I had heard about Cristang from friends on Facebook and twitter. "Cristang's pork burgers are to die for" someone said. "For sure, one of the top three places for burgers in KL" said another. I decided to go taste for myself.
I went there after a meeting at 5pm and they were opening up for dinner time. Being first on the scene gave me the opportunity to chat with Yin - part-time restaurant manager and long-time assistant to Gerald, who owns the place. I told her I came to investigate claims of Cristang having the best pork burgers in town and we started talking. Not long after, Gerald came and we sat down, talking for two whole hours.
I told him I was surprized his name was Gerald and not Cris Tang. "I get that a lot and I've had people come in here telling me they are friends of Cris Tang and wants a discount on their bill." He explained that "Cristang" is a slang that means 'people of Christian faith' and is commonly used by the Eurasian community of Portuguese descent to refer to each other. Portuguese itself is not the correct term to refer to folks like Gerald because he's not Portuguese and the food he serves isn't anything you'll find in Portugal. We'll call it Portuguese anyways, to keep it short. So, it could be that our Malaysian Portuguese food is the country's first fusion food if they win the Pie Tie and Pongteh ownership debate with the Nyonya's (Malaysia assimilated Straits Chinese?).
Gerald is full of wonderful stories. There's a story behind the restaurant's famous pork burger called P7 The Urban Legend. I asked how that name came about but first, all the burger names have a P and a number. What that means is the number of pork items in the burger. P1 means one pork item and that's the pork patty and P2 has two pork items - patty + bacon etc. The P could also mean grilled cajun prawns, petai, chilli pork con carne and pineapple. P7 however, doesn't have seven "P" items but because P1-P6 were taken. The P7 only appeared on the menu a month and a half ago but they have been serving it for over five months like a beta test. It was so good that word got around and people were often heard asking for the P7 like an urban legend.
I figured most of the items on the menu are from recipes passed down through generations of portuguese in his family but the burgers were far from the usual Portuguese fare. "Most of my dishes are accidents in the kitchen" he explains, "I love to cook and I've never been to chef school so I don't know my limits and there are no rules to tell me what I can and cannot do with food." He does have one personal rule though, after one of his dishes become famous, he won't eat it anymore in case he jinx it. I think this trait is in a lot of artists or perfectionists or both. They always think their best work is yet to come so if he tasted his dish, he might fix something that's not broken and end up breaking it instead. It's not like programming, flavor is highly subjective.
Well I had a great time today tasting the legendary P7 and having a wonderful chat with Gerald. The P7 is indeed very delicious. The petai (a strong tasting bean) did not over-power the taste of the pork which was so juicy and tender, it melts in your mouth. I'm a fan of burgers again.
Cristang is at 8 Avenue, Jalan 8/1. Tel: +603.7956.7877. They are opened for lunch and dinner, 6 days a week and closed on Mondays. Highly recommended are of course the P7 Urban Legend Pork Burger, Bacon and Eggs Soup, Bacon Rib Ambila, Tenggiri with Soy Limang and Debal Chicken.
