Havenly Allie

Migration of Havenly Allie

2009-04-29T09:09:00.003+08:00

Havenly Allie had been migrated to http://alliefoodtalk.com/.

Announcement | The Launch of Allie Food Talk

2009-02-14T01:51:00.001+08:00

Dear Readers,

It's Valentine's Day! Happy Valentine's Day to all my readers. Since it's a special day, I want to make it a double happiness by launching Allie Food Talk.

Havenly Allie had migrated to wordpress and hence Allie Food Talk was born. More food review will be posted there, so stay tune.

Please remember to change the link to my blog ya :)

Cheers!

Announcement

2009-02-08T23:46:00.003+08:00

Dear Readers,

Sorry for not updating my blog recently. The reason is I'm doing some migration over to wordpress which takes up my time as wordpress is very new to me.

So, please stay tune.

Penang Restaurant | Harry B1 @ Juru, Auto City

2009-02-03T09:51:00.000+08:00

It's been a long holiday and I just back to Penang 2 days ago. I spent this holiday at my hometown where no internet access is available in my house. That's the reason why I left my blog untouched. But I guess not many people read blogs during CNY. Mm... that's a good reason for me to be lazy. No la... not lazy la... relax myself ma...

Let me bring you to Auto City for dinner this time. We went to Harry B1, a Korean Charcoal BBQ Restaurant. This restaurant is located next to Sakae Tepanyaki where I got my birthday treat from my aunt.

The entrance of the restaurant is decorated with big pieces of glass which allows you to enjoy the view outside while you are BBQueing your food.

The inside of the restaurant is arranged with wooden tables and chairs. There are individual fume extractor on top of each tables. This is to ensure you don't smell like a grilled meat when you walk out from this restaurant. :p

We were first served with Banchan; small plates of Kimchi, pickled vegetables and other side dishes. I am not a fan of Kimchi though. But there's one dish which I like. The one sitting at bottom left; it's some fish cake.

The steam egg arrived shortly after the Banchan was served. This was not in my order list, I think it's compliment. The egg was slightly over cooked but taste wise was pretty good. The egg was not as smooth as the one I had in Tsuruya.

We ordered Marinated Pork Ribs. The minimum of the order is 2 sets, the portion was quite small actually. Wish it would be a bigger portion.

Nicely BBQ meat grilled by my cousin sisters. The meat tasted slightly sweet and very fragrant. The meat was tender.

The charcoal used are kinda special. There's a hole in the centre of each hexagon shaped charcoal.

Grilled meat wrapped with fresh lettuce and make a bite sized sandwich.

Kimchi Pancake was too oily for my tastebud. The batter used are like the one in fried oyster (oh chien). It's mixed with chopped kimchi and fried. The pancake tasted averagly sour and spicy.

Deep Fried Pork was ordered by my younger cousin brother. Kids like fried food huh. The fried pork was too dry and tasteless.

A bowl of soup and BBQ sauce came together with the Deep Fried Pork set. The soup was too salty for me while the BBQ sauce did not go well with the fried pork.

Soybean Paste Stew tasted like miso soup to me but there was a hint of spicy taste in it. Enoki mushroom, potato and clams are used to cook the soup. I feel that this dish is slightly over priced as the ingrdients used are normal.

More pictures:

Map:

View here for larger map.

Festival | Happy Chinese New Year!

2009-01-23T09:07:00.000+08:00

Chinese New Year is just 2 days away. Everyone is preparing for this festival; making cookies, decorating their house, buying new clothes and etc.

End of year of Rat is not that pleasing where those who work in semiconductor related industries are badly affected by shut down, pay cut, retrenchment and vss.

Hope in the Year of Ox, economy will start to bloom again and we won't have to worry for our employment.

I will be driving back to my hometown today. Before I leave, I would like to wish all my readers a Happy & Prosperous Moo Year! Enjoy the festival and holiday with your family and friends.

If you are traveling to Penang during this CNY, char koay teow, hokkien mee, laksa and rojak are the must try local food.

Enjoy this holiday season !

Penang Hawker Food | 24 hours Wan Tan Mee

2009-01-21T23:45:00.001+08:00

24 hours 7-Eleven, 24 hours KFC, 24 hours Mc D are familiar to us but 24 hours Wan Tan Mee? When I first heard about this, it was quite hard for me to believe it.

This stall operates by a 73 years old man and his wife. His wife operates the stall from 7am - 1pm, and the old man takes over then. The only off day is Tuesday night.

He has been operating the stall for ~ 50 years. According to him, he plan to operate the stall for another 2 years.

The stall owner in action making some wan tan for us.

A plate of wan tan mee with very simple presentation, just a few slices of char siew on top. The noodle is QQ and fragrant with lard taste.

The noodle use is slightly different from Thong Kee noodle. This one is thinner and QQ while Thong Kee one has crunchy feeling.

The vegetable was serve separately with some dark soy sauce. I felt that the dark soy sauce is a bit too much, therefore the vegetable is slightly salty.

A bowl of wantan soup where the wantan cost only 10cent /pc of wantan. The soup base and the meat for the wantan are quite bland. But where to get 10 cent / pc of wan tan nowdays.

The fried wantan is very crispy. The uncle will deep fry the fried wantan again before it's served to us.

This stall is located inside the food court in Tanjung Bunga Market. At night time, this is the one and only stall operating.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map.

Penang Food | Toasted Bread @ Joo Leong Cafe

2009-01-20T00:23:00.000+08:00

Joo Leong Cafe is a famous place where many people working in FIZ area will take their breakfast here.

This coffee shop is located on the way to Penang Airport, but it's barely noticeable if you were driving along the way. But you can always spot the long stretched cars parking by the road side, all those are their customers.

This coffee shop is famous for it's toasted bread (roti bakar) and half boiled egg. While waiting for our bread and egg to be served, we grabbed a packed of economic noodle to fill our hungry stomach.

It tasted pretty normal. Nothing much to brag about.

The toasted bread with a layer of butter spread on top.
The method to eat this toasted bread is to sprinkle some sugar on top of the bread and dip it into the half boiled egg. It taste havenly... (This is strictly for those who like half boiled egg. For those who don't, I think they will feel disgusting)

This coffee shop open daily from early morning until 11++, closed on Monday.

Map for those who are not familiar.

View here for larger map.

Penang Hawker Food | Ah Leng Char Koay Teow (Re-visited)

2009-01-18T09:32:00.000+08:00

Ah Leng char koay teow (ckt) is another famous stall of ckt which is located opoosite Honolulu Cafe along Jalan Dato Keramat.

The big sized prawn and mantis prawn is the top selling point of this ckt.

As usual the stall owner is helped out by his lovely daugther.

We normally order a bowl of hokkien mee to ease our hungry stomach while waiting for our plate of ckt.

The hokkien mee taste very normal. The soup base is taste average and the chili is not too spicy.

I think we chose the wrong day to visit this stall as the number of people who were there for ckt were a lot more than usual. That was a weekend with long holiday. We observed that most of the customers were visitors.

End up we had waited for 45 mins for our ckt. That was the longest I've waited. Luckily we had the hokkien mee to ease our hunger.

When the ckt was served, to my disappointment there were only 2 big sized prawns. I used to have 3 big sized prawns during my few last visits there. Wondering why...

Anyway the taste remain good. The prawns were big and succulent.

My plate of ckt with mantis prawn instead of normal prawn. There were few big chunks of mantis prawns.

It tasted good but slightly different from the normal ckt with prawn. The mantis prawn added another type of fragrant into the ckt.

Business hour: 8.00 am - 2.00pm (Closed on Thursday)

You can order a normal type of ckt or a special one. The normal type (RM 4.50) is like the one we've ordered while the special (RM8.00) one would have big sized prawn together with mantis prawn. Additional 50 cent would be charged if you opt of duck egg instead.

It's consider rather pricey for ckt, but considering the big sized prawn we have nothing to say.

Map for those who are not familiar

View here for larger map.

Penang Food | JJ Cafe (Jerejak Jetty Cafe)

2009-01-15T23:55:00.000+08:00

JJ Cafe is located at the jetty where you can take your boat to Jerejak Island. I thought that this place serves western food, but to my astonishment it serves malay food. Malay food is not a problem for me as I like spicy food.

We ordered nasi lemak, curry mee and one finger food.

The food was served quite fast as we are the only people dining there. The presentation of the nasi lemak is normal, the rice is not in a bowl shape which I expected it should be presentated that way. To my disappointment, the rice was rather cold and lacked of coconut juice fragrant. The chili tasted more to sweet side. The chicken was something like soy sauce braised chicken which tasted very normal.

The soup of the curry mee was very thick, too thick for my liking. The yellow noodle was over cooked which left the texture to be very very soft. The cockles were over cooked. Overall, this curry mee did not suit my tastebud.

Chicken Samosa is something like curry puff except it used popiah skin instead of pastry as the outer layer. The filling was like the one inside curry puff, but lack of spiciness. One thing which I feel very weird is they served the snack with some chili sauce.

One thing that I like about this place is the magnificent view of Penang Bridge, beach and sea. It's a very great place to have a cup of coffee and a little chat with your friend or love one.

Since it's just located by the sea side, you can feel the cool breeze sweeping by your face when you are relaxing while enjoying the view.

The jetty which lead you to your boat if you wish to 'sail' to the nearby island.

Map for those who are not familiar

View here for larger map

Penang Hawker Food | Self Made Wan Tan Mee @ Thong Kee

2009-01-13T23:49:00.001+08:00

I got attracted by a board which stated 'Whole Egg Wan Tan Mee' while we are on our way to eat the Campbell Street Market Curry Mee.

Nowadays most of the noodle for wan tan mee are bought from the noodle manufacturer. It's seldom that we can get the self made noodle for wan tan mee. Therefore, weeks later I am here again to try out the self made wan tan mee.

Thong Kee wan tan mee is served in an old style coffee shop.

My bowl of whole egg wan tan mee which cost RM 2.50. The portion is quite big. There are a few slices of char siew, fried wan tan and normal cooked wan tan. The wan tan is quite big and tasty.

The wantan mee is fragrant and the lard added more fragrant to it.

The noodle itself has crunchy feeling if compare to the normal wan tan mee like the one at Chulia Street and Kafe Kheng Pin.

According to the stall owner, he owns the ingredients to make the noodle. He mix the ingredients, uses his own mixer and noodle making machine to process his self made, whole egg noodle.

It's very easy to locate this coffee shop. Look for this green Boon Wah building. Thong Kee Wan Tan Mee is just located a few shops away from this building.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map.

Invited Review | Young Heart Restaurant

2009-01-10T16:49:00.000+08:00

Chinese New Year (CNY) is just 2 weeks away. Many restaurants have already start promoting their CNY dishes which are specially created for this festival.

Young Heart Restaurant too had created some CNY special dishes and I have the opportunity to try them out thanks to CK who invited me to this dinner.

Steamed dumplings (jiao zhi) and pan fried dumplings (guo tie) are their speciality.

We were first served with 3 types vege rolls which are Egg Vege Roll, Unagi Vege Roll and Prawn Vege Roll. This vege rolls are pretty similar to the one I've tasted at Ms. Saigon. A thin layer of Vietnamese rice paper are used to wrapped the vege and ingredients used.

Being a die hard fan of unagi, I tasted the unagi vege roll. The vegetable is very fresh and somehow it overtake the unagi taste. The unagi does not have strong sweet sauce taste like what we get in Japanese restaurant.

There are 3 types of sauces to go with the vege rolls. There are Chinese Style Sauce, Siam Style Sauce and Japanese Style Sauce (clockwise from top).

Next up was Hot & Sour Soup. This soup is quite appetizing. The soup base is slightly thick, similar to shark fin soup base. Preserved vegetable, tofu and come black fungus (wood ear fungus) can be found in this soup.

Golden Scallop Dumpling is one of the dishes in the CNY menu. The dumpling skin is made of a mixture of flour and carrot. Therefore, it turned out more yellowish than usual. The dumpling filling which consists of scallop, prawn and pork taste good.

The sauce to go with the dumpling. There are shredded ginger in vinegar, fried shallots and chili.

Snake Squash with Pork - Don't get mislead by the dish name ya. There isn't any snake involve in this dish, else I'll be 10 feet away.

Snake squash is one kind of gourds. The snake squash taste sweet and it goes well with the pork. The pork is well marinated and smooth.

This is one of the dish that I like a lot during the night. Cheese & Chicken Guo Tie tasted very good. The amount of cheese is just adequate that it added fragrant to the guo tie but at the same time it won't left you feeling 'jelak' after eating it.

Fried Bean Curd - the tofu texture is soft. The tofu tasted fragrant as the tofu is blended with other ingredients such as anchovies, carrot and chinese celery.

Stir Fried Mix Vege & Mushroom. The dish is simple and plain but it's suitable for those who do not like strong taste. The sweetness of the vegetable and mushroom is the selling point of this dish. The mushroom is very fresh, juicy and sweet.

Prosperous Year in Malaysia is actually the name of the next dish which can be simplified as fried chicken. This is another dish which I like a lot too. The batter consist of lemongrass which added fragrant to the dish. This is my first time to eat fried chicken which have the lemongrass smell and it's quite special to me.

Fried Prawn & Garlic was served next. The batter is very crispy with a hint of garlicky smell which is still acceptable for me. If you were to eat the prawn on its own, it's a bit too salty. But the taste will be just right when you eat it together with a bowl of white rice.

Sponge Gourd with Pork - This dishes has a strong taste of dong gui (Angelica Sinensis or female ginseng). The pork goes well with the sponge gourd which had absorbed just the right amount of gravy. So no worry that the sponge gourd will taste plain.

This is another of my favourite dish too - Steam Cod & Bean Curd. The cod fish is very smooth and soft that it just melt right in my mouth. Simple method and simple ingredients were used to cook the fish to maintain the original taste of the cod fish.

We were served with 3 types of noodles that night. The noodles are handmade by the chef. One of it was vegetarian noodle; Black Jelly Mushroom Fried Noodle. Lots of black fungus, cabbage, carrots and mushroom in this noodle. This noodle tasted plain and sweet. Again, it's suitable for those who do not like heavy taste food.

