Review: Ipoh Mali Dai Bao and Dai Dai Lup Yue Tarn

**Non-Halal**

Ahahahaha sorry for the title, I'm feeling very sarky now since I'm off on Friday.

You see, sometime back, my SIL in Ipoh got us some dai bao (big bao) and one bagfull of yue tarn (fishballs). I'm not sure where the heck she got them in Ipoh but both the dai bao and yue tarn tasted darn good and they're huge (check them out next to a Chinese soup spoon)! The yue tarn taste and smell fresh even after a few days sitting in the fridge. Best of all it really contained fish meat instead of flour fillers and yet maintain its bounciness.



Those were how dai bao and yue tarn supposed to taste and look like originally. It's so hard to find dai bao that have proper filling of sliced pork, one piece of chicken, quartered hard boiled egg, reasonably sized chunks of turnips and a slice of char siu (BBQ pork) in one especially in Kuala Lumpur. Most of the time the dai bao would just have a lump of fatty minced meat inside with the egg and nothing else. This is not a dai bao!!!!







Can someone please tell me where to find a real dai bao in Kuala Lumpur or perhaps Klang Valley??? Thanks in advance.

As to where to find this in Ipoh, Jason or Paprika, any idea???


Technorati Tags: dim sum

Review: Restoran Cozy Corner at Ampang Park

Did you know that Ampang Park have a lot of wonderful gems inside? Touted the oldest shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, it's surprising that it's still abuzz with activities in here. Apart from the usual clothings, shoes, electrical, supermarket and so forth in here, hidden here is a shop selling and repair remote control (RC) cars which I used to visit with hubby and his RC enthusiast friend.

Inside the confusing tiers of shops, there are a lot of eating places. Aside from the super duper yummilicious roasted suckling pig at Sin Lok Restaurant, you can find lots of holes in the wall serving delicious goodies ranging from Chinese to Malay to Mamak fare. Other than these, we loved to visit Restoran Cozy Corner for they serve wonderful western and local cuisines, a place popular with the Malays since it's a halal joint. The Malays seems to be very fond of the Chinese noodles and dishes here which I feel one of the better halal place around town. Their sister over at GE Mall, Cosy House, is always crowded too but the food is not as good.

Cosy Corner is rather similar to The Ship except for the nautical theme. The menu for both western and local are very extensive.



I asked for a Sizzling Steak (RM30) which I think it's sirloin but I can't really remember. It came with a side salad of plain lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes topped with standard thousand island dressing; a bun; and the steak was accompanied by baked potato and tomato. Pretty standard fare there but the brown sauce was tasty and the meat was done just right as per my order of medium well.

Hubby's order of Bandung Fried Rice (RM8.50) is HUGE!!! Judging from the ingredients, it's rather value for money indeed. The rice is delicious accompanied by a medium sized piece of fried chicken, fried egg and papadums. There are lots of ingredients in the rice itself.



Service here is attentive and fast. Tasty food. Reasonabily priced. What more to ask for?


Restoran Cozy Corner
Lot 266-271, 1st Floor
Ampang Park Shopping Centre
Jalan Ampang
Tel: 603-2161 5649

Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Review: Beef Noodles at Lai Fong Restaurant

**Non-Halal**

I made a pit stop at Lai Fong for a late breakfast after visiting the clinic few weeks back for my cough. My standard order whenever I'm here would be the beef noodles. I simply love the clear broth that tasted so flavoursome with the addition of harm choy (pickled mustard cabbage) and chopped corriander. I usually drink them all up without having any qualms since it's not thirst inducing, an indication of no or very little MSG is used.



My usual order would be the soup based thick rice noodles (lai fun in Cantonese) with sliced meat and meat ball. The meat is sliced thinly and coated with marinade and some corn flour for a smooth and slippery finish. The meat balls are bouncy on the bite. Suffice to say I ate and drank everything up leaving an almost empty bowl! However, the only shortcoming is the chilli sauce. Somehow this type of blended chillies with calamansi lime doesn't seems to jive with the usual chilli sauce for beef noodles.



I've also tried a couple of times the long time stall that is now residing in Chinatown Food Court. Once was with Miss Sweet 16 where I had the dry version. I don't like the sauce used for the dry version. It's not helping when they do not serve fresh noodles. The soup was just ok with the usual meat and meat balls. Another time, I tried the soup version. Somehow it's just not as flavourful as Lai Fong or Soong Kee or Shin Kee. Moreover, I felt extremely thirsty after eating that bowl of noodles.

With that I think I've concluded posting up most of the beef noodles stalls/shops around Chinatown. Did I missed out any??


