Review: Sapporo Noodle House, Second Time Round

**Non-Halal Post**

I've blogged about Sapporo Noodle House but never have any photos to substantiate the postings. With their shift to the current location, I feel I have to post this up. They have shifted over to BB Park side which is opposite Low Yat Plaza, just beside Outback. They have more space now albeit its al fresco on the upper tier. You can opt to sit inside too but it's kinda small plus the decor and ambience is left to desire. Well we were here for the food... right?

I will just put up the pictures, for the descriptions, please read here (when I read back, I think I could write better then, what say you?).

Miso Ramen RM6.oo



Ghau Zhau Ramen RM6.00, note both soup bases are different, hence there are a variety of ramens to try out.



Gyoza RM7.00



Teriyaki Chicken RM8.00 - still doesn't fail us.



The testament of the ramens here...



LOL... Need I say more???


SAPPORO NOODLE HOUSE
Tel: 03-4045 7669 / 012-616 6571

Technorati Tags: ramen + Japanese

Child's Play

Guys, remember these stuff??? Errr I mean those who are around my age *ahem*

I can't believed that they still have these two types of fireworks in the market. I was kinda surprised when my mom showed me the bag of fireworks and sparklers that her neighbour's grandchild had given to my boiboi last week. I just have to snap the pics haha... I remember my dad had bought these two types of fireworks for us to play during Chinese New Year. Come to think of it, goodness it's close to 20 over years ago haha adoiii... I feel so old right now!

Anyhow, the results ain't the same as before. That lousy tank gave a short spurt of fireworks before it died and that chicken gave such a loud noise but hey... how come no egg was laid??? Wahliau kena tipu (got cheated in Malay) like that!!!

Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year

I Got Porned

yeah... Food Porn that is haha by Jaunted, a travel guide with lots of interesting stories and Slashfood, a food related newsletter. Coincidently both picked my Durian Cupcakes as their errmmm "smelly" topic LOL.

Check 'em out! You'll faint from the smell...

Slow Cooked Chicken With Bittergourd

I've done Braised Chicken With Bittergourd the conventional way but as promised I've tried cooking this dish using a slow cooker after my Slow Cooked Pork Ribs recently.

This round, rather than dumping everything into the slow cooker, I fried some chopped garlic, black beans (dau si in Cantonese) and preserved soy beans (mien si in Cantonese or also known as tau chu) in some oil in a pan till fragrant. Then put in the chicken pieces. When chicken is browned, stir in bittergourd. Next, chuck them all into the slow cooker and cook for 3 hours.



I rotated the chicken pieces at half way as I've used a very small cooker. At this stage you can adjust the saltiness but since I've used enough preserved soy beans, I did not add in any salt. This was how they looked like at the end...



Scoop up and serve with rice. Not very appetising looking eh??? I didn't add in dark soy sauce haha somehow, Chinese cooking looked better in darker colour. Tastewise, it's very very good and produced a lot of yummilicious gravy that I lapped up like soup. Left over night, wahhh, tasted even better!



Technorati Tags: malaysian food +poultry

Guess Who is Who???

Inspired by WMW's comment in my previous post...

All of the pictures below were taken by my 5 year old terrorist except for the wine bottles during our gathering. I've no idea why he went round shooting the floggers' back but it was sure fun looking at them and try to guess who are they LOL...

Mini Food Bloggers Gathering

Updated 28 February 2007: Added Teckiee's experience.

Sorry for leaving here empty for the past one week. Life has been hectic with visitations, gatherings and loh hei (tossing yue sang or raw fsh) dinners. I hope everyone had had a great Chinese New Year celebration.

Anyway, some of the food bloggers in Kuala Lumpur were invited for a dinner gathering by Bee Yinn of Rasa Malaysia upon her whirlwind makan tour of Kuala Lumpur. You can read her "report" here on how many makan places she visited during her short stay here LOL...

Thanks to Audrey of Audrey Cooks, she managed to secure this restaurant called Makansutra in Plaza Damas for our private function filled with food, beer, wines, laughter and great conversations.