Shredded Pork Noodle - There are lots of minced meat and spring onion to go with the noodle.

Ground Pork in Spicy Bean Sauce Noodle - The sauce tasted like 'ma po' tofu to me. This is strictly for those who can bear the spiciness as is tasted very spicy to me.

Chamomile and Chrysantenum tea was served to us. Chamomile is believe to have calming and soothing effect.

Young Heart Restaurant got its name from the plant which have a heart shape leaf. The plant is called the Sweetheart Hoya.

There are lots of bamboo & greens deco inside this restaurant. It gives me a very comfortable feeling.

A separated room which is very suitable for friends gathering.

Thanks to Ms. Ann Kee for providing a wonderful dinner to us.

Business hour: 12pm - 10pm (Closed on Monday)
Contact: 04 - 228 8084
Hp: 016 - 410 8089

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map

Recipe: Doughnuts

2009-01-08T00:36:00.001+08:00

Nowadays more and more donuts chain stores are blooming across Malaysia. Names like Big Apple Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts, J Co Donut and Missy Donut are no longer a stranger to us.

I am a fan of donuts especially Big Apple Donuts. I luv those soft and fluffy donuts. Here I would like to share the recipe that we use when we baked these donuts during one weekend. It produced soft and fluffy donuts. This is the recipe my aunt always use when she bake donuts. It never fail her.

See those soft and fluffy donuts sitting nicely on a plate... I just have the urge to have a bite into it when I'm writing this post.

Recipe

Ingredients:

500g high protein flour

50g milk powder

100g castor sugar

75g butter

3 egg yolks

2 tsps instant yeast

225ml water

Method:

1. Put ingredients in mixer and knead into smooth dough, left it to rise before proceed to step #2.

2. Flatten dough (~ 1cm) and use a doughnut cutter to cut out doughnut shape.

3. Heat oil in wok, reduce to medium heat, add doughnuts and deep fry until golden brown.

4. Remove and coat with castor sugar.

Hope you'll like this recipe.

Penang Restaurant | Tsuruya @ I Avenue

2009-01-05T23:37:00.000+08:00

I always pass by this restaurant and whenever I do, the devil and angel side of me will appear and argue whether should I dine in there. My devil side will say, 'go in... go in... jap food waiting for you...yum yum..' & my angel side will protect my wallet , 'Don't ever go in, it's going to be very damaging judging by the outlook of the restaurant'.

Finally one day, my devil side won and without realizing I'm already sitting on the tatami.

We ordered one Seafood Bento Set to share among us as normally bento set is huge. The bento set come with a bowl of salad, chawanmushi (steam egg) and fruits.

The unagi tasted good but it'd be better if there are a little more sauce. The portion of the unagi is quite big too.

I just love this dish which come together in the bento set. It's stir fried scramble egg with vegetables. It's very tasty with a hint of spiciness. It's kinda like the egg which served in the first dish of a Chinese Wedding Dinner. The one that stir fried with some shark fins. But this one tasted more fragrant.

The seafood was stir fried with garlic sauce. There are some salmon, prawns and squids. The seafood are fresh.

The egg was steam to perfection, it's so soft and smooth.

Spider Roll - It's very tasty with a generous amount of soft shell crab wrapped with Japanese rice, seaweed and lettuce. The soft shell crab is quite crispy but not oily. I am a fan of soft shell crab. :)

Salmon Roll Maki - There are some green pepper and spring onions wrapped inside the rice. The sushi is topped with fried shredded shallots. I just can't stand the taste of the green pepper, sprion onions and shallots. Therefore, this sushi don't taste good to me.

But, my bf just like it. The salmon is fresh.

Yaki Tori which is grilled chicken. It tasted slightly sweet with tender meat. I guess the sweetness comes from the teriyaki sauce.

The environment is very cosy with some yellow lighting to light up the area. But the yellow lighting spoilt my photo shooting lol...

You can choose to be sitted in a 'private room' with tatami seating which are separated with some string-like curtain.

Else you can opt for the normal dining table type of seating.

The price is not that damaging after all. Phew...

This restaurant is located at I Avenue. Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map

Penang Hawker Food | Curry Mee & Wantan Mee @ Chulia Street

2009-01-04T00:20:00.002+08:00

Penang is very famous of its hawker food. Every hawker center or coffee shop you enter, the very common food will be char koay teow, hokkien mee, curry mee, wantan mee and jawa mee. But it's very rare to have the good ones to concentrate in one hawker centre or coffee shop. So, you'll have to travel to a few coffee shop to satisfy your craving for Penang Hawker Food.

There one place where you can find a few good hawker food at night. It's located along Chulia Street. It's a very busy street at night as well as in the morning. In the morning, you can find the famous and tasty beef koay teow at the other end of the street.

You are able to locate quite a number to tourist dining at this area.

The curry mee here do not really need much introduction among Penangnites. I believe many bloggers have blogged about it too.

A small bowl of curry mee which the level of spiciness is average taste good. The amount of coconut juice is just adequate to create the fragrant for curry mee. The absence of some prawns do not affect the taste, but the added prawn as the one in Campbell Street Market does create an added point for the overall price worthiness.

Wantan mee is also worth a try. As lard is used, it added fragrant to the wantan mee. To my liking, there's no lye taste in the noodle. The wantan mee is kinda to the wet type, where there'll still be some gravy left after you finish your plate of wantan mee.

Chee Cheung Fun tasted good too. There are lots of sesame sprinkled on top. the chili is pretty spicy too which just balanced up the sweetness and the saltiness of the prawn paste used.

Char Koay Teow (ckt) - the star of Penang Hawker Food. The ckt has the 'wok hei' fragrant with slightly burnt taste. Overall it taste good.

The curry mee stall:

The fresh fruit juice stall. You can mix & match your choices of fruit and blend into juice.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map

Penang Hawker Food | Beef Koay Teow @ Chulia Street

2009-01-01T11:31:00.000+08:00

I've made a wish to the stars last night... 'please don't let me get fat so that I can eat more and share more food with my readers'.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers Happy New Year 2009!

Let's continue with food...

Finally I am able to satisfy my craving for beef koay teow after a few fruitless trip as the coffee shop was closed during my last few trips. It's very hard to get a parking here, but luckily we manage to get a parking after we circled that place for a few times.

It's very easy to locate this coffee shop as it's located opposite a fire station.

There's my bowl of beef koay teow without any garlic oil added in. The fragrant aroma of the beef koay teow was rushing into my nostril when they served the koay teow. I just wanted to skip my photo shooting and slurp the soup. argh. . . have to bear a few minutes...

The soup tasted slightly creamy but without any strong taste of beef. So it's good for those who can't stand the strong beef taste. I am one of them too. The small amount of coriander leaves added fragrant to it.

The beef balls are quite QQ, but there are only 2 of them. How I wish there are more. hehe...

There are 2 sizes of beef koay teow, a small one cost RM7 while a big one cost RM8. I think the big one will have more beef balls.

The beef served were quite tender. A dip into the chili sauce, then put it into your mouth, just yummy...

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map

Penang Food | Dim Sum @ Fun Tea Garden (Re-visited)

2008-12-30T23:16:00.003+08:00

During my trip to Hong Kong, I had tasted some delicious dim sum which the taste still linger in my mind. The most memorable one would be the taste of their siu mai. To satisfy my craving for dim sum, I paid my second visit to Fun Tea Garden as I got this RM50 cash voucher from a contest which organized by Criz.

We arrived there around 10++ am, and to my surprise most of the dim sum are sold out. The onwer of the restaurant told us that currently they are having a 50% promotion on the dim sum. The promotion starts at 7.30am. No wonder there's so little dim sum left when we arrived there. So, the early bird gets to eat the worm, huh?

We were left to very limited choices of dim sum, so we just ordered what's left.

The loh mai kai taste good. Previously I encountered some glutinous rice which were slightly uncooked. But they've improved it where the glutinous rice is very soft.

The porridge taste as good as my previous visit.

Kaya Pau and Tau Sar Pau. I like the kaya pau as it has the pandan kaya filling which is very fragrant. The filling is very generous for both pau.

Fried yam dumpling (wu kok) is too oily.

The big pau taste good with a generous filling. The meat is well marinated.

We have a short chat with the owner. According to him, they are going to launch a new promotion starting January. He's going to launch a 3 dishes and 1 soup lunch set for RM 3.50. That sound cheap. Nowadays economic rice is not that economic anymore. A plate of economic rice with 2 veges and 1 meat would cost at least RM4?

50% off for dim sum OR 3 dishes + 1 soup lunch set for RM3.50? Both of this can be obtained at Fun Tea Garden.

I'll be going back to try out their new set lunch soon.

View here for larger map

Penang Food | Sin Hai Beng Seafood @ Batu Maung

2008-12-29T10:36:00.001+08:00

"What to eat tonight?" ... This is the question that we normally post to each other during dinner time. Normally for dinner, we would have hawker food cos it's just 2 of us. Eating out everyday for lunch and dinner could be very boring.

I went to this restaurant for lunch few days ago and their Pai Kut Ong Rice gave me a good impression. Although the price is slightly higher (RM5) but the portion is really big.

Since my bf likes to eat pai kut ong, off we go to Sin Hai Ben Seafood Restaurant which is located at Batu Maung.

The dishes we ordered arrived so quickly where the serving time is comparable to Ghee Seng TomYam Seafood.

Pai Kut Ong arrived first. The slices of meat are too thin, some are quite hard but some are tender. The meat are marinated, fried then served with sweet and sour sauce. Except the hard meat, others taste good.

I think the food quality is not very consistent as the pai kut ong that I had for lunch is very good with tender meat.

Stirred fried sweet potato leaves tasted too salty but the wok hei is there. We already feedback to the person in charge. He said we should have feedback to him earlier so that he can change a new one for us.

The last dish is tofu with mix vegetables. The gravy tasted pretty good but the tofu tasted a bit cold inside. Is it done purposely or...? But anyway, I prefer mine to be hot inside.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View larger map here

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2008-12-24T09:39:00.002+08:00

Ho Ho Ho... Christmas is near! Have you bought a gift for your family and love one? ... Chocolates? Perfume? Cosmetic? Tie? Wallet? Belt? What would you buy?

But... gift is not that important afterall, right? Spend this holiday with your love ones... that's precious!

Here I would like to take this opportunity to wish my readers a wonderful Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Invited Review: Dragon-i @ Queensbay Mall

2008-12-22T23:25:00.000+08:00

I was being invited by Penang Tua Pui to a gathering cum food review at Dragon-i with the famous baker Big Boys Oven (BBO) and other bloggers. It was a great experience to dine with all of them. Thanks again to BBO for arranging the dinner!

Sid from BBO shared his blogging idea with us. It was very informative listening to him sharing on some blogging experiences and his thought.

We were first served with a few cold dishes. One of it was Chilled Chicken Marinated with 'Hua Diao' Wine. The chicken was steam to perfect timing which produce tender and smooth meat. The chicken was then chilled and served with hua diao wine. The small amount of wolf berries added some sweetness to the chicken.

Next up was Jelly Fish with Sesame Oil. This dish tasted quite mild where only sesame oil fragrant is present. The jelly fish is crunchy where you'll like to chew on it more.

The Shanghainese Smoked Fish tasted a bit hard. And the sauce is slightly too sweet to my liking.

Their signature dish Shanghainese Steamed Meat Dumpling (xiao lung bao) never disappoint me every time I visit this restaurant. A good amount of soup is conceal underneath the dumpling skin. This dumpling is to be eaten with shredded ginger in vinegar.

The Sauteed Shrimp in Sichuan Style was served in a garlicky sweet and sour sauce. I am not a big fan of prawn.

Deep Fried Crispy Duck was served with popiah skin, cucumber and spring onions. The way to eat this dish is to wrap the duck, cucumber and spring onion with a popiah skin together with some sauce. The piece of duck I ate was quite dry. I think it's because I took the breast part.

Shanghainese Braised Pork Belly with Beancurd Leaves is the one dish that I resisted to put into my mouth due to the thick layer of fats attached to the meat. The meat and the gravy taste a bit sweet. I tried a small piece of the non-fat meat, and this is why I can tell how it taste like.

This dish was to be eaten with Deep Fried Man Tau. Dipped the man tau into the braised pork belly sauce and savour the soft man tau.

Braised Mushroom with Mixed Vegetable was served to neutralise the fatty pork. The chinese cabbage is soft and coated with scallop gravy.

Next up was another signature dish of this restaurant which is la mian. Fried La Mian with Black Pepper Chicken was served. The noodle is fried to the right timing which leave the texture to be quite QQ with a strong black pepper taste.

After the main dishes, it's dessert time! We were served with 2 types of desserts. The first was Souffle Egg White Ball with Red Bean Paste and Banana. The red bean filling is over generous for me as I feel that it's too sweet although I'm a sweet tooth person.

The 2nd dessert was mango dessert. A few types of fruits (dragon fruit, watermelon, honeydew and pamelo) were served with some mango puree and sago. I love this dessert as the mango puree was sweet and cooling.

Big Boys Oven bought us some desserts made by them too. It's simply wonderful to be able to taste their macarons and california (if I remember the name correctly).

I've been drooling and wondering how the macarons would taste like when I read them blogged about making macarons. Now, I can taste it out myself. So happy!

They baked us 2 types of flavour which were hazelnut and almond. The macarons taste a bit too sweet for me, but according to Sunny that's the optimum amount of sugar to be blended in. I like the hazelnut flavour macarons as it has a strong hazelnut aroma. I am a great fan of hazelnut.

As for the California, the cake is soft and in between there are some salty butter.

Overall it's a satisfying dinner with Big Boys Oven and other bloggers.

Some random shots to share:

** The picture illustrated could be different if you were to dine at Dragon-i on the same dishes as this were designed to suit a group of 10 people dining.

Salty Tang Yuen

2008-12-21T16:28:00.008+08:00

Does the title sound weird to you? salty tang yuen?
This is how my family cook tang yuen apart from the normal tang yuen in sugar syrup.

Here I would like to share how my family will eat tang yuen on this day. We normally will cook some salty tang yuen for lunch on Dong Zhi day.