Lai Foong Restaurant
138, Jalan Tun HS Lee
Kuala Lumpur
Tel No: 603 - 2072 8123

Chinatown Food Court
Jalan Hang Lekir
(behind Hong Leong Bank)

Both stalls opens from morning till lunch time

Technorati Tags: beef noodles + Beef Ball noodles + malaysian food + petaling street

Review: Rojak Kader

Simon Seow left a comment in my fruit rojak in TTDI post stating that Taman Tun Dr Ismail seems to have all the best rojaks around. I have to agree with Simon on this. There is another mini van selling a very good pasembor/Indian style rojak. You can find Rojak Kader in the afternoon along Jalan Damansara, opposite Petronas/Shell/Lim Tayar (TTDI). Please turn left after the van and another left turn to park your car in the housing estate rather than park by the main road. It's rather dangerous and sometimes there are too many cars slowed down and park at the side caused slight congestion here.

I managed to dug out these old pictures of mine which I have neglected to post up. We have packed the rojak back home to eat. You can request to eat your rojak there underneath the yumyum trees as there are a couple of picnic tables with benches around the little strip of garden. They also serve cendol but it's not nice in my opinion. There is another stall nearby selling fresh coconut juice, just perfect to drench your thirst after the rojak.

On the left picture is how the rojak with sotong is packed. The peanuty sauce is packed separately. On the right, the rojak is plated with the sauce drizzled all over. Typical pasembor/Indian rojak will have strips of cucumber and turnips (sengkuang in Malay); hard boiled egg; deep fried beancurd; boiled potatoes; prawn fritters and hard fritters. The sauce is usually sweet potatoes based with loads of crushed peanuts.

The combination of ingredients and sauce at Rojak Kader melded together wonderfully forming a satisfying snack or even a full meal. I simply loved the hard fritters that somehow tasted coconutty to me. The thick peanut sauce is of the right blend of spices and taste. It's sweetish with a tinge of tang. The rojak with sotong is around the region of RM4.50 and without is RM3.50.


Rojak Kader
Jalan Damansara
Coordinates: 3°8'29"N 101°37'29"E

Donna Hay's Chocolate Tiramisu

I've gotten Donna Hay's Simple Essentials: Chocolate book which has loads of irresistable chocolate recipes in it. Some of them are repeats from her other cook books but who cares haha... as long as her recipe works. This Chocolate Tiramisu is one of them. Simply delish!!!

Chocolate Tiramisu

1/2 cup (single/pouring) cream
300g dark chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups (single/pouring) cream, extra
1 1/2 cups mascarpone cheese
2 tbsp coffee-flavoured liqueur
1/3 cup expresso coffee, cooled
12 store-bought sponge finger biscuits

Line a 32 x 7 x 8cm (12 ¾ x 2 ¾ x 3 ¼ in) bar tin with non-stick baking paper.

Place the cream and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until the chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool.

Whisk together the extra cream and mascarpone until light and fluffy.

In a separate bowl, combine the liqueur and coffee and quickly dip both sides of the biscuits in the mixture.

Pour 1/3 of the chocolate mixture into the tin and top with 1/3 of the cream and half the biscuits.
Top with another 1/3 of the cream followed by the remaining biscuits and cream. Pour over another 1/3 of the chocolate mixture and set the remaining 1/3 aside.

Cover the tiramisu with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 3 hours or until set.

To serve, warm the remaining chocolate mixture in a small saucepan over low heat.

Carefully invert the tiramisu and serve the warm chocolate separately.

Ref: Donna Hay, Donna Hay's Simple Essentials: Chocolate. Recipe can be found here too.

Luckily I have some extra and placed them in glasses cos my tiramisu refused to come out nicely in one block as shown in the book or you can view the block here. Had to scoop them out!


Technorati Tags: tiramisu + donna hay

Alternative Cough Remedies

Geee, I didn't know simple post like yesterday generated so many comments. Since cough was one of the subject matters, I'll try to compile my alternative ways to cure coughs here. As there are a few types of coughs, I'll try to note down which remedies are for which type of coughs BUT since I'm not an expert, all I could do is just based on what I learnt from other sources especially by word of mouth. Those that I didn't mention shows that I've no idea if it's for dry or wet/cold coughs. Most times I'll just try whatever that come my way as there is no definitive remedy to cure a cough since it varies from one person to another.

There are two ways to use Buddha's fruit (loh horn guo in Cantonese, you can find them in Chinese medicine halls). One is just wash and break up one fruit. Place them in a saucepan with 4 bowls of water. Boil in low heat till reduced to 1 bowl of water. Drink once everyday till cure. Alternatively, boil with more water for an hour or so and keep in a flask. Sip the warm drink thru out the day. The next one, is similar but add one piece of lean pork meat, also boil from 4 bowls reduced to 1 bowl.

Double-boiled orange juice

Double-boiled Pear with Chinese Almonds which actually worked for me that time.