In attendance were of course Bee Yinn who flew in from US via Penang; efficient organiser Audrey; a very very sweet Teckiee of Eat First, Think Later; a couple of Team Back Street Gluttons; shy guy Jackson of Living in Food Heaven; handsome Unkaleong; famous boo_licious of Masak-Masak fame; and jovial WMW of You Get What You Give. I missed Fat Boy Bakes of Have Your Cake & Eat It by the minutes when he delivered a delicious tiramisu. Even though he did not attend but I'm sure he could feel our spirit miles away.

It is indeed an honour to be able to meet all of them in person and get to know them in that short time frame. There were promises too that more of such gatherings will be organised in time to come.

Just for your fill, some of the food we have that day...

A variety of Asian tapas and Thai Seafood Tom Yam for starters.













Mains of Homemade Tofu with Garlicky Sauce, Mango Chicken, Sutra Prawns Curry and vegetables (no pic cos too blurry).







And ended with Tiramisu courtesy of Fat Boy Bakes. Please note you can place your order over at Have Your Cake & Eat It.



Apologies if I've typed anything wrong here (I wonder if they are coherent?), I'm so sleepy now cos the place I stayed was like warzone from midnight till 3am! Yawwwnnnn...

More from:
Jackson
Bee Yinn
Teckiee


Makansutra Restaurant
Block F-0-2, Plaza Damas,
60 Jalan Sri Hartamas 1,
Sri Hartamas, 50480 Kuala Lumpur.
(the row opposite Hartamas Shopping Centre)

Kung Hei Fatt Choy

Wishing everyone a joyous Chinese New Year. May this year brings us loads of prosperity, good luck and most importantly the best of health!!!

Kung Hei Fatt Choy!

Loh Mai Kai (Chicken Glutinous Rice)

**Non-Halal Post**

A quicky post for Flower even though it's not halal. Hahaha sorry ok. It sparked off in my Waxed Meats Glutinous Rice post. Flower said she's gonna make a halal version using chicken, so I'm giving some ideas to her on what other ingredients she can use.

Let's see, I've made this Loh Mai Kai (literally translated as Glutinous Rice Chicken, commonly found in restaurants/stalls selling dim sum or at bao stands) the same time as the Waxed Meats Glutinous Rice. The rice wasn't good but there were loads of ingredients in this Loh Mai Kai.

I've laid a quartered hard boiled egg, Chinese black mushroom, soaked dried shrimps, lap cheung (one type of waxed meat) and a few slices of char siu (bbq meat). So, Flower, you can substitute these stuff with whatever you can find and deem suitable.

Will try to make better ones next time. I know, they could look ok but tastewise, its just not right some how.

Technorati Tags: glutinous rice + dim sum

Happy Valentine's Day to All

As usual, me and hubby are not celebrating Valentine's Day today as we've been celebrating our love on a daily basis since 10 years ago hahaha... No surprises this year but he had been so sweet, called and coordinated with the oven company for my oven repair. It would have taken me ages if I were to do it. Many thanks, darling.

Hope everyone have a Valentine's Day of everyday joys and unexpected pleasures.

Durian Cupcakes

Using the same Donna Hay's Peanut Butter Cupcakes recipe, I sub the peanut butter with some durian pulp. The kitchen smelt so nice during baking haha... I did this before my oven got admitted to the hospital for a week. See the uneven colour on top of the cupcakes... my thermostat conked, the temperature was way lower than the heat I set. Anyway the oven is back since last Tuesday but I'm so lazy to bake now plus my boiboi got sick over the weekend. No Chinese New Year mood either! Darn...



Technorati Tags: durian + cupcake + donna hay

Meme - 5 Things You Don’t Know About Me

I got tagged by Bee Yinn sometime back but kept dragging my feet cos I’m very lazy in doing homeworks memes. So if you tag me, most likely it will take me soooo long that I’ll only post this way after everyone or I’ve totally forgotten about it! Very slow infact until I got tagged the 2nd time round by FoodieLianne. Anyway, since this is only 5 items, I think I’ll do a quick one, food related of course.

1. I HATE nangka or cempedak (jackfruit) –smell, sight errr taste, I don’t know since I’ve never place any in my mouth. I swear, not even once since I was born. I just can’t take the smell. People who knew me, my colleagues and families knew this but yet they always eat them in front of me to peeve me off. I will usually run far far away when I detect the smell. Poor hubby has to eat them out of the house otherwise he’ll have to sleep elsewhere but to share the same bed with me! Strangely, I have no problem with durian LOL.
   
