Rennie’s Oxtail Soup, Jalan Gasing
Potatoes, Carrots, Oxtail!, originally uploaded by jaremfan.
Big car fans, a big portion of the Malaysian population, indulge in a relatively passive sport I call “car-gazing”. It’s kind of like shoe-gazing, but bigger and faster.
The sport involves attempting to find pleasing visual distraction to match our daydreams when we’re out on the street, whether it be about life, the weather or the curry spot on your shirt.
Most of these pleasing visual distraction are either people or cars. Now, the reason why cars tend to be a better bet is because 90% of most Malaysians already travel on the road, anyway… and the rest are in Singapore.
And the other reason why cars are so easy to notice is because there are so many gray Wiras and Wajas on the road. The moment a red BMW appears, it stands out like Hillary Clinton in Uganda… and that’s WITH the auntie driving inside.
Now on the matter of car-gazing, everyone’s an expert. You’ll find that everyone has something to say about any kind of car, be it a Proton or not. And the reason is this - there’s a type of car for every single human being on the planet. So talking about cars is EVERYBODY’s business.
The only time they stop talking is when, lo and behold, a giant Harley appears, cruises past all the indiscriminate four-wheeled objects, and rides off into the sunset of dreams - as though Time itself had stopped to take a pee and come back to find the world in a state of disarray.
And this is particularly the case because the Harley makes a poignant statement that all those car people have completely lost the plot about the cup-holders and seven-seater layouts and digital odometers and on and on and on.
This brings me to the subject of soups - on which everyone is an expert on… because they know how to tell their mushroom soup from their minestrone and their mother-in-law’s ginseng explosion.
They’ll be able to tell you that the best mushroom soup is in Pizza Uno’s, or Mama Chop and Papa Grill, or at the Equatorial Hotel, or… wait, aren’t they all sort of the same? People will continue to talk… right up to the point of an oxtail soup. In which, they stop and go… “that’s just something The Ship serves because it used to serve that since the 1950s”.
Up until some “uncle” brings them to this nondescript pub called Rennie’s on Jalan Gasing to try the oxtail soup (it’s SO nondescript that you can’t tell if it’s closed or open). The moment you step in, Time itself stops, just like in Hotel California. And you sit on the table, and order the Oxtail soup, because that’s pretty much the only thing you want to order because the menu is so short, it would fit in your shirt pocket.
And from the moment you walk in to the moment you feast your eyes on the sizzlingly boiling claypot broth - your mind gets further and further away from the mushroom soup. Plainly, mushroom soups don’t matter anymore. And neither do any other kinds of soup. Because everything you knew about soups doesn’t apply here.
Sure, I could talk about how REAL carrots and potatoes are used (not the peanut sized ones), or how succulent the oxtail meat is, or how flavourfully complex the concoction is.
But that’s beside the point.
What’s intriguing is that Rennie’s has been around since 1976, appealing to a crowd of veteran journalists, run by Trudy Klassen, wife of the founder, the late Rennie Klassen, who was also once a president of the Selangor and Federal Territory Pub Owner’s Association.
The oxtail soup is a whole new story by itself. I can’t tell you about it, because I forgot what I learnt about it the first time I’d been here - more than 10 years ago - but it’s got some secret stuff that was a home-made recipe, and that’s how it stuck.
Secret or not, that stuff works. I was there a few weeks ago, and my wife and I avoided conversation because we were so immersed in it. And you would think that for RM18, we’d order one bowl and share between the two of us. But that’s clearly not the way to enjoy this speciality. It was designed as a full meal… with a bit of garlic bread on the side. And if you get tired from eating too fast, you can take a break and gaze at old men discussing politics or run your palms through the plaid-patterned tablecloth, and then get back in again.
This thing at Rennie’s is beyond the talk of soups. It’s about that meal that’s meant to be enjoyed just-so - in all completeness, drenched in all that old-school pubbery and timelessness. Quite like a Harley, actually.
Rennie’s House of Oxtail
No. 119, Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya Selangor 46000 (near the Satellite restauraunt Ipoh chicken rice)
Tel : 03-7955-2541
Categorized as discoveries/food
wow. Firstly, the food looks good. Secondly, I LOVE your writing style.
Thanks, IcedNyior.
Aha…good write up brother. And you did really enjoyed the Oxtail stew with some garlic bread.
Well I was an ex-staff in Rennie’s House of Oxtail way back in the 90’s. I worked for almost 5 years and those was the happiest and good moments where the pub is filled with people and crowded. I have worked in the bar,kitchen and out of the bar.
Oxtail used to be around RM8.00 in 1991. Cheap ah..? Well, the pot and the ingrtedients are the same as you get it now.
The secret, the stew is rich with herbs and it goes along with a glass of stout, if you and your partner are looking for some good time on bed. That’s Rennie’s tip for his special friends and customers. There are still old regular customers such as Allan Perera, Menon, Frankie De Cruz, Indi Nadarajah, etc. Well I do pop in whenever Im in KL. You see, now I live in Taiping and got my family life going on there, perhaps I will be moving over to Lumut by next year.
Well a beer in Rennie’s make you day complete.
Rennie is a fine good businessman. A no nonsence man, jovial with some sense of humour, caring, helpful and a good drinker. But not an alcholic. Rennie shares much of his experience to me about his life and his business. Perhaps I was young at that time and too young to understand. As you know young people got their way of life. But as life goes on, whatever he said at that time which I recall was for the good.
Trudy still runs the pub and she loves the pubs very much.