We would boil some soup with chicken, pork and dried squid. Then we will cook the tang yuen and put them into the soup with some corriander leaves and it's ready to be eaten.

Here's my bowl of salty tang yuen.

The corriander leaves added fragrant into the soup. Normally I'll add some pepper into my bowl of tang yuen to add more fragrant into it.

Again, I would like to wish all my readers Happy Dong Zhi!

Happy Dong Zhi

2008-12-20T23:17:00.006+08:00

Tomorrow, December 21st is the day where Chinese celebrate Winter Solstice (Dong Zhi).

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers Happy Dong Zhi !

This tang yuen was made by my aunt for tomorrow prayer.

Penang Hawker Food | Fried Lok Lok @ Gurney Drive

2008-12-19T14:23:00.002+08:00

Gurney Drive is one of the landmark for Penang Tourism. I remember during my visits to Penang when I was small (I am not Penang Lang), my uncle will brought us eat at Gurney Drive. We enjoy so much as we saw so many types of food for us to choose from.

Now I'm working in Penang, I like to eat at Gurney drive still. But I only eat from a few specific stalls. The stall that I like is Fried Lok Lok.

You can choose your favourite ingredients and the stall owner will deep fried it on the spot for you.

I chose some seafood tofu, fish ball, meat ball, taiwan sausages and squids. The squids taste good as the batter used to fried the squid is fragrant with some pepper taste.

Here are some shots of what is available for you to choose.

The sauce to dip your fried items in. There are satay sauce and normal chili sauce.

Normally I'd have a bowl of laksa to go with my fried items. But on my visit that day, I spotted this char koay teow (ckt) stall. It's written The Cantonment Road Famous ckt and it attracted me. The ckt taste good with the wok hei fragrant and it's not too oily. I noticed that you can order the special ckt which cost RM 9. I guess the special one is the one with added big prawns. But my favourite ckt would still be Ah Leng ckt which mantis prawns will be added for a special plate of ckt.

My bf ordered wan tan mee. It taste normal, but the dark soy sauce is slightly too much to my liking.

And not forgetting rojak as our dessert. We bought it from stall #77. I found that the rojak has too little grounded peanuts. I like mine with lots of grounded peanuts to goes with the shrimp paste. Taste wise, ok.

The drink (leng chi kang) tasted too bland.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View here for larger map

Penang Food | Bravo Italiana

2008-12-14T23:09:00.015+08:00

Apart from the birthday meal treat from my aunt at Sakae Teppanyaki, my bf treat me Italian food at Bravo Italiana which is located at I Avenue. It's just located next to the 100 Yen shop which sells Japanese stuffs such as snacks, household appliances and some fancy stuffs.

Both of us ordered set dinner. We were served with soup of the day (pumpkin soup).

This is my first time tasting pumpkin soup, so there isn't any expectation for the soup. But I wonder why there's no pumpkin taste in the soup. Instead I munched on some chunks of potato in the soup. It feels weird to me, to have potato in pumpkin soup. There's a hint of oregano leaves flavour in the soup.

It's served with garlic bread. The garlic bread is toasted just nice, not too garlicky taste as I don't like garlic.

I ordered Lamb Shank. It's braised with Italian herbs, garlic, tomato, mushroom and red wine. The outer layer of the lamb shank tasted a bit hard but beneath it's quite tender. I like the mash potato which is not too creamy in taste and there are with bits of potato in it. The serving size is quite big and I am not able to finish it.

My bf ordered Chicken Napoli. The chicken breast was fried, then baked with sliced tomato and mozzarella cheese. The chicken is very fragrant. The chicken taste good, but it would be better if chicken thigh is used. The spaghetti sauce is a bit too sourly for me, but overall it taste ok.

After main course, the dessert of the day was served. It was chocolate cake with blueberry cheese. I just luv this cake. The chocolate layer melt right in my mouth. The blueberry cheese then neutralize the sweetness of the chocolate. Describing about it make me craving for this cake again.

As it was my birthday that day, my bf ordered a piece of tiramisu for me. Thanks for the dinner and everything! He knows I was craving for it after I read the review from PenangTuaPui. The Savoiardi (I called it bread stick) which is fully absorbed with coffee and liquor just melted in my mouth. It's very fragrant with coffee aroma.

More photos to share:

The interior of the restaurant.

I found a very interesting picture in the restaurant. A picture of a chili bottles. The chili bottles are not repeated.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View larger map here...

Penang Hawker Food | Tom Yam Noodle @ Lip Sin

2008-12-13T00:45:00.001+08:00

Lip Sin is very famous with the Super Tanker Foodcourt. But I do not like to eat at Super Tanker Foodcourt, cos I just don't like the food there. Sometimes I was forced to lunch there as my colleagues wanted to go.

My bf created a nick for Super Tanker just for me. Super Tanker = Super Boring. No offence as it's just me who don't like the food there.

There one stall just by the roadside a little further away from Super Tanker (to Sunshine Lip Sin direction) selling thumbs up tomyam noodle.

See my bowl of red hot tomyam... The tomyam tasted spicy and sour. Good to have it on rainy days as it'll warm you up. I like the minced meat which served in the tomyam. It's marinated with the right flavour.

Koay teow teng is an alternate choice if you don't take spicy food. The soup is sweet but it is a bit oily. It's served with some fishball. This bowl has extra fishball added.

Map for those who are not familiar:

Click here for larger map

Penang Food | Dry Bak Kut Teh

2008-12-11T21:30:00.001+08:00

Dry Bak Kut Teh, the banner attracted me to this food court which is located opposite Tesco Extra at Sungai Dua. Dry bak kut teh (bkt) is common at KL but not in Penang.

Seong Huat foodcourt offers a wide variety of hawker food such as wantan mee, char koay teow, claypot mee, curry mee, taiwan crispy chicken and etc.

Dry bkt in a claypot. There are some ladies finger in it which is rather special because the one I ate at KL doesn't come with it. There are also some dried squid and enoki mushroom in it.

It tasted very fragrant as the stall onwer stir fried all the ingredients before put into a claypot. The whole pot of bkt is wonderfully pungent with the combination of bird chili, dried cuttlefish, thick soy sauce and dried chili.

Yam rice to eat with the bkt, which just tasted pretty normal. But who cares, the dry bkt goes well even with plain rice.

My plate of char koay teow (ckt) as I am not a fan of rice. Suprisingly, the ckt taste good. It's not too dry and quite spicy just to my liking.

Map for those who are not familiar:

View larger map here

Penang Hawker Food | Curry Mee @ Campbell Street Market

2008-12-10T11:28:00.000+08:00

There's just a 15 minutes interval between my breakfast and my lunch. Right after having hokkien mee, lor bak and wantan mee at Kafe Kheng Pin we continue our food hunting. Yea, we really do have big appetite. Haha...

This is another place recommended by a friend of mine. A curry mee stall located outside Campbell Street Market. It's a unique place to have a bowl of curry mee.

This is the small lane where the curry mee is served. There are just a few small tables spread along the lane. Most people prefer to ta pau (take away) I guess, as this is what I observed while I was sitting there having my bowl of curry mee.

My bowl of curry mee without the pig's blood as per my request. The curry mee is quite 'lemak' and the chili is not too spicy. The prawns used are very fresh and it's cooked to the perfect timing.

Map for those who are not familiar:

Penang Hawker Food | Kafe Kheng Pin

2008-12-06T10:10:00.003+08:00

I am having lor bak as my breakfast today. This is the thing that was in my mind when I stepped in Kafe Kheng Pin. Why would I have such thinking?

The varieties types of lor bak displayed at the stall caught my attention. And I observed that almost every table in the kafe had a plate of lor bak.

The batter used for the various type of lor bak is very crispy. It's not very oily. I like the squid, but high cholesterol lol.

Hokkien mee taste pretty normal to me.

The wantan mee taste pretty good, but the lye taste in the mee was pretty strong. The wantan is quite big compare to other wantan mee stall.

Map for those who are not familiar:

It's very easy to locate this kafe as it's located just opposite the big Body Glove outlet at the corner of Penang Road and Jalan Sri Bahari.

Thank you PTP!

2008-12-04T20:57:00.002+08:00

Thank you PTP! Must be wondering why I thank PTP ya.

See my Christmas banner on top... It's contribution from PTP as the benefit for their guest contributor.

The credit goes to Huat Koay who's the webmaster in PTP.

Merry Christmas my dear readers! Ho Ho Ho...

7 facts about ME

2008-12-03T21:51:00.001+08:00

Why would I want to write 7 facts or 7 random things about myself in my FOOD blog? Why the magic number is 7 but not 6 or 8 or 9?

Reason is I've been tagged by Cariso and the topic is I need to write 7 facts / 7 random things about myself.

Let's begin:

i) I am a sweet tooth person. Chocolates, ice creams, cakes and tong sui are my favourites.

ii) I am also a 'junkie' person, always like to eat junk food.

iii) I am not a 'rice' person. I don't like to eat rice.

iv) I can't stand the smell of durian. Yea, I don't eat durian. Weirdo am I?

v) I like to bake cheese cake but I am not a big fan of cheese cake. I just relish the outcome; a nicely baked cheese cake with smooth texture and satisfy seeing people enjoy eating my cake.

vi) I don't speak hokkien as I am not penangnites. But I do understand simple conversation, so don't talk bad about me using hokkien. Hahaha.

vii) I like photography and just bought myself a Nikon dslr, D60. I am learning how to take good shots. Anyone want to be my model?

Task completed. :-)

Seems like 70% of the random things about myself is about food huh.. afterall this is a food blog ma.

I assume I need to pass this tag on, so I'm gonna tag the following bloggers with the same topic:

New Kid On Blog

Nicholas

Steven Goh
Christy

Japanese Food | Sakae Teppanyaki / Sakae Izakaya @ Auto City

2008-12-01T00:08:00.007+08:00

Sakae Teppanyaki / Sakae Izakaya is located at Juru Auto City. Sakae Teppanyaki / Sakae Izakaya and Sakae Sushi are under the same company.

This is where my aunt gave me a birthday meal treat. (This is a backdated post). Arigatou gozaimasu my dear aunt!

Apart from teppanyaki dishes, tapas, desserts and drinks (sake and cocktails) are available in this restaurant.

Unagi Brown Rice is fried rice with chopped unagi and some mixed vegetables. It's very fragrant and not oily at all. A great 'wok hei' can be tasted from the fried rice.

Grilled striploin beef rolled with asparagus is one of the tapas we ordered. This dish do represent tapas which means small dishes. The beef is too dry and bland while the asparagus is over cooked.

Teppanyaki salmon which is a pretty normal dish. The salmon is fried to perfection with crispy skin and tender meat. A hint of black pepper taste added spice to the fish.

Scallop in teppanyaki style. The scallop is very fresh and sweet.

Foie Gras with Tofu. This dish is subject to availability. The foie gras just melt right in my mouth. The tofu is very soft and smooth. *Thumbs up*

Enoki Mushroom - The enoki mushroom is stir fried with minimum ingredients. Only garlic and some seasoning are used but it produces very fragrant mushroom. The mushroom itself taste very sweet but when I ate a more mouthfuls, it started to taste slightly salty.

Assorted Vegetable to balance up the diet. Vegetables are very fresh. It's stir fried to the very right timing as it's very crunchy.

Chicken Yaki Soba. The look is not that tempting ya, but it sure taste good. The soba is QQ and each pieces of soba is like coated with egg which make the soba more fragrant.

Geisha Spring Roll is spring roll stuffed with fresh oysters, vegetables and minced chicken. This dish taste so so to me as the meaty filling is too soft. I think it's due to osyter?

Grilled egplant topped with fish flakes - The eggplant is baked which retained the most original flavour of the eggplant. The fish flakes taste good. I always like fish flakes.

Random shots to share:

Our handsome chef :-)

Penang Food | Wai Kee Char Siew @ Sky Hotel, Chulia Street

2008-11-29T00:12:00.001+08:00

Qing Tian Coffee Shop at Chulia Street is a place where you can find lip-smacking char siew. This coffee shop is located below Sky Hotel which is near to a Fuji Film building.

A 'siew mei' platter which consist of char siew, roasted pork (siu yuk) and chinese sausage (cheung). The char siew taste good in a way that the meat is tender and very fragrant. Although the slices is not as thick as the one I ate at Hong Kong, but still it's good enough for one bite.

The roasted pork aka siew yuk meat is tender and juicy. The skin is very crispy.

A plate of vegetable to balance up the meaty diet.

A bowl of water cress soup to clear the body heat away. :-)

This place is always packed with people during lunch hour. The char siew sold out very fast, thus if you wanted to try this out try to reach the coffee shop at around 12pm.

Map for those who are not familiar:

Penang Food | Supper @ Ali Kopi

2008-11-27T12:04:00.001+08:00

It's 12am in the midnight and our stomach is crying for food. Since it's weekend, so we decided go out to hunt for supper. Hahaha...

Suddenly thought of this stall which was told by a friend of mine. The stall name is Ali Kopi which is located at the lane beside Sek Men Sri Pelita. Or I can say that it's opposite old celcom building for those who are familiar with Penang.

We ordered tomyam maggi goreng and roti john hong kong.

There's a fried egg on top of the maggi goreng. The egg yolk is just half cooked, just the way I like my fried egg. The maggi goreng tasted not too spicy and not too dry. There's a small chicken drumstick is hidden in the maggi.

The person who took order from us highly recommend the Roti John Hong Kong to us. So, we gave it a try.

There are 2 fried eggs on top of the bread. There's a sausage and a piece of cheese just below the egg. This will be a very full supper for us.

The bread was fried with some minced chicken. It looks burnt to me but taste wise still ok.

Although it's already passed midnight when we left this place, there are still lots of customer having supper there.

Penang Restaurant | Claypot Restaurant

2008-11-25T12:36:00.003+08:00

I read about this restaurant in Criz's blog and longing to dine there since then. This restaurant is located at Tanjung Bungah just behind Mutiara Selera Food Court.

This is the outside of the restaurant. There are setting of tables and chairs which are meant for dining, but we chose to sit inside as it's in the afternoon where the weather is hot.