   
2. I’m very afraid of recipes with a long long list of ingredients. Make my head pusing (spin).
   
   
3. I do not snack in between meals or rather hardly snacks. All this must thank my mom cos she bans all sorts of candies, chocolates and junk food when I was a kid. These stuffs are actually rare treats for me and my brothers but she was slightly more lenient with my brothers.
   
   
4. I never started cooking until I moved into my own place with hubby in year 2001. Even that I also hardly ever cook cos it’s too troublesome and expensive to cook for 2. Hard to believe eh??? LOL... In fact hubby was so worried that during our courting days he kept asking me to pick up cooking from my mom, little does he know that my mom also started to cook only wayyy after she gave birth to my brothers. That too she had no choice cos my maternal grandma who does all the cooking had bad rheumatism on her legs, hence she can’t stand long. My mom had to reassure him that I should be able to cook once the time comes.
   
   
5. I’m a glutton no thanks to my parents whom loved to try new dishes and new eating places since I was a kid. Best was to have foodie colleagues who will take the trouble to drive around town and sometimes outskirt just for lunch. They have all since left the company. How sad!
   

As usual, I'm not tagging anyone but if you feel like it, please help yourself with this...

Waxed Meat Glutinous Rice

**Non-Halal Post**



Chinese New Year is approaching and one can see all sorts of waxed meats (lap mei in Cantonese) available in the market. For detailed explaination, check out boo_licious latest post on waxed meats. I've tasted a fabulous version of lap mei farn (waxed meat rice) using glutinous rice at Hakka Restaurant along Jalan Kia Peng. I have been hankering for it as this dish is usually available during Chinese New Year. Since we're not going to the restaurant anytime soon, I decided to cook some just to try out. I've never cooked this dish before and was too lazy to dig out any book or search in the net for the recipe. Simply hentam (work) my way thru.

I soaked some glutinous rice in some water for a few hours. Sliced a few types of waxed meat - duck thigh, yoon cheung (Chinese liver sausage), lap cheung (Chinese sausage) and err Kwai Fa yuk (I think... which is a thick slice of meat reddish in colour). Steamed them and scooped away the oil.

Mixed in some oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, salt and pepper into the drained glutinous rice. Steamed till cooked.

To assemble, placed the waxed meat, soaked Chinese mushroom and dried shrimps at the bottom of a lightly oiled heat proof bowl. I've also experimented by lining the bowl with aluminium foil before oiling just to test if the rice would stick to the bowl or not. Actually both ways also worked - no rice got stuck on the bowl nor the foil. Would be great if I can find some lotus leaves. I wonder if banana leaves would work as well?? Hahaha... since this was just an experiment, I did this using rice bowl as individual portion.

Scooped in the steamed rice onto the meat. Covered the top of the bowl with more foil. Steamed for another 20 - 30 minutes.

The verdict - not good at all since this was my lazy way haha. Lack of oommph!!!!

I will try the not so lazy method soon. Most likely, I'll fry some chopped shallots with the dried shrimps in some oil. Fry till the shallots turned golden brown before pouring in the soaked glutinous rice. Will add in oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, salt, a wee bit of sugar and a dash of cooking wine. Mix thoroughly. I think mixing in the juice that came out from the steamed waxed meat will give the rice the ultimate ommph but I'll remove the oil first. The rest will be more of less the same as above but I'll steam it without the aluminium covering.

So what do you think? Would this way work better or do you have any tips or suggestions?

Technorati Tags: glutinous rice + waxed meats + Chinese New Year

I've Crossed Over!

Well, not by choice but got forced eventually to upgrade to new blogger. So far everything seems to be working except that I can see the Blogger bar on top which actually cuts off a bit of my header. Still OK I supposed.

Would appreciate any feedback if something is not working as it is. Thanks.

Dear "Winston"

An Open Letter to "Winston".

Dear "Winston"

Thank you for your concern of the state of my body. I will not stoop as low as what you've done and I DO NOT need to show you any proof to confirm whether you've guessed it right or wrong.

