We quite often entertain (I am serious!) our guests visiting our company, at Klang Lek Bak Kut Teh in Port Klang ... serves good BKT, with great side dishes, good service, and also the interesting variant 'Dry Bak Kut Teh'.
To paraphrase from another blog which I failed to credit ...
" Dry Bak Kut Teh is a rather recent phenomenon. The biggest difference is, obviously, the lack of the herbal soup in the claypot. The ingredient is also stripped to the basic, basically just pork and some vege (more for the color contrast than anything else,) simmering in the claypot with the sauce that looks alot like dark soya plus diced garlic and chili. "
I have reviewed my BKT meals so many times, but I think it is best described from this Wikipedia entry!
Mandarin / Pinyin: ròug chá
Cantonese: bah-kut-tê
Literal meaning: "pork-rib tea"
Bak kut teh is a Chinese soup concoction popularly served in Malaysia, Singapore and also states of neighbouring countries like Batam of Indonesia and Hat Yai of Thailand.
Generally it is cooked in a clay pot with various parts of the pig, varieties of mushroom, lettuce, and dried tofu sheets or pieces . The soup itself is a broth which consists of several herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves and garlic) boiled together with pork bones for hours. Light and dark soy sauce are also added to the soup during cooking, with varying amounts depending on the variant.
Bak Kut Teh is typically served in a steaming clay pot. Bak kut teh is best eaten with rice, and in Malaysia, it is often served with strips of fried dough called Youtiao 'Yau Cha Kuay' (Literally translates to Oil Fried Ghost!) .
Soy sauce (usually light soy sauce, but dark soy sauce is also offered sometimes) is preferred as a condiment, with which chopped chilli padi and minced garlic is taken together.
Tea of various kinds (the Tieguanyin variety is especially popular in the Klang Valley area of Malaysia) is also usually served in the belief that it dilutes or dissolves the copious amount of fat consumed in this pork-laden dish.
Klang, widely believed to be the home of bak kut teh, is famous for her many restaurants serving the best and tastiest bak kut teh in the region.
Indeed, the dish is reported to have been invented in Port Klang for port coolies there in the early 20th century, to supplement their meagre diet and as a tonic to boost their health.
There are numerous variants of bak kut teh with its cooking style closely influenced by the prevailing Chinese enclave of a certain geographical location. In Singapore, there are three types of bak kut teh...
The Hokkien, who prefer saltier food, use more soy sauce, which results in a darker soup.
The Cantonese, with a soup-drinking culture, add medicinal herbs to create a stronger flavoured soup.
The most common variant is the Teochew style, which uses more pepper in the soup.
A less fatty variation of bak kut teh made with chicken instead of pork is called chik kut teh. It also serves as a halal version of the dish.
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