Mezze @ Medan Damansara
... but I'm not sure exactly when I'll be back.
My sister-in-law (hubby's sister) passed away peacefully yesterday at 3pm (NZ) in Wellington Hospital after a short illness.
I guess I'll only be blogging when things are settled down later on. Thanks in advance for all the condolences, wishes and support in this difficult period.
Errrmmm this post for my own reference, in case I forget how to get this soup done properly.
This is a recipe given by my masseur after my unfortunate incident. He said my inner body was cold, hence need something to fix it back.
His recipe was to boil 4 bowls of water with half a head of sliced dong quai (angelica) which is about RM5 for an hour on low fire. Then add in half of a small kampung chicken (not the choy yin kai but the malai kai variety) with skin and all. Boil for another 20 mins. Drink whilst hot, eat up the chicken if you like. According to him, it'll have 1 bowl of soup. He said the water can be adjusted based on how much soup I would like to have.
Based on my own experience, using my vision ware pot, I need to about 5 bowls of water on low heat (my stove is rather hot though even on low). By the end of 1 hour, I would have about 2 bowls of soup left. After another 20 mins with the chicken, I would have only 3/4 bowl soup. I also used skinned chicken cos I can't stand fatty soup :p
There... safely filed here :D
Another discovery in Kepong after we received those advertisement booklet on this place. Step 8 is a cross between a cafe and a kopitiam specialising in Alor Star goodies. Since we have never been to Alor Star for food excursion, we ordered based on the photo menu, very clever of them as this is great for bananas like me.
There were sets available for a certain items. Since it was breakfast, the noodles/rice set came with unlimited refills of drinks which they've set up at a corner of the shop. You'll have to help yourself to the drinks. There were choices of coffee bags/powders (from white to vanilla coffee); English teabags and Chinese teabags. Sugar, condensed milk, cups and hot water are available to your heart's content! Brilliant idea especially when they were really having a shortage of staff! Ala carte unlimited refills were only at RM2.00.
My mom had nasi lemak rendang ayam set at RM6.90 which consist of the rice, rojak, a bowl of soup and herbal drink for lunch but since it was breakfast, we were offered a drink instead and the rojak was no where to be seen. I think it went to the next table... a very tiny portion. I took a few bites and the rendang chicken was yummy. The meat is tender and infused with rendang flavour but the sambal wasn't good.
My dad and I ordered the Step 8 - Lorong Sharif Assam Laksa (RM4.80 per set). Took them a long time before serving us these. It look watery and I find it funny to have hard boiled egg in there. Tasted awfully diluted with not much assam taste... the broth is clear and there isn't much fish in there. Very different from the assam laksa that I've tasted in my entire life. Is this how the real maccoy is like at Lorong Sharif, Alor Star???
They've missed out my boiboi's cheese and egg toast (RM2.90). I've to remind them twice and it only came after we have finshed our laksa!!! So, no pics there cos the poor fella waited so long for his food.
Other than these, they have Jalan Putra Otak-otak, Sg Korok Popiah, Tai Kuan Har Mee, Telok Wanjah Yee Mee, Jalan Alor Loh Mee, Kayu Tom Yam Mee etc... so the good people of Alor Star, please tell me these names are real and those items are famous in Alor Star??
As we ate the place gotten very crowded and I can bet that everyone was there because of the booklet they received the day before :p urrmm just like us. Service was extremely slow cos there was only one person taking order and payments. He also have to run around prepare food. One foreign waiter serving the food from the kitchen plus clearing up tables. Maybe 3 people inside the kitchen preparing the food. This is not even fullhouse yet. I can't imagine what it is like during lunch when the office crowd come in full swing. Major teething problem here and I hope they do address this issue ASAP.
Restoran Step 8
68 Jalan Metro Perdana Barat 2
Taman Usahawan
Kepong Utara
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 6013-8966 888
(opposite Tupperware)
Opening hours : 8am - 8pm
Click here for map.
Technorati Tags: 
malaysian food
Just the usual fried rice of eggs, chicken breast meat, mixed frozen vege and French beans with the exception of the usage of mixed grains rice of brown rice, red rice, millet, flax seeds and errr another type of grain which I can't remember its name.
We have been eating various types of mixed grains rice ranging from 5 grains to 10 grains but these days I mix and match my own grains. These kinda rice attract weevils and bugs easily so best to store them in the fridge.