The ambient of the inside gives a very comfortable feeling. I believe it's due to the yellow down light and the decor. There are some souvenirs sold by this restaurant.

Souvenirs...

Just a while after we were seated, we were served with these: 2 cups of tea OR 2 bowl of soups? It looks very much like the cup we used for chinese tea. But it's soup inside it. Isn't it too early to serve soup? The soup is cold when our food arrived. Anyway, the soup which is FOC doesn't taste good. Taste too artificially sweet to me.

We ordered Mayonnaise Chicken, Chicken Omelette and Claypot Ginger Beef.

The Mayonnaise chicken doesn't disappoint us as it taste good. Each piece of chicken is coated with mayonnaise and the meat is so tender. There are some chill powder in the mayonnaise sauce. It doesn't make the chicken taste spicy but added fragrant into it.

Next is Chicken Omelette. This dish looks very home style where fried eggs were topped with a gravy of minced chicken with onions. The gravy tasted more to sweet side.

How can I not ordered a claypot dish when I am in the Claypot Restaurant. The Claypot Ginger Beef came in a small claypot. The beef is tender and not chewy. The gravy is just mediocre. Maybe I am expecting some exotic flavour in this dish.

I opt for plain noodle to serve with all those dishes. The plain noodle as the name spelled, is plain and bland which is suitable to pair it with dished. A hint of soy sauce taste in the noodle and it is QQ. It's an alternate choice from rice. I am not a fan of rice anyway.

The address of the restaurant:
48 Jalan Sungai Kelian, Tanjung Bunga, 11200 Penang, Malaysia.

Opening Hours: 12.00noon – 3.00pm, 6.00pm – 10.30pm (Closed on Monday)

Recipe: Nyonya Layer Kuih

2008-11-24T10:23:00.000+08:00

It's baking time again!

This nyonya layer kuih is no longer a stranger in our life. In my hometown, we called this kuih '9 layer kuih'.

We found this recipe in my aunt's new cooking book and decided to give it a try after we bake the mango cheese cake.

Let me share with you the result before I share the recipe. This is how my layer kuih look like.
The colour looks a bit dull ya. But too much colouring also not good la. Haha...

Following the recipe, we only manage to produce 7 layers. Taste pretty good and it's not too sweet.

Recipe:

Batter Ingredients:

200g rice flour
100g tapioca flour
10g sago flour
300ml thick coconut milk
1/2 tsp salt

Syrup:

220g caster sugar
400ml water

Colouring:

Few drops of red colouring

Method:

1. To make syrup, cook sugar and water until sugar is well dissolved, set aside.

2. Combine the batter ingredients, add in syrup. Strain it.

3. Divide batter mixture into 2 equal portions, mix one portion with red colouring. Leave the other portion white.

4. Line a greased 8 inches round cake tin with plastic sheet.

5. Pour a layer of white batter (about 150ml each layer) into the cake tin. Steam over high heat for 4-5 minutes. Then pour a layer of red batter and steam for further 5 minutes.

6. Repeat the above procedure until finished up the remaining batter. Steam the final layer at medium heat for another 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from heat, leave to cool, cut and serve.

Malay Food | Mee Goreng Sotong

2008-11-22T17:53:00.002+08:00

Nowadays, when we are talking about mee goreng, we would always link to the one at Bangkok Lane.

But today I am going to review another mee goreng and definitely a good one. This mee goreng sotong is sold at the food court next to Fort Cornwallis at Esplanade.

Business start in the evening. The stall name is Hameed "Pata" Special Mee.

See, a very very generous amount of sotong. The noodle colour is not as red as the one at Bangkok Lane, but it's definitely more spicy than that one. The mee goreng is slighty wet but very fragrant.

The sotong taste sweet and spicy at the first few mouthful. Then it tasted spicy all the way until I finished the noodle. *Sweat*

If you are a sotong lover, you should definitely try this out.

I prefer this one than the one at Bangkok Lane. This is just my personal taste.

Penang Hawker Food | Banana Pan Cake @ New World Park

2008-11-20T20:39:00.003+08:00

Do not read this post if you are not a banana lover...

Haha... no offence ya. Anyone can read this post.

I found out this stall at New World Park selling yummy banana pan cake. This stall is located next to the stall selling famous ba chang, chai kueh, tong sui and chee cheung fan.

The stall owner is very generous with the banana and also the grounded peanuts. The banana pancake tasted sweet and fragrant compliment to the banana and also the grounded peanuts. The edge of the pancake is crispy while the center of the pancake tasted soft.

Suitable as light snack in the evening. Another alternate choice for afternoon snack will be a crispy pisang goreng which is located at the roundabout of Jalan Free School.

100 Yen

2008-11-18T20:38:00.005+08:00

100 yen... what's the first thing that come across your mind? Must be Japan ya...

There's a new shop in town - 100 yen shop at I-Avenue. It's located at the same row with Watson.

It's a new franchise shop selling Japanese stuffs such as tidbits, drinks and household accessories.

I would like to introduce a dessert sold at this shop which is snow ice. It's something like our ice kacang but the ice is much smoother. This is the container used to store the snow ice which can maintain the ice temperature.

There are 7 flavours available which are Mango, Strawberry, Lychee, Milk, Peanut, Green Tea and Coffee Snow Ice.

I ordered Mango Snow Ice. The mango flavoured ice is topped with mango chunks and mango puree. The ice is so smooth. It taste quick sweet but it's acceptable for a sweet tooth person like me.

See the texture of the ice. So smooth.

It costs RM 4.90 per bowl.

Food Review: Ms. Saigon Vietnamese Cuisine @ E-Gate

2008-11-17T23:16:00.003+08:00

I was invited by Criz to attend this food review session organized by Ms. Saigon at E-gate. It's the first time I join a food review session together with other food bloggers, so it's kinda interesting. I've never visited this restaurant before.

Back to the food review. Miss Saigon Vietnamese Cuisine is located next to Old Town Kopitiam at E-gate. Upon arrival, we were served with pandan taste water.

The Street Food Corner menu is categorized in a few categories and it's distinguish by colours in the menu. There are summer rolls, exotic side, salad, rice noodles and vietnamese sandwiches.

I will pick and review a few of the food served but not all of them due to I did not get to taste some of them.

First they served us with all types of summer rolls available in their menu which are Traditional Northern and Southern Rolls, Farmer's Egg Rolls, Fresh Vegetable Rolls, Southern fish Rolls, Classic Hor Fun Rolls (Chicken / Beef).

Farmer's Egg Rolls - vegetables wrapped in thinly fried egg. It was served with some sauce which tasted sweet and sour to me. Nothing special bout this dish though.

Traditional Northern Rolls - A very thin layer of rice paper were used to wrapped vege and sliced prawn. Taste wise - taste just like salad without any mayo.

Crisp Fried Hanoi Rolls - This one taste good where the mushroom added fragrant into this dish. Some minced meat, mushroom, egg and vegetables are wrapped in rice paper then deep fried. Although it's fried, but it's not too oily. Pardon me for the blurred picture.

Wok-fried Flower Chicken - This is a special dish where Pergularia flowers are used to stir fried with chicken breast. The Pergularia flower taste mild and sweet. But overall this dish tasted more at the salty side to my tastebud.

For beef lovers, there's a Beef version for this dish.

Ms. Saigon served a wide variety of salad from mango salad, papaya salad, Ms. Saigon Salad, glass noodle salad to jellyfish salad. Most of their salad taste more to sourly side which is appetizing.

Sour Green Mango Salad - Except mangoes, grounded peanuts, sesame, onion and prawns are used to garnished the salad. The prawn used is very fresh and not over cooked.

Jellyfish Salad - The jellyfish is very crunchy. Taste is similar to other type of salad.

Traditional Southern Chicken BUN - Laksa noodle served with chicken, mint leaves, bean sprout, lettuce and cucumber strips in clear broth which taste a bit like our laksa taste. It tasted sour but not spicy.

A beef version is available too.

Frog Curry with Garlic Spiced Baguette - The curry is too thick to my liking. According to my bf, the garlic spiced baguette is very garlicky. Suitable for those who love garlic. I am a big NO NO to garlic. But the baguette tasted slightly burnt.

Vietnamese Street Baguette (Chicken / Beef) - According to the owner, the speciality for this sandwich is the spread. There are some tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, ham and sausage in this sandwich. The spread tasted slightly weird to me. I prefer mine with thousand island spread still.

Grilled chicken T-shaped wings - I like this chicken wings. The shape looks more like a mini drumstick to me. It's nicely grilled with a hint of lemongrass fragrant in it. The meat is tender and juicy.

Traditional Vietnamese Chicken PHO - taste like a Malay version of koay teow teng to me. This dish was served with some yau char koay (which taste pretty hard), some lettuce and bean sprout. The presentation of the vegetables is very unique. You were supposed to add in some of the lettuce and bean sprout into the noddles before you eat it.

This is also available in beef version.

The prawns and lettuce used are fresh. As the ingredients use for most dishes are normal, I feel that food prices are slightly over priced.

Overall I feel that the food served were not agreeable with my tastebud. Maybe Vietnamese cuisine is not my cup of tea?

Anyway, thanks to Ms. Saigon for organizing this food review as I get to taste so many Vietnamese food at the same time.

Recipe: Mango Cheesecake

2008-11-15T13:58:00.009+08:00

My aunt is good in baking and cooking. She buys lots of cooking books and make reference from there.

One day I came across this new cookbook which teaches on how to bake cheese cakes. Lots and lots of cheese cakes recipe can be found.

I am not a big fan of cheese cake but I like to bake. So my aunt and I decided to bake this mango cheesecake.

She bought some mangoes from market and we are ready to bake a cake.

Before I share the recipe with you, let me show you my result.

Taraa... mango cheesecake by Allie and Aunt:

It's a chilled cheese cake. The cake texture is very smooth. And the biscuit at the bottom layer is very fragrant. Taste not too sweet. Good comments from my colleagues who gets to eat this cake.

Recipe:

BASE:
150g digestive biscuit (crushed)
100g melted butter
50g toasted cashewnuts (chopped)

CREAM CHEESE MIXTURE:
A:
500g cream cheese
60g caster sugar
3 tbsp fresh mango puree
1 tbsp lemon juice
250g mango flesh (diced)

B:
200g non dairy whipping cream (whipped)
1 1/2 tbsp gelatine powder, mixed with 4 tbsp water and double-boiled until dissolved

TOP LAYER:
1 tsp gelatine powder, mix with 100ml water, double-boiled until dissolved
2 tbsp fresh mango puree

METHOD:
1. Base: Combine all the ingredients and press into a 9" round spring form baking tin. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes or until the base is firmed.

2. Cream cheese mixture: Use a K-beater to beat cream cheese, caster sugar, mango puree until smooth. Add in mango flesh and stir well.

3. Mix in whipped fresh cream in 3 or 4 batches. Lastly add in gelatine mixture and stir well. Pour mixture onto the prepared base.

4. Chill in the fridge for 3 hours.

5. Top layer: Mix mango puree with dissolved gelatine. Pour onto the set cheesecake and return to the fridge to chill overnight. Cut into pieces and serve.

Tips to cut cheesecake: Soak your knife in hot water, wipe the knife dry and cut the cheesecake. You'll get a nicely cut cheesecake.

Penang Food | Fried Fish Fillet Bihun

2008-11-14T09:18:00.004+08:00

It was my colleague who introduced this place to me. One of our Singapore counterpart came and this is the place we brought him for breakfast. My Singapore colleague had visited this stall a few times during his previous trips.

Aiyo... I'm so paiseh lo... I've stayed in Penang for ~5 years and yet I do not know about this stall. You should really know this stall as they serve the best fried fish fillet bihun I've ever tasted.

The mandarin character spelled that they sell fish stomach bihun. After we confronted the stall owner, this was they old stall name. Last time they used to use fish stomach but as times goes by, they change to fish fillet. As there are lots of bones in fish stomach and many people don't like it.

It's very easy to locate this stall. It's located opposite Red Rock Hotel, in the restaurant where at night the very famous Lye Lye Bah Kut Teh operates.

This is a bowl of bihun soup with mix ingredients. They are an egg, pig liver, fu chuk, minced pork and fish ball. You can opt for koay teow or maggi mee to replace the bihun.

The fish fillet is served separately. One bite into the fish fillet, you'll be mesmerized by the crispiness of the batter of the fish. It's so crispy that you do not want to stop munching on it. The fish meat is tender and without any fishy or muddy smell.

I luv to dip the fish into the soup for a while before I bite on it. It'll add some juicy feeling in the fish and yet the crispiness is maintain. Talking about it already make me drool.

They use siakap fish. All have been deboned.

See the fish fillet. Lots of them. They are cut into thick pieces.

More pictures to make you drool. Hehe...

I like mine with just minced meat and fried fish fillet. It's a MUST visit place if you like fish. :-)

Penang Food | Frog Porridge @ Sin Geylang

2008-11-12T17:39:00.011+08:00

Sin Geylang... Am I bringing you to Singapore to eat the Singapore Geylang famous frog porridge? No... Don't misunderstood me. This Sin Geylang is located at Penang Island which also serve tasty frog porridge.

Don't expect to have the frog cook with the porridge. The frog and porridge are serve separately.

The porridge is so smooth and it's garnished with some spring onion and sesame oil. The sesame oil add some fragrant into the porridge.

See the texture of the porridge. So smooth. Just the way I like my porridge. I don't fancy teo chew porridge. :-p

Kung Po frog in claypot. The frog is cooked in thick gravy with some dried pepper, ginger and spring onion. I like to mix the gravy into my plain porridge, then you'll feel the umph in your porridge. The frog meat is QQ and smooth.

Next is steamed frog with some shredded ginger, chopped garlic, bird chili and kei chi. This dish do not have heavy taste like the kung po, instead it maintain the meat taste with a hint taste of soy sauce, herbs and chili.

It's good to have a hot bowl of porridge in rainy days. It gives you the warmth you need.

This restaurant is located opposite Red Rock Hotel and near to the famous Lye Lye Bah Kut Teh.

