I woke up today with an intense craving for claypot rice. Of course, if I had it my way, I’d definitely head to Wei Ji Claypot Chicken Rice in Setapak – Wei Ji Claypot Chicken Rice @ Setapak – Yummmm. Very nice. Burp! . In my opinion, it offers the best claypot rice by far. I however, at this point in time, couldn’t afford to travel the distance and would have preffered something nearby. As usual, I relied on whatever resources available online for suggestions and eventually came across Choong Kee Kampar Claypot Rice. It seemed to be a rather well known eatery in Damansara Jaya with some folks even going as far as saying that this is one of the best claypot rice in Petaling Jaya. Considering my time constraint, Choong Kee was perfect for me.

When I first arrived, at around 12 ish pm, it was fullhouse. So, rather than waiting around for a table to be available, I decided to walk across to Atria and do some grocery shopping. Once that was done, 40 minutes had since passed and by then Choong Kee had plenty of tables available. Yay!

PARKING : Yea. Parking is a pain here. Especially on a work day, during lunch hour – no chance. However, worry not. Located on the same row is a multi level public carpark that would only cost you 3 ringgit per entry. Park however long you want – it’s 3 ringgit. Awesome, ey? In less than 5 minutes, I was at the restaurant in no time, seated and ready to order.

Claypot Chicken Rice (Large), 22 ringgit with Chinese Sausage, 1 ringgit & Egg, 1.20 ringgit + Taugeh, 7 ringgit

Honestly, it was okaylah. It definitely is not the best I’ve tasted. Wei Ji still is my favorite. However, Choong Kee definitely is strategically located. If I had a craving and didn’t have much time to spare, this could be my temporary go-to??

The claypot rice here is not ‘all inclusive’. The only thing inclusive is the rice and chicken. Anything else are considered ‘add ons’. This includes the chinese sausage, salted fish, egg and etc. We added on an egg and chinese sausage, which rounded the whole claypot rice to 24.20 ringgit. Honestly, an egg would be good enough for the small claypot option but if you go for the large option like us, maybe order 2 eggs instead because besides making the rice a lil wetter, it was pretty much non existent. There was a lot of rice to cover and one egg simply isn’t enough if you intent to ever taste it. The chicken tasted nice but was a lil too chewy … perhaps it wasn’t cooked in long enough with the rice??

Maybe it is just me and my particular preference? There was something missing here. I don’t know what. Based on the reviews online, it seems like many peeps thought this was good and so, perhaps I am part of the minority who thinks not too highly of it. To me, something was lacking here. The flavors were a lil too mild perhaps?? I didn’t feel the ‘umphh’ here, the extra ‘kick’.

I most probably won’t be back here in the future. I rarely indulge in Claypot Rice and when I do, I would rather have a go at something really good and this wasn’t it.