Oh yeah, thanks for dropping by and add on another visitor count to my blog so that I can receive my Adsense cheque faster than it should. Do come back often yah!

Rgds,
Babe_KL

Slow Cooked Pork Ribs

**Non-Halal Post**



I've read in Lilian's Food, travel, recipe and sights on how she had cooked spare ribs in a slow cooker (also known as crock pot) without adding any water. I was worried all these while what if the slow cooker crack under such circumstance. However, in her post, she reassured that did not happened when she experimented it.

So using guesstimation again, I marinaded some pork ribs with red preserved beancurd, oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce and a bit of cornflour. Placed some chopped leek and onion at the bottom of the slow cooker. Next, arranged the ribs on top. I've used a small slow cooker that has only one heat setting and cooked the ribs for about 3+ hours.

The meat came out very very tender and fall out easily off the bones (like those canned ribs!). Very flavourful. However the leeks and onions have gotten a bit mushy since I've sliced them too finely. Hubby liked the meat but he thinks bittergourd cooked this way would be more flavourful as compared with the mushy leeks and onions. Will try that next time.



Thanks to Lilian for the insight of cooking without water in a slow cooker. Without her post, I wouldn't have done this! The best thing is all I need to clean up was the pot, no messy oil splatter all over the stove, YAY!

Technorati Tags: pork rib + slow cooker

My Fibre Optic Cherry Blossom Tree

I have a couple of enquiries about my Fibre Optic Cherry Blossom Tree. I guess most of you are used to the fibre optic Christmas trees but I doubt there are many places have them in Cherry Blossom form. This tree is kinda unique cos the fibre optics act as the stamen (correct ka?) and the fibres change to different colours from yellow to red to purple and so on. Watch the video to see how the colours transform. For storage, all you need to do is fold the branches up just like Christmas tree, remove the tree from the base and voila... stuff them into a tall slim box.

My mom gave me this 3 feet tall tree, three Chinese New Year ago. She had gotten it from her neighbour whom brought the trees from China. The following year we asked for more but neighbour said he no longer bringing them in. He said the quality no longer as good as his first batch. How sad!

So far, I have yet to see them on sale but MeiYen mentioned that they're available at Jusco 1 Utama and Malacca but they do not come cheap though at RM250! My mom paid about RM120 or was it RM160, I can't really remember. So head on there to get one if you fancy.

Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year + cherry blossom

Kiddy Craft: Chinese Lantern for CNY

Chinese New Year is approaching... to keep my boiboi occupied last weekend, I got him to make some lanterns using some old angpow (red) packets. He thoroughly enjoyed himself cos he loves to use the scissors since its a forbidden or rather controlled usage item. There was once recently I left him just for a short while to go to the kitchen to fetch something, my little terror ran in to tell me "Mummy, I cut your lights!!!"... he snipped the fairy lights into 2!!!! I know he was scared cos he had this worried look on his face. Luckily it's day time and the lights are not switched on!

I scolded him a bit when I went to check the damage. Anyway, later during breakfast, little terror turned angel when he uttered without any reminder or coaxing "Mummy, I'm sorry I cut your lights." with you know... the poor little puppy face?? Heart totally melted. Anyway, his daddy lectured him on the danger part when he came back in the evening but I wonder if he will ever remember! It's hard to get such messages across to boiboi cos he tends to be forgetful but when it comes to cars, toys, cartoons, games... wahliau... can remember every single details. Usually we'll let him have a taste of the danger of certain stuff we would want to instill in him (under supervision of course) but electric shock, how leh? Anyone have any tips to share?

Back to the lantern project, I'm gonna share it here for my friend just like what I did for the Boat craft.

First get some rectangular shaped angpow packets. Fold into half on the longer sides. Using pen and ruler, draw some lines across leaving a bit of gap (about half cm) at the edge (see pics below). Next get your kid to cut on those lines. Ensure kid does not cut all the way thru haha...

Next step, take the 2 corners diagonally to each other and place 1 corner on top of another. Then staple the corners together. You can hold the corner together and let your kid to staple them but they might not have enough strength.

Boiboi's lanterns on the left and mine on the right. Hahaha not very neat but hey, he did put in great effort there.