Operation hours: 12 pm - 3pm, 6pm - 10pm (Closed on Wednesday)

An avatar for Allie

2008-11-12T09:43:00.004+08:00

Yeah! I got myself an avatar. It's compliment from PenangTuiPui as I'm their guest contributor. Click here to see which post was chosen to be the first post to be published at their blog.

Penang Hawker Food | Armenian Street Koay Teow Teng

2008-11-11T21:03:00.002+08:00

I've heard bout this Armenian Street Koay Teow Teng (ktt) before I started blogging. It's like half a year ago... But didn't get to try it until now.

The ktt come with 4 pcs of fish ball, thinly slice duck meat and pork. The fish ball taste good. It's hand made by the stall owner. The soup base is cooked with chickens, therefore it tasted sweet.

We've ordered another bowl of fishball as I just love fishballs. There are total of 9 pcs of fishballs.

This stall is run by 2 elderly ladies.

Penang Hawker Food | Hokkien Mee near Xia Bui Market

2008-11-10T20:43:00.001+08:00

Someone told me that this hokkien mee stall is good but I forgot who is he. I've wanted to try this stall a few times but everytime I went there, it was closed. So bad luck :-p

Let me describe to you the direction to this stall before I review on the food.

If you are coming from Jelutong Express, turn left when you reach first traffic light, go straight and turn right at the first traffic light. This stall is located at your right hand side.

This stall operates from 7am - 5pm.

You can choose to add in some extra ingredients into your hokkien mee. We've added fish balls and meat balls into our hokkien mee.

First sip into the soup, taste sweet but not spicy. Then I realised that the chili is provided separately in a bottle. This is different from the usual hokkien mee where they usually put the chili in a spoon which come together with the hokkien mee.

Even though I've added in the chili, it don't taste spicy. The soup base taste sweet but not from the prawn. Seems like it's from seasoning. Overall the hokkien mee taste very normal. The only thing that taste good is the fish ball which is very QQ.

The chili bottle.

Birth of Di Moment

2008-11-09T22:31:00.001+08:00

Recently I've discovered that my passion for photography is growing.

After I'm back from my HK trip, saw some pictures taken by my friend's DSLR Nikon D80, I got attracted to dslr.

So, I got myself a Nikon D60 and start playing around with it. Now it's been almost 2 months I've onwed it.

I've started a photography blog to share some pictures taken by me. Comments are most welcome.

Please pay a visit to my photography blog (Di Moment) @ http://dimoment.blogspot.com/

Penang Food | Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks @ Qbay

2008-11-08T15:19:00.001+08:00

Shihlin had been here for quite sometime and I've yet to try out their food. Although many floggers have post a review on this, but I would like to write out my thinking too. :-)

This shop is renowned for its XXL crispy chicken and also oyster mee sua. So, I've ordered both. The XXL crispy chicken set come with a soya bean drink or mineral water. I choose soya bean drink. It's the V-soy brand soya bean drink which you can easily get it at any supermarket.

XXL crispy chicken set. It come with rice and tofu topped with bits of century egg. The chicken is tasty with tender meat and some chili powder on top of the chicken. The tofu is served cold topped with some oyster sauce and century egg. The rice is topped with some oyster sauce too which make it too salty to my tastebud.

The presentation of the oyster mee sua is very nice. The ingredients are separated and put nicely on top of the mee sua. They are shredded chicken, some vege (dunno what's the name - someone help? ), chili and oyster. The oyster tasted slightly oyster-ish... hehe... dunno what word shall I use for that smell. So, I feel that the oyster is not fresh enough. Overall the mee sua taste good except the oyster part. The mee sua tasted slightly spicy and sour.

We plan to try out the crispy floss egg crepe but we were too full after the 2 meals.

Comment posting error

2008-11-07T21:58:00.003+08:00

Since my post of sambal koay teow, I received no comment. I was thinking, maybe my post is not attractive enough? Or maybe I've lost all my readers?

So, I checked my statistic. Hmm... I did have visitors... but why no comment? Must be my post not interesting enough huh...

Ok, let me post another review. Hmm... no comment still.

Few hours later I received a few messages in my chatter box from Little Inbox and Cariso saying that they are not able to post comment in my blog.

So, I checked my comment settings.
1. Comments = Show (Ok)
2. Who can comment - Anyone (Ok)

Hmm... like this should be no problem right. So, I asked help from Huat Koay (PenangTuaPui).
Then I realised that few days ago, I did change a setting which is Comment Form Placement. I changed from Full page to Embedded below post. I thought Embedded below post mean the comment will appear at the end of my post. Yalor... I keh gao gao lo...

According to Huat Koay, if I want to change the setting to Embedded below post, I need to change some of the code. Hehe... I know nothing about the html code... So, next time I better don't pandai pandai go change this and that. :-p

Anyway, now anyone can post a comment in my blog d. It's back to normal. Hooray!

Penang Hawker Food | Sambal Koay Teow

2008-11-05T17:47:00.002+08:00

During weekend, it'll always be late lunch for me ... or shall I just replace it tea time? Normally I'll take my brunch around 11am... so my stomach will be filled till evening.

It's always hard to find food in the evening because most are closed or are yet to open ... or just my problem in food finding?

From Bayan Lepas, we drove to pulau tikus, then finally to tanjung tokong directions. Then we suddenly thought of this hawker stalls along Mt. Erskine which is recommended by a friend.

It's a long stretch of stalls opposite the very famous Mt. Erskine Western Food stall. A wide varities of hawker foods can be eaten here. But this Sambal Koay Teow attracted me most.

When the koay teow was served, I was like 'oh, so it's just a normal dry koay teow with sambal serve separately'. Feeling = disappointed at that moment. A bowl of fishball and meatball was served together.

First mouthful brings more disappointment as it taste so so only. Then my bf suggested maybe we should eat it together with the sambal. Since the sambal provided is quite little, we decided to add all into the koay teow.

First mouthful after we mix in the sambal, a sense of excitment as the sambal taste so spicy and it really added flavour into the dry koay teow. Yummy. Second mouthful ... third mouthful... no complain... disappointment gone... Haha... But it's too spicy after we add in all sambal. Maybe we should add in bit by bit until it taste just right.

Just one dried koay teow is not enough for us la... hehe... So we order hokkien mee. The hokkien mee doesn't taste good to me. The soup and the chili are not able to give me any omph...

Our mouth still feel itchy for food after the hokkien mee. So, we ordered char koay teow. The portion is very small. Taste wise, so so.

This place offer a wide varities of drinks. Everything looks so yummy to me, but too bad my stomach is filled with 3 plates of noodles and 1 cup of coconut drink. Haha.. big eater :-p

This is ice kacang is ordered by my friend. It looks good with lots of ingredients, but I didn't taste it.
Will definitely back here for the sambal koay teow and to try out their ice kacang.

Penang Food | 25 cents satay

2008-11-03T15:38:00.005+08:00

Where can you find a 25cents satay nowadays? Let me bring you to one good place for satay :-)

It's at Balik Pulau. This stall was previously located at the back of balik pulau pasar beside an old cinema. But they have shifted to this new bulding near the balik pulau bus station.

The stall name is Hussain Sate. They serve chicken and beef satay. The stall open from 4pm to 9pm, closed on Sunday.

The way you enjoy your satay here is you do not need to order how many sticks you want, instead just order the type you want. Then the owner will serve you with a handful of satay and will keep on adding for you until you say stop.

At their old location, they used to add the satay for you once they saw the satay on your table is running low. But now at the new location, they grill the satay at the back of their shop, so sometime you have to ask the owner to top up the satay for you because they lose their visibility to what's left on your table.

Chicken satay. The size of the satay is definitely smaller compare to the one you usually get outside. The satay here taste more to sweet side. I prefer my satay this way because I normally don't dip into the sauce when I eat satay. hehe.. Weirdo am I?

Beef satay. I like the beef satay here. Don't worry, there won't be any 'beef smell' in the satay. It taste quite sweet too, and the meat is tender.

The speacialty to eat satay here is they serve bottomless onion, cucumber and satay sauce. You can opt to ask for them to refill for you or you can refill it yourself. Convenient right?

The satay sauce taste normal to me. I only eat cucumber with the sauce.

See the size. So small.

This is our result - almost 300 sticks for 9 of us. Averagely for a guy, they can eat 40 - 50 sticks. I have friend who can eat up to 80 sticks. His stomach must be real big. hahaha...

Map:

If the map is too small, you can search for balik pulau bus station in google map. The stall is just located in the building next to the bus station.

Penang Hawker Food | Thrist quencher ...

2008-11-01T23:41:00.001+08:00

*Sweat*

Recently the weather is so hot and I'm stuffing myself with too much fried and grilled stuffs. End up I am having a sorethroat.

Wouldn't it be excellent to have something chilling and cooling to run down your throat in a hot sunny day?

Let me introduce to you the 'loh han guo in a bowl' at 7th road market aka 7 tiao lor ban san.

Loh han guo in a bowl which cost RM 2 per bowl is an execellent thrist quencher in a hot sunny day. The loh han guo drink consist of some dried longan, canned longan, canned lychee and some jelly strips. This loh han guo drink is not too sweet and cold enough to sooth your throat.

Penang Restaurant | Ribs - Thumbs up except...

2008-10-31T16:33:00.002+08:00

It was raining cats and dogs that Friday night and we were hunting for dinner. Our planning was Miyako Izakaya which was located at Penang Road but the parking is not convenient at all. I'm sure we'll be drench in that heavy rain. So, changed plan again.

Round and round we went, and we came to Ribs. There's a spot for parking just right outside the restaurant, so we delay no more and decided to dine there.

Once we got our car parked, there's a waiter came out with umbrella to guide us into the restaurant without getting wet. OMG! Good impression.

Once we are seated in the non-smoking area, the waiter produced us with menu. He showed his uttermost good manner when he served us all the way through our dinner. Good impression again!

To avoid being stuffed until too full, we decided to order one appetizer, one main course and one drink to share among 2 of us.

Quesadillas - very hard to pronouce. It's a thin crust pastry stuffed with some cheese, tomato, lettuce and ham. It tasted so appetizing and it's packed with all those ingredients. Yummy dish!

We ordered a combo of BBQ ribs and chicken as our main course. It contain 3 pcs of ribs and 1 pcs of drumstick. The ribs is very tender and the BBQ sauce taste just right. I prefer the ribs and then chicken.

Ice blended cappuccino - Taste good. Coffee taste is thick enough.

After the main course, my mouth is icthy for dessert. Hehe... At first I planned to order a moist chocolate cake, but the waiter recommend Medley of Desserts to us. According to him, there are 3 types of desserts in this Medley thing.

When the dessert was served, I was shocked to see the size of it. It was like the food served in Alice in Wonderland. So tiny.

Forgot the name for this. But taste bad. The egg is so hard.A mini version of the moist chocolate cake. It's just one mouthful big. Another surprise for me when I put the cake into my mouth. It tasted warm... I think they must have preheat the cake in a oven before it was served. The cake is hard. Taste bad again.
Lastly, it's a sago gula melaka dessert. But I can't recall the exact name of it. There are 3 layers in this dessert, vanilla ice-cream, gula melaka and sago (from top to bottom). The opening of the 'tube' is so small that you can't even dig the small spoon into it. End up we need to pour the sago out. Taste wise- *thumbs down*
The desserts was disaster!

p/s: UOB credit card member can get a 10% discount off the ala carte meal.

Penang Hawker Food | Food hunting after Trishaw Egg Tart

2008-10-30T15:33:00.008+08:00

After the trishaw egg tart, we continue our food hunting. Ran out of idea d... suddenly thought of this coffee shop opposite Peng Hwa Secondary School which is famous for its laksa. So, off we go for laksa!

But to my disappointment, the laksa standard deteriorate ler... It tasted so sweet even I added some chili padi into it. Is it because of too much shrimp paste or the pineapple taste too sweet?

Never tried the curry mee here although I often visit this coffee shop. Let's give it a try. Hmm.. taste wise. Too normal. Nothing special to brag on. The coconut juice taste is too heavy for my liking.

And finally char koay teow (ckt). This is how my bf like his ckt - without the taugeh. But I like mine with extra taugeh. Haha... totally opposite. The ckt taste good with 3 average size prawn served. Full of wok hei.

We were extremely full after the visit to this coffee shop. The popiah and the kuih talam is nice too, but my stomach is too full. Hmm... wonder can we win penangtuapui?

Penang Food | Tea Time with Trishaw Egg Tart

2008-10-28T11:33:00.001+08:00

We were looking something to fill our stomach on one Sunday evening. We had brunch, so we were not hungry until it's evening.
From Bayan Lepas, we drove to Armenian Street for koay teow teng. The stall was closed. Aiyo... Our stomach is crying for food ler...
Then we changed our mind to Fish Ball Koay Teow Teng at Burmah Road. And that day was really a bad days for us. The shop was closed too.

Nearby the fish ball koay teow teng shop, this Trishaw Egg Tart caught our attention. Other than egg tart, there were other delicacies such as kaya puff, mini egg tarts, siew pau, yam puff, cream puff and mini chicken tart.

As we were very hungry, we decided to dine in with a few types of pastry before continue with our food hunting. In the restaurant, there are a few tables and chairs which is not really meant for customer. This is the feeling that I get due to most of the tables and chairs are occupied by the owner's relatives, kids and friends. I think most people choose to take away.

Egg tarts.. my favourite.
This trishaw egg tart has a very old history. The owner used to sell egg tarts using a trishaw during the good ol' days.
Kaya Puff. Not bad. The pastry is not too thick and quite crispy too. The pandan kaya filling is adequate.

Kochabi Siew Pau. Taste good.

Yam puff. Taste good and too oily. Normally I don't like yam puff due to it's usually oily.
And here comes the egg tart. Taste good. The pastry is fluffy and the egg filling is soft. It's a good place to stop by for tea time snacks.

Penang Food | Roti Canai @ Transfer Road

2008-10-25T09:56:00.007+08:00

I believe this is a very common place for most Penangnites. A very famous place to have roti canai as breakfast. It's located near the old main police station along Transfer road.

The stall and the dining tables are stretch along a few buildings just by the road side. Lots of people eat here, so you have to wait patiently for your roti canai to be served.

