Hop on over to Restoran Three Pot in Taman Million for excellent frog dishes and claypot porridge
KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 – When I was a kid, I spent many Saturday mornings at the SS2 morning market with my parents.
My mother would go off to buy whatever fresh goods we needed, while I was tasked with idly following my father to the chee cheong fun stall to get breakfast.
We usually reconvened at the pork vendor, where I watched with profound fascination as he butchered and carved through hulking, blubbery hunks of raw pork like butter.
Sometimes, the crowd of people gathered at the stall would become a little too much to handle, and so my eyes started to wander. And there it was, encased in a skeletal metal cage a slight distance away: a gaggle of brown and green blobs, wriggling and climbing all over each other. 'Live' frogs!
I’d stand there, spellbound and almost mesmerised, as the frog vendor went to work on skinning them. "Tastes just like chicken,” my dad would say. It sure didn’t seem like it to me.
After sampling many frog dishes over the years, it's now one of my favourite proteins, especially when paired with porridge.
Look for the mostly-obscured red sign.
A tip from a friend led me to Restoran Three Pot, which serves a variety of fresh frog dishes and claypot porridge. Located along Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah (formerly Jalan Ipoh), the restaurant can be found a few blocks away from the Sentul Barat MRT Station.
The inside of the shop is pretty small, but plenty of tables and chairs are set up on the curb outside at night.
It would be easily spotted from the main road if not for a huge tree that blocks out virtually the entire storefront, though the tables set up on the curb at night should help.
The menu is dead simple: your choice of proteins, which include frog, fish, pork and chicken prepared in a variety of ways, and claypot porridge, all with a variety of fillings.
We opted for a portion each of claypot kung pow frog (RM18), claypot frog with spring onion (RM18) and minced pork with century egg claypot porridge (RM10).
There was little discernible difference between the kung pow sauce and the ginger and spring onion preparation, save for the liberal use of dried chilli in the former.
Both were glossy, mostly savoury with a hint of sweetness and perfect to spoon over porridge.
The big, meaty pieces of frog tasted extraordinarily fresh, and the tender and succulent nature of the meat encourages one to suck and slurp on every inch of frog coated in sauce.
The porridge here is masterful: thick, silky-smooth and incredibly smoky.
Not to be outdone, the porridge was similarly excellent. It was thick, silky-smooth Cantonese-style porridge that had been imbued with an intense smokiness from cooking in the claypot over charcoal, the smell of which permeated the entire shop.
Best of all had to be the deep-fried frog with pepper salt (RM37). If salt and pepper calamari is Australia’s national dish, this would be the national dish of my fiefdom.
The best thing you can get here: deep-fried frog with pepper salt. What a treat!
There is something delightful about how frighteningly addictive Chinese "椒盐” or "pepper and salt” can be, just all the right ratios of savoury and tingly and crispy.
The batter is light, barely tasting of flour and the meat, once again, is uber fresh and succulent. It commands a higher price because the minimum portion size is considerably large, but it is perfect for sharing with one or two other people.
三煲田鸡粥 Three Pot
463, Jln Sultan Azlan Shah, Taman Million, 51200 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
Open daily, 12-3pm, 5-12am. Closed on Tuesdays.
Tel: 016-959 4874
Facebook: @3potfreshfrogjlnipoh
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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