Okay....maybe not exactly in Banting, but at Bukit Jugra, which is not far from Banting. The Restaurant Bukit Jugra is a small nondescript eating place specializing in beggar's chicken. It serves really good beggar's chicken as well as other dishes cooked beggar's style. The difference between their food preparation method and that of other places is that at this eating place, the chicken is not cooked in an oven but is cooked using hot embers! Traditional stories have it that in the old days, a beggar caught a chicken, and not having any pots and pans, he wrapped it in clay and buried it together with hot embers in a hole in the ground to cook it. Hence the name "beggar's chicken".

The eating place
This eating place looks like a hut and it is not easy to to recognise it as an eating place at a glance. However, the many cars parked beside it give a clue that culinary-wise, it is "hot and happening".

Yep, this is the Restaurant Bukit Jugra. You wouldn't think this is an eating place from the road. But this is what it looked like as we approached the place

On closer inspection, one will find tables and chairs in an open shed by the side of the wooden shack.

The hot coals are produced from burning thin logs.

The hot burning coals are stacked against a brick wall and the clay encrusted packets of beggar's chicken are buried in the coals. The clay used is normal yellow clay. There is very little smoke but it certainly is hot in the hut.

The Menu
Note that this is a non-halal place. The menu choices seems wide enough to cover most of the stuff that one can cook beggar style. The popular choices appear to be chicken and pig leg. The list is as follows:

Beggar's Chicken Beggar's Duck Beggar's Pig Leg Beggar's Stomach Beggar's Mutton

Traditional fish Longetivity Soup Stomach Soup Prawns/crabs/seafood Vegetables

These are eaten with rice. Vegetables are cooked in oyster sauce but usually only a few types of vegetables are available. The price? Okay, at more than 40 ringgit per kg of chicken may not sound cheap, but this is an eating experience not to be missed. If you go in a group, the bill will probably work out ot about RM25-30 per head including seafood.

Ordering food
Food is usually ordered one day in advance. This is due to the long preparation time(about 6 hours) so it is not possible to walk into the restaurant and then order your food. One can order the dishes by phone and then come the next day to eat. The phone numbers are 03-8674577 and 03-8502515. Note that the food is served from 1 to 8 p.m.

Getting there
To reach the resturant, one has to go to Banting(Selangor) first. Banting is about 2 hours from Kuala Lumpur and 1 hour from Nilai by road. Once in Banting, look out for Maybank. From Maybank to the restaurant is another 15 minutes of travel. The road map provided by the operators of the eating place is shown below. We have not used this route, as we preferred to go via another route. Will show our route in the next update. (Suffice to say, we normally turn into the road to Sg Buaya, then take a left turn at the T-junction, go pass the deer farm and find our way from there.)

The eating place is somewhat diagonally across a Chinese temple. On top of the hill is the lighthouse, I believe. Have fun!