While waiting for my roti canai, I've order 2 half boiled egg and roti bakar as my 'appetizer'. This roti bakar stall is just located next to the roti canai stall and the owner will walk around to take order from the roti canai customer.

My favourite - half boiled egg with some pepper and soy sauce.

Roti bakar with some butter and kaya. I still prefer mine with butter and lots of sugar sprinkle on top (the one at Sg. Tiram of course)

The roti bakar is prepared in a way as what you'd do with satay.

You can also opt for your half boiled egg to be served on top of your roti bakar.

After waited for quite sometimes, finally my main course arrived. Roti canai served with chicken curry and lamb curry. The roti canai is slightly crispy.
Lamb curry is very spicy while the lamb meat is very tender. The best part is without any 'lamb smell'.
Curry chicken which tasted not as spicy as the lamb curry. I noticed that the curry chicken is mixed with dal curry. To me, this one tasted not as good as the lamb curry but still it's not bad.

This place is not suitable for those who are very hygiene conscious as this was served at road side. And you may notice that they used to stack one place on another when they serve you the roti canai. Hmm... but I just close one eye, not to think too much about being hygienic at this moment. Hehe

Penang Food | 100% rebate @ Swensen

2008-10-23T21:39:00.002+08:00

The 100% rebate sound interesting rite? You can get this at Swensen Queensbay. Pretty attractive promotions which lasts till 30th November. This promo only valid from Monday to Thursday.

We ordered one set dinner and one Ala ca rte.
Prawn dipper is one of the choices of appetizer of the set dinner. The size of the prawn dipper is quite small. Don't get cheated by my picture ya. hehehe

Although the size is tiny but the taste is good. Bits of prawn can be found inside.
BBQ half chicken was served with baked potato and vegetables. The chicken taste good, but when it come to breast, the meat is slightly dry. The served pumpkin as one of the vegetable, which is something new to me. Or they are running out of carrots? hehe...

Grilled fish with sambal. When I ordered this, I thought the fish would be topped with sambal then being grilled. But when the dish arrived, the sambal is served separately.

Anyway, it's a very delicious dish. The fish is slightly crispy on top and very tender and juicy inside. Even without dipping it into the sambal, it tasted so good.

A single scoop of vanilla ice-cream is the dessert for the set dinner. The ice cream is top with a layer of frozen chocolate.

It's dessert time. I ordered sticky chewy chocolate. This is very interesting for a chocolate fan like myself. Very thick chocolate flavour ice cream with some chocolate chip on top. Everything is chocolate. Even the cherry and the waffle is coated with chocolate.
We've spend Rm75++ for the dinner. Thus we got RM70 cash voucher which we can use during our next visits.

Penang Food | Ghee Seng Tomyam Seafood @ Weld Quay

2008-10-21T21:58:00.003+08:00

This place is a good choice when you are in a hurry. They serve the food fast and it's cheap too.

The food was served within 5 mins after we placed our order. Isn't that as fast as lightning?

We ordered tom yam fish fillet. So red in colour.

There are small pieces of fish and lots of chillies in the soup.
I don't know what fish they use but it's good. The meat is tender yet not too soft. But the amount is very little. Anyway, it's just 2 of us.Stirred fried belacan kangkung. One of my favourite dish. Although it's a simple dish, but it taste good.
This is recommended by the onwer, Chicken in basil leaves. The basil leave aroma is very light. Bird eye chili is used in this dish. Taste good too.
See the chillies in the tom yam soup. Makes you sweating man...

This restaurant is owned by a Siamese. It's quite a unique restaurant as you can find biscuits and tibbits here.
If you were coming from Bayan Lepas by Jelutong Highway, turn right after you pass thru a traffic light. This restaurant is located on your right hand side.

This dinner only cost RM 17.00. Isn't that cheap?

Penang Food | Disappointment @ Teo Chew Meng

2008-10-19T22:31:00.001+08:00

It's has been quite sometimes since my last visit to Teo Chew Meng. As we all know, the signature dish would be the mee suah kor and seafood porridge. So, it's time for revisit and I visited their outlet at Sunway Tunas.

As I've tried both of the signature dish, I would like to try something new. Flogger ma... must try something new then only can introduce new food to other people ma. Hehehe...

I ordered fish fillet tomyam and a curry chicken rice set. I think this curry chicken rice set is something new in the menu.

The outlook is quite impressive. But the taste is very disappointing. The soup is not hot and not spicy enough. Only sour taste is present. The fish fillet is very hard.

Curry chicken rice set looks very normal. The curry chicken also not hot. I wonder why? Taste is very normal. Nothing much to brag about.

There's one piece of chicken and 2 pcs of potato in the curry.This set come with a drink and a dessert (an option of ice cream and gui ling gao). Gui ling gao taste good.
We ordered this crab cake. Forgot the name. This one taste good. A combination of fish, prawn and crab meat in this dish.
Small crab shells are used to prepare this dish. So cute.

Overall I am very disappointed with the dinner. Maybe is because we 'ke gao gao' and order those funny funny dish?

Home Cooked | Simple yet nutritious ...

2008-10-18T15:33:00.001+08:00

Been quite a while since the last time I cooked something. Ya... I am so lazy...

Cooked something simple yet nutritious for dinner.

Steamed chicken with fermented salted black beans. Ingredients used are black beans, garlic, some seasoning. Marinate chicken with seasoning then steam it with high heat. Easy right. Taste pretty good. I marinated the chicken overnight.

Stir fried cabbage with anchovies and some meatballs.

Herbal chicken soup which I cooked using programmable rice cooker. So convenient.

The cooking of this dishes didn't mess up my kitchen except the stir fried cabbage which left my kitchen oily.

Penang Hawker Food | Chicken porridge @ Cintra Street

2008-10-17T16:24:00.001+08:00

We are out to hunt for chicken porridge which is recommended by a friend of us. The first thing we did is order the porridge when we reach as we are very hungry and neglecting to see the stall is yet to open for business.

The owner answer us in a 'not so good' manner that the porridge is not ready yet.
But I am so lucky that the famous curry ccf is still open. The porridge stall is just next to the ccf stall. I thought the stall only operate from noon till evening. When we place the order, the stall owner told us that the chicken is finish, only left potato. As our stomach is crying for food and I've been wanting to taste this curry chee cheong fun, we order it still.

Even without the chicken, the curry ccf taste good. But if more curry is served, then it'd be better. Hehe...
Even though the chicken had finished, on and off there are customers buying the ccf still.

Even after we finished our ccf, seems like there's not any sign of opening of the porridge stall. We heard the owner told one customer that, when the light is on, then only the stall is open for business. When it's about 8.30pm, the light is on.

Without any delay, we order 2 bowls of chicken porridge. We added fish fillet into our porridge. The porridge texture is not as smooth as the one I ate in HK. But the taste is good.

There are some fresh lettuce, yau char kuai, shredded ginger in the porridge. A hint of sesame oil in the porridge - the way I always like my porridge to taste like. Chunks of chicken and fish fillet can be found in the porridge.

Overall the porridge taste good but the owner's manner is not so good. Even when she served us the porridge, we do not feel any kindness in it. :-p

p/s: We saw that some customer order a plate of chicken separately. I would like to try this on my next visit. But need to consider for revisit or not due to the unkindness of the owner.

Dim Sum | Loh Mai Kai in a Pau.

2008-10-16T11:11:00.001+08:00

Yea. You read it correctly. It's a loh mai kai in a pau which they called it 'kai wo pau (鸡窝包)'. This one was featured in A Taste with Jason program.

This shop is located near IMU - International Medical University @ Sri Petaling. But it wasn't my luck as I went there twice, both around 12pm but this pau has been sold out. But along the street there are a few dim sum restaurants selling this type of pau. As that was the last day I were at KL, it left no choice for me but to buy from another restaurant instead of the one recommended by Axian (Jason).

This is how it look like on top. See the hole on top of the pau, there you can find mushroom and salted egg yolk which is not a usual ingredient in a normal loh mai kai. At the bottom, it looks like the below. Inside there are normal ingredients we can find in loh mai kai. It tasted good. The glutinuous rice is soft with some 'juice' from the chicken and char siew. Yummy.
The restaurant recommended by Jason is:

RESTORAN CLAN 140,JLN RADIN ANUM,SRI PETALING (Tel: 019-3825455)

This restaurant is open for breakfast and also dinner time. The 鸡窝包 is sold in the morning and night as well. I should have cut this pau into half and snap a picture before I eat it. But I only thought of it when I'm almost finish with the pau. Aiyo...

Macau | Last stop @ Macau 黄枝记

2008-10-15T11:50:00.001+08:00

Our last stop at Macau before we fly back to KL.

We ordered Pork Chop Bun (Chu Pa Pau) and Wantan soup as appetizer. Afterall, Macau is famous for it's pork chop bun rite? I don't really like the pork chop bun. The bread is too hard and tasted too plain. Basically it's a french loaf with a piece of pork chop in the middle of it. The pork chop only tasted salty to me. There's bone in the pork chop. So weird leh... Shouldn't it be boneless?

Wantan soup. This is good. Big piece of fresh shrimps can be found inside the wantan. Forget the name. But it's something like shrimp paste mee. See the powder like thing on top of the mee. It's actually powdered shrimp I guess as a very heavy taste of shrimp when you taste it. I don't like this. :-p
Mace Ball noodles. The mace ball is springly but taste slightly fishy for me. I'm quite sensitive to fishy smell.
Dumplings noodle. Taste not bad.
Spicy and sour mee. This one taste good. Spicy and sour soup with some minced meat in it.
This shop is pretty famous in Macau.

Hong Kong Food | HK Style Breakfast

2008-10-14T10:10:00.001+08:00

Hong Kong style breakfast like we always watch it in TVB drama - porridge, yau char kuai, soya bean and etc.

We ventured our way at Mongkok and came across this small char chan teng (西记粥店) selling varieties of porridge and varieties of fried 'dim sum'.

We ordered theng jai chuk (艇仔粥). The porridge is very smooth but the taste is so so. In the porridge, some octopus can be found. This is different from what I ate at KL. The one I tasted before consist of some roasted peanuts and fried anchovies in it. This makes the porridge more fragrant. This one tasted quite plain.

Char leung - something very special to me. The yau char kuai is wrapped with plain chee cheung fun. Some soy sauce as seasoning. You can eat this with peanut butter sauce or sweet sauce too.

Steam raddish cake. This one tasted too plain for me.
Yau char kuai. Yummy. The yau char kuai there is quite long. Very crispy with fluffy dough inside. I am a fan of yau char kuai anyway...

I forgot what's the name of this ler. This one is quite similar with yau char kuai except the filling inside is more compact. I like this too.

What a perfect breakfast with a cup of warm soya bean.

There's a similar shop located at Singapore. This shop is open by a friend of the HK shop owner. According to the SG shop owner, then HK shop owner share his receipe with him.

The SG shop name is 西记油条, located at Marseling, Woodlands.

Penang Restaurant | Starview Restaurant moved to New World Park

2008-10-13T14:04:00.001+08:00

Starview Restaurant moved to New World Park (NWP). This restaurant is no longer operating at Burmah Road?

Been to NWP last Saturday and took this picture. Suppose this restaurant just opened as so many flowers are put outside.

Hong Kong Food | Lunch at Big Buddha

2008-10-13T11:05:00.002+08:00

It was a fruitful trip to Big Buddha. Yea! We met a HK artist there - Wong Hei. The one starring in Flaming Heart.

We took lunch at Ngong Ping Garden Restaurant. It's a set meal for 4 pax which we bought the voucher at the cable car ticket counter. There's a 20% discount entitled for the meal when we bought it together with the cable car ticket.

Char Siew and roasted duck. Both tasted good. The roasted duck skin is very crispy.

Chicken. Eh... but I forgot the name of it. Taste wise... pretty normal.

Kai Lan. Very normal.
Steam Egg with minced pork. A very normal dish. But I like it, maybe because I like to eat egg. Soup. It's ABC soup. Taste wise - pretty salty.
What a nice pumpkin soup bowl.
Overall a pretty normal lunch which cost HKD 320. Quite expensive huh? Afterall it's a tourist spot.

Hong Kong Food | Roasted Goose @ Mongkok

2008-10-12T22:44:00.001+08:00

Is HK famous for its roasted goose? Hmm... this is what we always heard right?

As we strolled along Goldfish market, we spotted a few restaurants selling roasted goose. But this shop attracted us most.

The main dish - roasted goose (1/2 goose). This goose is hot from the oven. It tasted like duck to me. Anyway, it taste good with crispy skin. HKD 110 for 1/2 goose.

Char Siew again. Wow! I really luv HK char siew. It's so thick and the meat is so tender.

See, it's so juicy. Yum yum...
Vege with oyster sauce. The oyster sauce is serve separately from the vege. As in Msia, the oyster sauce is mix with the vege. Taste too salty if we dip the sauce with the vege, but taste too tasteless if we didn't dip with any sauce. OMG. What am I talking about... hehe...

This is our lunch at Goldfish Market.

Hong Kong Food | Dim Sum @ Hong Kong

2008-10-11T00:43:00.001+08:00

Dim Sum is in my MUST try list for my HK trip. We went to the restaurant which PenangTuaPui dine in.

The dim sum is served in a restaurant named 倫敦大酒楼. We were shocked when we stepped inside. Looks quite grand with expensive shark fins and abalone displayed at the entrance. Since we do not know an alternate place for dim sum, we decided to eat there.

The ambience of the restaurant:

The dim sum that I can't forget is their siu mai. Although I am not a fan of siu mai, but I love the taste. It's totally different from what I ate at KL, PG and Ipoh. Chunks of mushroom can be found inside it.

Next is egg tart. Yummy. The egg filling is so soft and not too sweet. And the pastry is very light.

This one is very nice too. But we do not know what is it. Haha! It's looks like a cream puff but without the cream inside. It's topped with some fine sugar while the dough is very light and soft.

Char Siew Pau. Taste good too.

Siu Long Bau. This one taste so so. Dragon-i make much better siu long bau. Hehe. After all this dish is from Shanghai right, why did I eat it at HK?? Hehe...

Char Siew Sou (Char Siew pastry).

