native or a claypot chicken rice enthusiast – it is perhaps unlikely that you’ve heard of Wei Ji. Considering I’m neither, it is no surprise that I’ve only known of its existence now, thanks to one of you. I was ‘maybe, maybe not yet’ with this eatery until I saw a video online via a food blog that really got my tongue wagging. “Fulamak! Sedap gilerrr.” Yup, that summed up my thought.

Wei Ji operates only from 5 pm onwards, daily. So, no brunch and lunch, folks. We decided to visit during the weekend because visiting on a weekday, after 5 pm would be a pain. Unless you live in the area, it kindda is a waste having to spend half the time being stuck in the car, in the midst of the traffic congestion in the city centre.

There we were, at 8 pm on a Sunday and it was full house. Despite the heavy rain, people just kept coming. What is a little rain, right? It certainly isn’t a deterrent for these peeps.

We were not familiar with this particular area of Setapak and so, we relied solely on Waze, which guided us right to its doorstep. Wei Jie occupies a corner lot and is nestled within a row of shops.

Parking. Literally everyone parks by the roadside here. A word of caution though – The (2 way) road isn’t that big to begin with and with cars parked at both sides, the 2 way road becomes a one way street. When cars come from both direction, it becomes a bottleneck. The drivers here are kindda ‘gangsta’. I was barely at the restaurant for 45 minutes and I witness 2 confrontations, the aggressive kind. I suppose if you’re from the outside looking in, this whole thing wil merely be entertainment but if you are caught in it, I can’t imagine the stress level considering all the aggression, lol.

How to order. Pick your table and wait for an old uncle to come by your table to get your order. He has a habit of taking the orders of a few tables, all with his head, nothing written down. While he gets the claypot rice order right, the side orders are sometimes forgotten. We ordered our claypot rice with a dose of salted fish – the rice arrived, the salted fish never did. Drinks took really long. Well, these guys are really busy and the restaurant was packed to its maximum capacity. Excusable, perhaps?

Claypot Chicken Rice (Large), 17 ringgit

It was really good. Besides good flavor, the rice in a good claypot chicken rice has a crisp texture to it. While the top part is often dense, soft and chewy, the bottom should be crispy, somewhat more solid than the top … and here, it ticked all the box.

We did not know which size to go for and ordered large, just to be on the safe side. The three of us are not big rice eaters. We are one of those who usually have ‘quarter/half rice’ whenever we visit the mix rice shop. If you are like us, then prepare to be overwhelmed, lol. The Large comes with a whole lot of rice, even between the 3 of us, we managed to finish it but that took effort. We were way too stuffed by the end of it. Perhaps we were better off with a small size. That being said, we’ve observed several 2 seater table also ordering the large size and finished it with ease. So yea, if you can ‘hantam, then ‘hantam’ away.

Price wise, for the amount we got … we seriously thought it was going to cost us 25 ringgit at least. So, imagine our surprise when the bill amounted to just 17 ringgit. It was pretty cheap for a large pot of yummies.

The Large claypot dish comes with lots of flavorful, tasty rice + a generous portion of Chinese sausage + 8,9 pieces of chicken. Everything is generous. The chicken pieces are big and chunky, meaty. Some comes with bones and the others like the chicken breast are boneless. Having the sausage and chicken with the flavorful rice was da’ bomb. It was delicious. Burp!