I asked him to hang on the fibre optic cherry blossom tree. He was very happy decorating the tree with his lanterns and he told me "When daddy come back, he's gonna love it". Sweet hor?

So what are you waiting for??? Get your kids, nieces, nephews, little cousins etc and start this lantern project. The return is priceless...

Garlic Fried Rice

LOL boo_licious gonna *tabik* me at this... another fried rice variation! This round my ingredients were loads of chopped garlic, onions, carrots and eggs.

Scrambled up the eggs in some oil first then dish up. Fry the onions till translucent in some oil before adding the chopped garlic. Once fragrant, stir in the carrots. Next add in day old rice and mix. Sprinkle soy sauce and black pepper all over and keep on stirring. Finally, pour in the scrambled eggs and mix well. Dish up.

Simple but delish!



Side note:

I was informed by boo_licious that I got listed in the 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia. KY and of course boo_licious are in this list together with me under the Food category. I'm just wondering how my blog could be influential, for KY and boo_licious are very understandable since they reviewed to many makan places but mine? Anyway, the method Gaman used is not totally fool proofed but nevertheless I would like to thank Gaman for spending time to actually go thru so many sites to sieve thru the rankings in Technorati. Congratulations to all whom got listed in the Top 50.

Technorati Tags: rice + malaysian food

Review: Curry Puffs at Ikea's

Can't resist to post this up after going thru the yummilicious looking curry puff at Team BSG's Devi's Corner. I know this is a very lame post and most of you would have tried these out at Ikea's Exit Cafe but then again the curry puffs are so addictive that you'll never get sick of them, in fact you'll return for more!

For RM1.00 a piece, it's really value for money to have a medium sized crispy hot puff filled with potato curry dotted with a smattering of chicken meat (if you're lucky) and a quarter piece of hard boiled egg. It's not overly spicy but it tasted really good.

They can only be found at the Exit Cafe after the checkout counters. If you're there on weekends, be prepared to wait in the long long queue. BTW, their hotdogs and soft served ice-cream are great too!

Sorry for the blurry pics cos I took them in the moving car. No choice lah... better get the pics before they all disappeared!

Technorati Tags: curry puff + malaysian food

Fish Fillet with Abalone Mushroom and Lotus Root

I saw this Fish Fillet with White Chestnut Mushroom recipe in Famous Cuisine magazine Issue 41 (Nov/Dec 2006). Since I can't find any White Chestnut Mushroom, I replaced with Abalone Mushroom instead. I've never tasted fish cooked this way and I find the taste very different from the usual fish dishes. The colour looked plain and greyish, not that appetising as compared with my dark or colourful dishes. The texture varies too from soft fish pieces and mushrooms to crunchy lotus roots. A huge change indeed but kinda refreshing.

Fish Fillet with White Chestnut Mushroom

Ingredients
350g white fish fillet/dory fish fillet (sliced)
100g local lotus root (thinly sliced)
1 box (100g) white chestnut mushroom
1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp XO sauce
1 stalk spring onion

Marinade
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp monosodium glutamate (I omitted this)
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp Shao Xing wine
1/2 tsp cornstarch

Sauce (mix well)
2 tsp abalone sauce
1/8 tsp pepper
1 tbsp Shao Xing wine
6 tbsp water

Method
Cut the stalk of the white chestnut mushrooms, rinse and tear out. Blanch into boiling water with the lotus roots together for a while. Remove and drain. Keep them aside.

Mix the fish slices with marinade until well combined. Marinate for about 15 minutes. Parboil into hot oil for a moment (I pan fried the fish instead). Dish out and ready to use.

Leave 2 tbsp oil in the preheat wok to fry the garlic till fragrant. Add in XO sauce, lotus roots and mushrooms. Stir fry briskly for a moment.

Add in fish slices and sauce mixture, bring to a boil, toss lightly, and cook until fish slices are cooked thoroughly. Lastly, thicken the sauce with a little cornstarch solution. Place in sectioned spring onions, stir well. Dish up and serve hot.

Ref: Famous Cuisine magazine Issue 41 (Nov/Dec 2006), page 8

Technorati Tag: fish + mushroom + lotus root + malaysian food