HK Chee Cheung Fun. I purposely ordered this as I saw the uncle sitting at the next table ate it. What I saw is the Chee Cheung Fun is stuff with many ingredients. But the one I ordered had nothing inside, so it taste very plain. Yea. I ordered the wrong things. There are a few types of them. But it's quite special as this chee cheung fun is being fried before served.

At HK, the sauce for the chee cheung fun is peanut butter sauce and another sweet sauce (which I called tim cheung in cantonese). Quite a good combination too.

Har Kau. Big prawns can be found inside. Not only one prawns but a few.

Total bill is HKD 120++.

Hong Kong Food | Lunch @ Disneyland

2008-10-10T15:20:00.004+08:00

Yea. I am back with blogging after a long struggle with the new template!

That's Mickey! Had lots of fun in Disneyland. Seems like all my worries are gone when I'm in Disneyland.

After whole day of fun at Disneyland, finally it's time for our next meal since the last 8 hrs. I order a Shanghai ramen with pork chop (if not mistaken of the name). Hmm... taste wise pretty good. Maybe it's because I feel very hungry at the moment. 2 big pieces of pork chop can be found.

Another meal is the Treasure Box which contain of chicken wing,salted egg, lap cheong and some vege. This one taste so so. But I was amazed of the big size of the lap cheong.

This is BBQ pork rice (Char Siew Rice). This one taste good. The char siew is so tender although the pork is very thick. Very thick compare to the one that we can get in Malaysia.

As expected, the meal is extremely expensive in Disneyland. Even a bottle of coke cost HKD 20.

Havenly Allie is breathing again...

2008-10-09T21:40:00.005+08:00

My blog is breathing again with a new look after around 33 hours of downtime.

Everything started when I have an intention to change my template. The first time I change my template, I did a mistake which is I didn't back up my template. So, I thought I'm being wise this time by backing up the template before I start to do any changes.

So, I began to try on a few new templates. Soon I face an error where I am not able to load the new template. I googled for the solution to overcome the error. It ask me to delete all my widgets one by one. But before that all the widgets shall be back up using notepad. I didn't know how to backup the widgets, so I just delete the widgets without any backup. As I thought I've backup the template, so it should be no problem.

But when I upload my previous templates, most of my widgets are gone. OMG! I'm getting crazy... I feel so down. T_T. Thanks to CK Lam and Penang Tua Pui (PTP)! Although they didn't do much, but with their concern I regain my spirit to put everything back. But it's not easy as it's like starting from square one again.

I didn't expect that they responded so fast. Immediately after CK Lam saw my message in her chatter box, she asked me to seek help from PTP. I did leave a message in PTP's chatter box too. Tam Ciak said will let Huat Koay know about my problem. Thanks again to both of you!

Hope can meet you guys in person soon!

Hong Kong Food | HK Food Court

2008-10-07T17:26:00.001+08:00

We were into 2nd day of our HK trip, and today's itinerary is Disneyland. The moment we stepped out of our hotel, it's drizzling. OMG! Rainy weather will spoil our trip. Soon, it's raining heavily.

Without much choices, we venture into an indoor food court name Tai Kah Lok.

The breakfast set is very much like what we saw in TVB drama. Set A, Set B...

My friend order this set which consist of century egg porridge, lo mai kai (glutinous rice) and of course a cup of milk tea. The porridge is so smooth.

The Loh Mai Kai is so big. We were shocked! And it's different from what we have in Msia. The ingredients are wrapped in the glutinous rice. Lots of ingredients can be found inside. Taste good.

Another set of breakfast is Soy Sauce Fried Mee (Si Yau Wong Chau Mian). It's too oily for me. Not much ingredients except some vegetables. Taste wise - so so.
I've ordered this set. French toast with ham and egg. I was disappointed with the toast. Just a normal plain toast. But the scramble egg is tasty. The egg was topped with half cooked egg. Special and yummy.

Hong Kong Food | Supper at Mong Kok

2008-10-06T09:45:00.002+08:00

After a long day visiting HK, finally we are back to Mong Kok. It's time for supper.

Yea... we should not miss any chance to eat at HK. Hehe... must try out their food ma...

Tried their Char Chan Teng. Even though the restaurant is small but many tables are fitted inside. Since it's already 1.30 am, we just ordered 2 sets of meal to share among 4 of us. The serving size is much too big for supper...

This is pork chop in black pepper sauce serve with spaghetti. You can either choose it to be serve with an egg or a piece of hotdog. Taste good but too salty to my liking.

Another set is also black pepper pork chop served with white rice. This set was served with an egg.
Both sets are served with milk tea. This was served at Sun Wah Restaurant near Portland Street.

Hong Kong & Macau

2008-09-30T09:30:00.001+08:00

Okay. Let's pause for a while at food. I would like to share a few scene from HK and Macau.

1. Breathtaking view from The Peak

2. Goldfish market. Lots of goldfish and pets are available here.

3. Big Buddha at Tai Yu Shan

4. Night scene from Avenue of Stars

5. Disneyland

6. Macau

Hong Kong Food | Hong Kong Day (香港地)

2008-09-25T15:56:00.001+08:00

This is the restaurant we had our first dinner at Hong Kong. And it's located at The Peak.

We are very hungry at that moment. So the big portion of the food do please us. Hehe!

This is chicken chop rice. There are some ginger on top of the chicken. Yummy.
I ordered stir fried koay teow with beef. To me this is so so only. The koay teow is a bit hard and the beef is too salty. I was slightly disappointed as I thought HK will have tasty stir fired koay teow with beef. Wan tan mee. The wan tan is delicious. Whole prawn can be found inside a wantan. Yummy. Curry beef with rice. The curry also taste good but was too salty for me. In fact, most of the food also tend to taste more saltly.
Milk Tea. As expected, it's very thick and creamy. Too creamy for my taste.
If not mistaken, this dinner cost us HKD 170++. Ya. That's real expensive!
Overall a satisfying dinner before we venture Madame Tussauds and to a breathtaking night view of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Food | Hui Lau Shan (Mango Dessert)

2008-09-24T10:12:00.004+08:00

Hui Lau Shan is our first stop when we arive at Hong Kong. It's time for mango dessert. Yummy.
We ordered mango pudding with ice cream. There are mango pudding, mango ice cream and also big chunks of sweet sweet mango in mango juice. Taste good.

Mango mochi. This is also very special. Big chunk of mango wrapped in mango flavour mochi. But the mango chunk is not as sweet as the one available in mango pudding.

We order 2 mango puddings and one mango mochi and it cost us HKD 85.

Penang Food | Breeks Cafe

2008-09-23T09:15:00.006+08:00

It has been 3 yrs since the last time I've visited Breeks Cafe @ Gurney Plaza. I only remember one thing about it which is the serving portion is very big.

This time I visited the branch at Qbay. It was Friday night and not much people were sitting in the cafe.

We ordered 2 main course and one drink which is Goldilock Freeze. It's a mock cocktail which means no alcohol. It tasted like mango yogurt to me with some jelly thingy inside it.

I ordered Baked Dory glazed with Lime Chili Sauce. This is available in a set (come with a soup). The price is even cheaper by RM1 compare to the ala carte. So, I've ordered the set instead of ala carte. As for ala carte, a scoop of ice cream will be given as a complimentary.

The serving size is very big consist of a big piece of dory fish and a medium portion of spaghetti with some vegetables. It's less oily which is a very healthy dish. The fish is very tender with no fishy smell. As spelled in the dish name, lime chilli sauce were used. This make the fish very appetising.

As for BBQ Half Chicken with Smoked BBQ Sauce, this is only available in ala carte. The half chicken is served with some butter rice and garden salad. This taste is okay. The breast meat is too dry to me even though I like breast meat.
The soup was served last. Hmm.. weird.. I suppose the soup should be served first? It's just a normal borsch soup. I thought they would serve cream soup. This soup taste normal only. Anyway, it's free. Hehe

Penang Food | Swensen

2008-09-18T17:12:00.006+08:00

Swensen - one of my favourite place for ice-creams. As this visit is tea time purpose, we didn't ordered much.

We ordered 2 finger foods and 2 ice-creams.

Rodeo chicken wings. This one tasted like ayamas brand spicy chicken wings. But it was topped with some special sauce.

Fun fries. I luv this fries as it's very thick. It's served with 2 sauces which is BBQ sauce and mayonnaise.

Chocolate Frosted Malt. This flavour is recommended by my fren, YH. Wow! It tasted great! There are some choco chips and choco balls on top of it. At the bottom (see the white colour thingy), it's malt. I was wondering... Malt suppose to be brownish in colour?

I ordered mango madness. Mango flavour ice-cream topped with strawberry, mango syrup and cream. This ice-cream is simple yet tasty. Rich in mango flavour.

p/s: why is the picture I've taken is yellowish? Any advice for me?

How's the shots?

2008-09-15T16:33:00.004+08:00

First shot - fried lou shu fan.

2nd - Mantis prawn with cereals. Yummy. . . 3rd - Abalone with brocolli
4th - Lanterns ...
Any comment on these few shots?

Dessert | Ice Cream Omochi

2008-09-15T14:22:00.001+08:00

This is something new to me. Ice cream wrap in a mochi. There are 3 flavours available which are chocolate, black sesame and red bean.

The chocolate flavour is normal which some chocolate favour ice cream wrapped with a plain mochi.
The black sesame flavour is something special to me. It's very fragrant. A hint of black sesame in vanilla ice cream. (I guess they use vanilla ice cream)
Red bean flavour is normal. Nothing special.

A box contain 5 packets where in each packet there is 2 ice cream omochi.

Penang Restaurant | Golden Triangle @ Auto City

2008-08-31T23:54:00.006+08:00

This is the second time I've visited Golden Triangle and also the 2nd time I write this review. The first review was gone when my IE encounter a problem. I do not know why all the content disappeared. *angry*

The interior of this restaurant is quite big with a very nice and peaceful environment. Soft music playing added some spices into your dining. The lighting in this restaurant is quite dim, so it created a romantic environment :-)

We've ordered Asparagus Sambal, Choo Chee Fish, Pakapau NZ Mussel, Seafood Otak-Otak In Fresh Coconut, Tang Hoon Crab and Stir Fried Small Cabbage. The last dish was recommended by the waitress. She told us that this 'small cabbage' is a new vege.

While waiting for the dishes to be served, we were wondering on how special the small cabbage to be. Then suddenly my cousin sis said, 'I think the small cabbage is 'choi dam' lar... '. We were like 'Yahor!' .. means no surprise on the new vege.

Ok. Enough of my grandma story.

First served were the asparagus and the small cabbage. The asparagus looks so red o... must be very spicy lol... Hmm... taste good leh... quite spicy and the asparagus is stir fried with a very good timing, leaving it not too soft.

As expected, the small cabbage is choi dam. It's just a very simple dishes. But the flavour is very strong. We all feel that only these 2 veges can help us finish our white rice. Ya.. these 2 veges goes very well with the white rice. Very strong flavour.
Apologize for the blurry vision of the small cabbage. My camera just can't focus. Time for a new camera?? The Pakapau NZ Mussels - these mussels were cooked with basil leaves and garlic. Simple ingredients but enough to bring out the aroma. Tasty one. The basil leaves aroma is not very strong, acceptable for me who don't like basil leaves smell.
Seafood otak-otak in fresh coconuts - squids, prawns and big chunks of coconuts were found in this. Nice dish with sweet taste due to the coconut I guess. Although I don't fancy otak-otak, but this dish is yummy.
Choo Chee Fish. This fish is deep fried and topped with Thai chili paste. The chili paste is very special. Thick gravy with creamy feeling. Seems to me coconut juice were used. Quite spicy too. The fish is crispy outside and soft inside. Taste good.

As for Tang Hoon crab, I've reviewed it before.

At last, dessert time. We ordered Thap Thim Krap. Thai dessert made of jackfruit and water chestnut coated with sago in coconut juice. The coconut juice is too thick for my liking. Although the bowl used is very small, but there are lots of ingredients in it.

A great dinner cost RM 225.

Penang Food | Red Chopstick @ I Avenue

2008-08-26T22:52:00.001+08:00

This restaurant serve a wide variety of food. You can find almost everything here, eg. curry mee, fried rice, claypot with rice, nasi lemak, spaghetti, porridge, pan mee, satay, and a wide variety of dessert which is including tong yuen. This restaurant is located at I Avenue, just next to Air Cool Car Tinted Shop and Watson.

We ordered tomato fried rice with satay and Claypot Vegetable Curry with rice. As for drinks / dessert we ordered Honey Dew Sago Ice and Mo Mo Cha Cha. You can opt for the dessert to be served later.

Here comes the tomato fried rice with satay. The fried rice is pretty good, just that slightly wet. Tomatoes, some herbs, spices and salted egg pieces can be found in the fried rice. 3 pcs of satay are served together. The satay taste good. There's a hint of lemongrass flavour in the satay. Suppose they used it to marinate the satay huh. The satay portion is quite big.

I like their satay very much. They serve chicken and lamb satay. There is a satay set which you can order. Range from RM8.90 - RM11.90 for a regular satay set of chicken or lamb or both. You can opt for the large set too.

I've ordered Claypot Vegetable Curry. This dish is not recommended at all. I've visited this shop a few times before I started blogging. Overall, the dishes are tasty except for this one. The curry is too thick but without any curry taste at all. Long bean, four season bean, cabbage, mushroom and tofu were used in this dish.

Mo Mo Cha Cha. I've tasted this before, in my memory the taste is good. But this time, the vanilla essence smell is slightly too strong. I wonder why they use essence?? But lots of ingredients can be found in this. The thing that I like most is the sago like thing which they made into a flower shape. It's chewy.

Honey Dew Sago Ice. Honey dew is blended then mix with coconut juice served with sago and honey dew. Not to sweet :-) . Nice. Normally there are around 3- 4 honey dew balls in it.

The environment is nice. Very peaceful feeling with some soft music playing. The decoration is quite classic

Business Hours:

Monday - Friday: 11am - 2pm, 6pm - 9.30pm

Sat, Sun & Public Holiday: 12 pm - 9.30pm

More pictures:

Japanese Food | Sukiyaki @ Kirishima

2008-08-25T14:13:00.001+08:00

My first pot of Sukiyaki. I've never try sukiyaki before.