Technorati Tags: 
fried rice
**Non-Halal**
Just a quickie here today as I'm terribily busy with work. Updates will be sporadic.
My parents took me here one evening during the Raya holidays, whilst the Muslims balik kampung to celebrate, I actually balik kampung too for that week hehehe... a great change indeed as there are so many new eating places mushrooming in Kepong.
My mom thot this place is the same as her friend's Ah Peng place (Restoran Kin Kin) as she saw the Batu Road on the signage, little does she knew that this place was operating opposite Kin Kin in Jalan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman 1. As I browse thru the menu, I knew it's not a branch of Kin Kin. This place have a few types of pan meen other than the dry style. Dad had curry version which the soup is rich and laden with steamed chicken, brinjal, long beans and tofu puff. Don't think got blood cockles though.
Mom and I have the dry style pan meen that came with minced meat, crunchy deep fried anchovies (ikan bilis), a few slices shitake mushroom and a poached egg (RM6.00). The bottle of chilli flakes are right there on the table, all yours for as much as you like to spoon onto your noodles. Whilst I like the al dente noodles texture but the chilli flakes lacked of that fiery oommphh. I spooned in at least 4 heapful but still lacked that zing unlike Kin Kin where I need to exercise caution. It's not pleasant to have a stomach on fire the whole afternoon heh.
I've made a "purple" one aeons ago :p
This time it's a brownish version cos I've used gula melaka (palm sugar) instead which tasted extra fragrant. Recipe can be found at Kuali.
Technorati Tags: malaysian food + 
bubur cha cha
My congratulations to the Foodbuzz team for their launch of Foodbuzz Publisher Community today.
Foodbuzz Inc., officially inaugurates its food blogger community with more than 1,000 blog partners, a global food blogging event and an online platform that captures the real-people, real-time power of food publishing in every corner of the world. Currently, the Foodbuzz community ranks as one of the top-10 Internet destinations for food and dining (Quantcast), with bloggers based in 45 countries and 863 cities serving up daily food content.
Foodbuzz is the only online community with content created exclusively by food bloggers and rated by foodies. The site offers more than 20,000 pieces of new food and dining content weekly, including recipes, photos, blog posts, videos and restaurant reviews. Members decide the “tastiness” of each piece of content by voting and “buzz” the most popular posts to the top of the daily menu of submissions. Foodbuzz currently logs over 13 million monthly page views and over three million monthly unique visitors.
Babe in the City - KL is a featured publisher of the Foodbuzz blogger community since February and I've gain tremendous benefit from this community and not to mention Foodbuzz itself for sending me lovely MOO minicards, cloth bag and my own Babe in the City - KL badge!!!
Send me an email if you wish to join me and the rest of the food bloggers in the fantabulous Foodbuzz network. Otherwise, goto Foodbuzz to check out the site or sign up for a free membership to buzz with the rest of the Foodbuzz community.
Come join the buzz and spread the buzz!!!
Updated 29 October 2008 4:17pm
Based on Earn Pin's comment, I need to remove the banner as according to Pin, it's under the instruction of Terry Fox Run Canada.
Funny eh?? Won't they want the public to help them publicise the event for FOC???
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This year, Terry Fox Run KL will be held on 2 November 2008, flagging off at 9.00am at Lake Gardens (Taman Tasik Perdana).
Please note that participants are to be at the assembly area by 8.45 am. All participants must run on the designated route. There are 2 routes, 5 km for adults and 3.5km for the family run.
To participate, all you need to do is to purchase a limited edition Terry Fox 2008 t-shirt at RM25.00.
You can get your t-shirt here:
1) Ms Chan Siew Wan / Ms Lee Siew Bee at the Canadian High Commission, 17th Floor, Menara Tan & Tan, Jln Tun Razak (6th October onwards)
2) Ms Yoon / Mr Peter Kang at the Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF), 2nd Floor, Outpatient Centre, Subang Jaya Medical Centre (6th October onwards)
3) Ms Tila at the Foyer, Ground Floor, Menara Citibank, Jalan Ampang (12.00 to 2.00pm, 20th October until 24th October)
4) At the Lake Garden on Run Day (2nd November 2008)
For your easy reference, here are the sizes available. Measurement indicated is the chest size across the front.
