SUBANG JAYA, Dec 29 — Long before I became a central feature in my parents’ lives, my mother used to work in Glenmarie. She often went to Subang Jaya for lunch, and my dad sometimes joined her. One of their regular spots was Ah Lye Curry Fish Head, a long-time favourite for plenty of office folk nearby who routinely flocked to a quiet row of shops in the SS19 neighbourhood at lunchtime.
The family-run business traces its roots to Taiping, where their first restaurant opened in 1982. They now have four locations: two in Taiping, one in Kamunting, and the only one outside of Perak – Ah Lye in Subang. While everyone knows the place as Ah Lye, their present signboard now refers to it instead as Ah Lyes, just in case you may think, the address has a typographical error.
The restaurant and menu are both old-fashioned, serving mainly old-school, comforting Chinese dishes in an austere but thankfully air-conditioned setting. The clay pot fish head curry is the main draw here, offered with an unusual twist. When ordering our small (RM40) portion of fish head curry, we were offered a choice between the usual, grouper head, or stingray.
Of course, most Malaysians will have encountered stingrays either in the form of ikan pari bakar or in asam pedas , but it is less common in fish head curry. I feel no two ways about eating these flat-bodied things – this one’s for Steve Irwin. Revenge is a dish best served bubbling in curry.
It also helps that stingray flesh is usually meaty a.