It's a one pot meal which is similar to Chinese Steamboat style of eating. The main ingredient is thinly sliced beef simmered in sukiyaki sauce. Other ingredients such as few types of vegetables, enoki mushrooms, onion, tofu and japanese glass noodles are too put in a pot together with the sukiyaki sauce.

I was surprise that the sukiyaki sauce is so sweet. In fact, slightly too sweet for me if to drink it on its own. But the sliced beef simmered in the sukiyaki sauce is so tasty. The beef is so tender.

The other thing that I like is Japanese glass noodles. It's slightly chewy and not like our local glass noodle which is quite soft. When it's eaten with the sukiyaki sauce, it tasted slighty sweet. Nice.

Enoki mushroom cooked and simmered in sukiyaki sauce also very tasty. Yummy. The mushroom absorbed the sukiyaki sauce, so when we bite on the mushroom, there are lots of sauce.

Kirishima at Cititel Hotel operating at: 12noon to 2.30pm (Lunch), 6.00pm to 10.30pm (Dinner)Location : Lobby Level.

Penang Food | Dim Sum @ Fun Tea Garden

2008-08-24T21:18:00.001+08:00

Fun Tea Garden previously was known as Dynamic Cafe. Dynamic Cafe was previously located at around 'Xia Bui' market. Dynamic Cafe was renamed to Fun Tea Garden and moved to opposite of Perangin Mall Pizza Hut which is at Jalan Dr. Lim Chwee Leong. It can be easily located.

This shop is located along main road, but don't worry that you can't get a parking as the shop owner co-operate with a parking site onwer to provide parking for Fun Tea Garden customers with only RM1 as parking fees. The parking is just slightly futher away down the road. There's a 'Car Park' banner displayed, so don't think you'll miss it.

Char Siew Pau - The filling is very tasty. Yummy.

Egg Tart - the pastry is not fluffy enough but the egg is tasty as it's not too sweet.

Century Egg porridge - my favourite. See, there are so much deep fried spring roll skins on top of the porridge. Such a generous serving. This porridge is very tasty. Very soft texture and the taste is just like that you can find at home. Lots of ingredients are used to cook this porridge, I guess. Shredded chicken, dried mussel and century egg can be found in the porridge.

Lo Mai Kai - Taste pretty nice but the glutinous rice is slighty uncooked.

Fried raddish cake - Skin is thin and very crispy. Inside is soft and there are some meats inside the raddish cake. Taste good.

Fried fishball - one of my favourite dim sum at any dim sum restaurant This one is quite chewy. I believe it's hand made.

Siu Mai Wong - This is highly recommended by one of the worker. It's the king of Siu Mai. Mm... for both of us the taste is similar to normal siu mai. mm... our taste bud problem? ? The difference that we found is in this siu mai king there are some vege.

Siu Mai - nothing much to fuss about. Big chunks of water chestnut can be found in this. Just good. ;)

More dim sum pictures:

Overall, the dim sum is satisfying. Total charges is RM 18.40. Quite reasonable for me.

Other than dim sum, this restaurant serve also char hor fun and other fried noodles.

p/s: Argh...! I forgot to print the voucher in Criz Lai's blog to entitle a 10% discount. What a waste.

Home Cooked | Claypot Chicken Rice without Claypot

2008-08-22T14:35:00.001+08:00

Yea. It's correct. I tried to cook claypot chicken rice without claypot. Hehe...

Tried to cook a simple dinner without leaving any big mess in the kitchen for cleaning. So, I've thought of steam rice. Put all the ingredients with the rice, then steam it. No oil, no frying, no mess...

But, this is my first attempt to do this. OMG! I'm so worry that it'll turn out to taste bad.

Bought 2 drumsticks from Tesco. Cleaned it, removed the fat, and marinated it with oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar and pepper for a few hours.

Then I put in all the ingredients (chicken, mushrooms, kwe hua meat - the red thing which similar to lap cheong, ginger and some carrots) on top of rice. Steamed it for 25 minutes.

Tadaa.... It looks and smell nice, but not sure how it taste. :-p

I scooped out everything, divided into 2 and put on plate. This is how it looks.

Hmm... taste good man! Just that the rice is slightly uncooked. I wonder why the rice is slightly uncooked as I think the water should be enough as the rice is quite sticky.

Yellow --> Black --> White

2008-08-20T16:00:00.000+08:00

I've been keep on changing my blog colours. Don't feel that it's interesting and attractive enough.
And I also can't find a good image for my blog header. So sad... T_T

I've been thinking how other bloggers make such nice templates and layouts. I dare not change my template as I worry will affect the side bar I've created. As I've spent lots of time to create this 3rd side bar.

hmm... mmm... What to do? What to do?

Thai Food | Cherry Blossom - Thai Food

2008-08-11T23:13:00.001+08:00

Been thru a busy week. Sigh... Left my blog untouched for so long.

The first thing I did is I read all the updated blogs in my blog list first before I start blogging. hehe... Miss all the other blogs...

Cherry Blossom. Heard about this place a few months ago, but finally got to dine there. This restaurant is located in Sg. Ara. It's quite unique as it's a bungalow house. The environment is nice. There are 2 sections where you can sit.

We ordered Meng Kam, Seafood Tomyam, Claypot Tofu, Fried Kangkung and Mango Kerabu.

First served was Meng Kam which is one of my favourite dish in Thai food. Afterall it's appetiser right? Just a brief explaination in case someone is not familiar with this dish. Hmm... mm... mm... I also dunno how to explain. *paiseh*

From the picture, you can spot that there are 9 ingredients in this dish. The ingredients are peanuts, grated coconut, chili, dried shrimps, onion, lime, ginger, sauce and one kind of leaf.

The way to eat this dish is make the leaf (I am not sure what kind of leaf) into a cone shape. Then put all the ingredients into the leaf and put some sauce on top of it. I put everything except onion cos I don't like onion. I like the grated coconut most. My favourite is to make my serving be floaded with sauce. Then you will experience spicy, sweet, sour etc taste in your mouthg. Yummy!

Seafood Tomyam. The serving method is very unique. See there are 2 part of the pot. Only the top part is filled with tom yam. The portion is quite small for 4 person. Taste wise. Good. Spicy and sour enough. But there are very few seafood in the soup.

Once the claypot tofu served on the table, the fragant smell attacked our nose. Hehe. Or maybe we are too hungry? Anyway, the tofu taste very nice. Lots of gravvy and vege.

Kerabu Mango. It has some onion and dried shrimps in it. The dried shrimps are coated with some sugar. Goes well with the kerabu. But overall the kerabu is slightly dry.

Fried Kangkong. Just normal. But it is also topped with dried shrimps which is slightly sweet. Appetising

Lastly, the dessert. This is also one of my favourite food in Thai food. It's some ice with santan served with jackfruit and water chestnut. But this one taste so so.

Overall the food taste good. Total bill is RM71.50. Quite reasonable.

Penang Food | Korean BBQ Chicken @ Sunway Carnival

2008-08-05T11:34:00.001+08:00

Enjoyed a meal at Korean BBQ Chicken Restaurant with my aunt and cousin. It's just a snack meal as both my aunt and cousin already had their lunch. I am the only one haven't had lunch.

We strolled along Sunway Carnival thinking what to eat. As usual, dunno what to eat. Hehe. Then we came across this restaurant and we decided to try something new to us. It was my first visit to this restaurant although I always come across it at Gurney Plaza.

We flipped and flipped the menu thinking what to order. The pictures in the menu make me drool. Finally made up my mind, I've ordered Korean Charbroiled. This is a set which come with Mashed Potato or Shrimp Fried Rice and Salad. I've chosen mashed potato as rice would be too heavy.

This is how it looked like. Hmm... first bite. Yummy! The thigh meat is so tender and the ingredients used to marinate the chicken is fully absorbed by the chicken. The meat taste slightly sweet. But after a few bites, I found that the skin is quite fatty so I left the fatty skin untouched. Mashed potato tasted very creamy. The salad tasted slightly bitter and the veges are floaded with mayonise which is think it's just too much. Both the mashed potato and the salad are not to my liking.
As for this set the price is RM14.50 for 2 pcs set, RM18.90 for 3 pcs set or RM 34.60 for a family set which consist of 6 pcs.

My cousin sister ordered Golden Strip. It's fried chicken fillet. The chicken fillet is garnished with some cheese. To my surprised, the chicken fillet is not dry at all altough chicken breast is used. The meat is tender too and there are some spices aroma in the meat. I can't figure out what's the spices used. Sure I can't la... it's their secret recipe ma, lol! Hehe. ..
As for the price, RM 8.50 for 4 pcs and RM12.00 for 6 pcs.

We ordered ice lemon tea. There isn't any lemon or tea taste. Not recommended.

Overall, the food is good. Will surely return to try on others.

Home Cooked | First "war" in my new kitchen

2008-07-30T17:44:00.001+08:00

It's been a very long time since the last time I cooked simple dishes. Reason is due to I've been renting a room and the kitchen utensils is incomplete. Therefore I only cook instant mee. Hehe. Unhealthy.

I decided to cook some simple food that will not leave my kitchen in a big mess. We decided to have a fried rice, a vege and some fishball.

I've added luncheon meat, sausage, fishball, chicken meatball and some beans into the fried rice. Overall, the add ons is much more than the rice. Haha. Taste: Average. Slightly oily.

We bought some fishball from Jusco, and just steam it to served with our fried rice.

Since the four season bean is too much if I put them all in the fried rice, I decided to stir fried it. I intend to prepare a dish similar to the one I had in 113 Fried Porridge Shop. Here's what I've prepare. The outlook is quite similar with the one I had but the taste is far from it. I've forgotten the dried shrimp. hahaha. Overall the taste is slightly too sweet. I think it's because of I've put too much dried raddish.

Will definitely have another round of try out and hopefully the taste will be better. Haha.

Finally...

2008-07-30T17:38:00.000+08:00

Yeah! Finally the internet access in my house is available. :-D
Can blog whenever I feel like and not only have to wait till I'm back at office.

Penang Food | Wen Chang Hainan Chicken Rice

2008-07-29T12:21:00.001+08:00

Whenever I thought of Hainan Chicken Rice (HCR), I'll think of my aunt who stays at Johor. She's married to a Hainanese. She cooked tasty HCR.

Wen Chang HCR served traditional Hainanese CR. There are some newspaper posts sticked on the wall inside the shop. It tells the story of the background of this shop and the owner.
This had also been blogged by CK Lam few days ago. He also blog about other food along Cintra Street like Yau Chai Kuai, dumpling, Cantonese biscuits, dim sum, curry chee cheong fun and a lot more. Yummy.

This shop serves white chicken, roast chicken, loh bak and also eggs. We ordered roast chicken and 2 loh bak.

For my liking, the roasted chicken taste average. Nothing special.

The loh bak is nice. :-) Hehe... dunno how to describe. Anyone can help?

The chicken rice is come with a bowl of dried vegetable soup.

Yeah! And the rice. I like the rice of HCR. It's slighty oily and also very fragant. Is the rice cooked with butter?
I also like the chilli. It's mixed with some grinded ginger. According to the newspaper post on the wall, they are using the traditional grinder to grind the ginger.

I think this is one kind of traditional grinder.

Overall the meal is satisfying.

The Lion City Hotel @ Singapore

2008-07-28T11:58:00.000+08:00

This is the hotel that I've stayed for a few days during my training at Singapore.

Before I went there, I surfed through the hotel website. From the website, the hotel looks nice. Anyway, I didn't put high expectation for the hotel. As long as it's clean and comfortable, then it's very good for me. But, I was kinda disappointed when I went into the room.

Okay, first of all, the lights are too dim. I didn't get the 'comfortable' feeling when I stepped into the room. I was feeling weird. There are dust on the kettle. Hmm... bad impression. There are 2 single beds in the room. The first thing that I did is put all my luggages on the other bed. Cos, I've heard a few stories that if the other bed is unoccupied, some other 'things' may sleep on it.
Haha. I didn't take any pictures of the room cos I worry something extra may appear in the pics I took. Yaya.. maybe I've been thinking too much.

I didn't sleep well in the room. I slept with some lights on. And I woke up a few times in the middle of the night. It's not that I wanna go to toilet, I just woke up fr my sleep.

I hv very limited access to internet when I was in SG. Miss my blogging so much. Hehe...

Snack | Pisang Goreng

2008-07-17T17:15:00.001+08:00

Pisang goreng. Yummy Yummy. This has been blogged by Penang Tua Pui . This stall is located at the roundabout of Jalan Free School.

We visited this stall last weekend, but we only bought 4 pisang for 2 of us. We aim for fried tapioca and fried cempedak. But unfortunately, both also not available. Anyway, we manage to buy the Pisang after waited for 15 minutes. But worth waiting la!

As normally the pisang finish early, so we feel fortunate when we are able to get it.

Penang Food | Loh Hup Kee Famous Chicken Leg @ New Lane

2008-07-15T10:17:00.001+08:00

Loh Hup Kee Famous Chicken Leg - This is what written on the stall.

This chicken leg ?? ... hmm... I think chicken feet is more appropiate. Ok, this chicken feet stall was previously located at 'yi tiao lor' aka 2nd road where the area is named Chun Man Yuan. Due to the area will be developed, the hawkers there have no choice but to find a new place for business.

Normally the chicken feet (CF) is fried then only is cooked. As for this CF, it's not fried at first. The CF is smooth and soft. The gravvy is very tasty.

Next is steam chicken. This one is similar to Ipoh 'Lou Wong' Bean Sprout Chicken. The chicken is steam with a very good timing where the meat texture is very smooth. It's served with soy sauce. Very simple dish yet delicious.

As usual, we will order the CF, chicken and also fried mee + bihun. This is the 'set' that we always order when we visit this shop. The fried bee + bihun taste normal.

Total cost for this set is RM19.00. I am not sure the price for each individual dish as we always order this set. hehe

p/s: The chicken is served with this sauce. But the taste is so so nia. Normally I didn't take it.