Children - Size 2 (12 in) , Size 4 (14 in) , Size 3XS (16in), Size 2XS (17 in), Size XS (18 in)
Adult - Size S (19 in), Size M (20in), Size L (21 in), Size XL (22 in), Size 2XL (23 in), Size 3XL (24in)
If you have any question, please send your email to organizer@terryfoxrunkl.org.
The information above is extracted from 1.com.my.
The Terry Fox Run is an annual non-competitive charity event held in numerous regions across the globe in commemoration of Canadian cancer activist Terry Fox, and his Marathon of Hope, and to raise money for cancer research.
The run itself is informal which means that the distance often varies, usually between 5 and 15 kilometres; participation is considered to be more important than completing the set distance.
Unlike other major fund raising events, the Terry Fox Run has no corporate sponsorship. This is in accordance with Terry Fox's original wishes of not seeking fame or fortune from his
endeavour.
Excerpt from Wikipedia
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.
While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.
He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.
After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.
It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.
However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22.
The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.
To date, more than $400 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.
Excerpt from Terry Fox Foundation official website.
Updated 20 September 2009: This place is closed. Owner opened a corner coffee shop with same name round the corner which is next to Friends Cafe.
**Non-Halal**
I tell you, Kepong seems to be packed with eateries now. Errrmmm what I meant was the "new" Kepong area around Carrefour and Jusco where there were a surge of developments. I told my mom that if they were to try one outlet a day, I doubt they can cover them all in a year's time hehehe...
This place was discovered last weekend whilst looking for a place for breakie. I remember patronising Michel Cafe when they were located many years ago in Desa Business Complex. We loved their nasi lemak but never been back since they sifted. Seems like they are now operating along Jalan Metro Perdana 3 (same row as the Hong Kong Dessert place) with not one eatery BUT three at different shoplots!!! There's the cafe, then a place that sells mixed rice which looked like a cafe instead of kopitiam and lastly this Restoran Mi Chel Yong Tau Foo towards the end of the road.
I shared with my boiboi this bowl of kon lou hor fun (flat rice noodles dry style RM4.00) that came with a bowl of parang fishballs. I liked the slippery smooth hor fun and the soy sauce concoction was nice. My boiboi asked for more so I literally had about 1/3 bowl of it only, sighhh... The fishballs are not of the bouncy kind which is good as it doesn't contain borax. They're fresh with a bite to them. The clear broth was tasty and I didn't have the MSG after effect that morning.
malaysian food + 
yong tau foo
If you happen to come by from The Sunday Star, welcome to Babe in the City - KL. The compiler missed out the KL part. My Good Old Days Restaurant post came out yesterday in Sunday Metro. A bit of shock cos I usually don't buy Sunday Star but not sure why I bought a copy yesterday. I read the main section in the morning but missed out this portion. Only to read it in the afternoon. I thought they would never wanna feature me anymore since I made a fuss recently hahaha... anyway I wish the compiler who took over from the previous person could inform the food bloggers ahead when they c&p their posts.
Funny thing is the newsprint copy seems to be different from the online version. The printed version mentioned that Good Old Days Restaurant serves cupcakes which is totally incorrect. The photo was even featured. The cupcakes were made by Yozora's friend!!! Wonder why they feature the cupcake when it's nothing to do with the restaurant. It's just doesn't jive isn't it, an old style Chinese eatery serving cupcakes? hahaha... The online version however seems to be different though.
Whatever it is, for new visitors, welcome and enjoy your stay here.
Let's begin by me telling Skinny Mum and Family First thank you so much. Skinny Mum said my blog converted her family to love mooncakes and the simple recipes suited her new found interest - cooking. Family First gave Babe in the City - KL an award for being one of the coolest blog in her list. *sobs* I sincerely thank you both for these... reading two mentions in one morning could be a little overwhelming heh :p
Apologies to Family First, Nigel and Ciki for not participating and continuing with your meme/tag/award. I've mentioned sometime back that I'm not very fond of these, and at one point it was hard but I managed that very emo one. So thanks but no thanks.
Back to today's post... I just improvised on my Marbled Cake recipe and came out with this one, Orange Marbled Cake. Just need to substitute the milk with orange juice. On top of that, grated zest of an orange. The orange smell and taste was unbelievable. I was glad it made somebody's kid happy :p that day.
Please excuse for the look of the cake. The crack was caused by putting too much batter into the loaf pan. I've read that to prevent that, you'll need to fill the pan half-way through and not any more.
Do soak the orange in hot water for a while to remove the wax off its skin. Errr for double security reason, I tend to give it a brush as well haha. Wash off with more hot water and wipe dry before zesting. I do this with my lemons too.
Technorati Tag: marble cake
Updated 20 September 2009: Sad to say they no longer serve the porridge due to short of hands but they still have yummy claypot noodles and seafood noodles.
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**Non-Halal**
We were informed by Fatty Sang that they now operate a porridge stall during the day. We popped by here for a porridge breakie during the holidays. Looking at the stall, you can see (well if you're not a banana) they have all sorts of porridges ranging from pork to fish.
Fatty Sang (Fei Tzai Sang - yeah he's da boss and a real person) was there and he highly recommended the Pumpkin with Fish Slices Porridge (RM5.00 for a one-size-only bowl) which I tried. I liked this a lot cos I loved pumpkin heh :p... but somehow pumpkin cooked in porridge doesn't tasted sweet so I guess for people who hates sweet savoury dish, this porridge should go easy with them. There were generous lot of thickish slices of fish (sang yue I presumed). Fish and pumpkin... gosh they did married well in there.
During my last trip to Penang, I managed to try the Tee Nya Kuih and I simply loved it. I posted asking if anyone have the recipe and FooDcrazEE gave me one which lead me to Amy Beh's recipe on Kuali.
I finally got all the ingredients needed except for borax which I've no idea where to get it nor I would like to have it in my homemade stuff. Made the kuih BUT it turned out... well see for yourself!!!
Compared with these...
Kan Sui Koe (Alkaline Kuih With Palm Syrup Dipping Sauce)
Ingredients
300g rice flour
50g green bean flour (lek tau hoon or lok tau fun)
400ml water
1/4 tsp borax (pangsar)
3 tsp alkaline water (kan sui)
Mix together:
800ml water
Tinge of yellow colouring
For palm sugar syrup:
150g palm sugar (gula Melaka)
50g castor sugar
50ml water
2 pandan leaves - knot
200ml thin coconut milk
50ml thick coconut milk
Method
Mix rice flour, green bean flour and water in a mixing bowl. Add borax and alkaline water and blend well to form a batter. Rest the batter for 10 to 15 minutes before straining.
Bring coloured water to a boil in a heavy-based saucepan. Remove saucepan from heat. Stir in batter and mix briskly with a wooden spoon until mixture turns thick and gooey.
Pour batter into a lightly greased 19cm square tin. Steam over rapid boiling water for 20 minutes, then turn the heat to medium-low and steam for another 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove kuih from the steamer. Leave aside to cool completely in the tin. Turn out kuih and cut into chunky pieces. Chill well before serving with palm sugar syrup.
To make palm sugar syrup: Place sugar, palm sugar, pandan leaves and water in a small saucepan. Add thin coconut milk and bring to a low boil. Simmer sauce until sugars dissolve completely. Strain, then add thick coconut milk. Continue to simmer until sauce turns syrupy and thick. Cool.
Ref: Amy Beh's recipe at Kuali, The Star Online
malaysian food + 
penang food
**Non-Halal**
My parents took us here to Ban Kee as they were raving about the yong tau foo (stuffed beancurd and vegetables), assam fish and lala (clams). I've no idea how to get to this place as my dad took the MRR2 towards Batu Caves from Kepong and turn right somewhere which lead us thru some part of Sentul and the next I saw an uncompleted highway which I suspected will lead to Segambut or thereabout. Then we reached this place by the roadside. Dad said it should be 5th mile of Jalan Gombak. We went back via Setapak though and I noticed this Ban Kee is located near a mosque (Masjid Saad Abi Waqqas Coordinates: 3°12'4"N 101°42'8"E) and further down is SMK Chong Hwa Setapak (Coordinates: 3°11'57"N 101°42'18"E). There are a lot of furniture shops along this road too.
When my mom saw the lone lighted signage along the road (the only sign that will lead you to here), she claimed it's the Campbell Road Ban Kee... errr I've no idea but my parents used to stay around that area. Must be one of the stalls before they got demolished ages ago.
malaysian food
Here's another variation of the Chunky Chicken and Potato Pie. This time the filling, I've chicken, yellow zuchinni, green peas, carrots and broccoli.
The testament of its deliciousness... my boiboi finished 3/4 of this single serving portion :D YAY!!!
Technorati Tags: 
pie
Sila jemput makan at 