Bird's Nest Soup which worked for me a couple of times for dry coughs but please don't choose those whitish coloured ones. Those have been bleached.

PabloPabla of HoChiak! had sent me a tip previously. He had suggested double-boiling fuji apple with rock sugar without any water. Hmm I have some fuji apple at home, maybe should try this tonight haha!

Audrey of Audrey Cooks have a remedy to reduce phelgm and another for itchy cough.

For night coughs, Yozora of Shifting Sand had posted one remedy which you don't even need to ingest to cure!

p.s.: Last night I didn't have to DIY hahaha cos hubby made me another round of the double-boiled orange juice BUT he gave me controlled portion!

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert and these are some of the remedies that I've tried myself and fellow bloggers. Should you try and anything untowards happened to you, please don't blame me LOL...

When Food Is Made With Love...

After suffering from dry cough for more than 3 weeks, there is no amount of cough medicine that can cure me now based on my track records. What made it worse is staying inside the aircon during office hours. It doesn't only irritates me, I guess irritates the hell outta hubby too and most prolly those colleagues sitting around me :p

Well either that or he's really concerned...

Last night he double-boiled some orange juice for me. I drank up the whole lot until my stomach bloated with them and I got scolding from him before I went to bed and this morning, again. He said he didn't expect me to finish the whole lot especially when I start to feel full hehehe... hmmm and I thought I must not waste something made outta so much love. Muahahaha... sighhh but instead... nevermind.

I felt a bit better now, coughing less. Perhaps another dose tonight will make it better. I think tonight I might have to DIY already and make extra to share some love around.

Easy peasy... squeeze orange juice. Next, sieve the juice into a double-boiler cause you won't want any sapsac or pulp (thanks FBB) inside. The sapsac or pulp will cause you to cough more, so make sure NO SAPSAC at all inside!!! You may add some rock sugar if you can't stomach sourish drinks. Alternatively is to add honey after double-boiling. Double-boil the juice for 30 mins but my colleague said it's best to double-boiled it for 4-6 hours! A bit madness there kekeke mmmm maybe can do it in a slow cooker. Drink whilst it's warm.



I think it's also my lucky day yesterday, I got half a loaf of Bread with Raisins and Almond Slivers from Yozora. Made full of love definitely cause she woke up at 2am just to remove the bread from the machine to cool it down, preventing the moisture trapped inside the machine which will cause the bread damp!!! Hubby and I have them for breakie this morning. Hubby had his with butter and kaya, he asked me to compliment the chef! I had one slice with peanut butter and another with butter. All tasted great!!!

Both hubby and Yozora definitely have collected some merits for these compassion acts for the day. Thank you so much. I feel very blessed *hugs*

Review: My Fave Fruit Rojak Stall in TTDI

Look out for this mini van along Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 1. It's usually parked in front of 7-11 (the road besides KFC).



This wonder mini van serves excellent fruit rojak and tauhu bakar (stuffed tofu)! We loved the rojak here simply because of the fragrant rojak sauce with the right amount of belacan in it. Mixed together with various sliced fruits like cucumber, turnip, young papaya, guava, raw mangoes, water apple (jambu air) and pineapple. Serving together were slices of deep fried yau char kwai (crullers) and topped with chopped roasted peanut plus a huge slice of crispy homemade keropok!!! We usually opt out the sotong as we think it doesn't compliment the simple fruits combination.



The combi is just great and irresistable each time we passed by Taman Tun Dr Ismail in the afternoon. Forgot how much but I think the usual portion is right about RM4.00.


Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Review: Sin Lok Restaurant

Updated 31 Aug 2010: Sin Lok Restaurant is closed for good as the next generation wasn't interested to take over the business.


**Non-Halal**



Sin Lok Restaurant is amongst the older generation of Chinese restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. It is located in Kuala Lumpur's first shopping complex - Ampang Park! One of our manager used to bring our client nearby Ampang Park to Sin Lok for lunch. If I'm around for meetings, I will get to go too hehehe... Their dishes are very much old school and by far I can vouch that they serve the best roasted suckling pig in town! I guess the reason being that they will only roast it before serving even during huge wedding banquet!

We were here last month celebrating the birthday of my dad and aunt. There were 14 of us and I decided to split us up into two tables of 7 each even though they could accommodate all 14 in one table. I refrained as it's quite hard to reach for the food since the table is going to be very big. I pre-ordered some dishes in advance and had to be careful with my choices as there were quite a number of old folks who have problems in eating tough food like meat.

For that I chose to have some marmite pork ribs for the young. This dish is really tasty, just right and not too salty. The ribs were of the tender part. I was surprised my boiboi loved this and ate two pieces! This dish was cleaned up very fast in our errmmm "younger" generation table.



Next came the vegetable dish of fu yue yau mak (stir-fried romaine lettuce in fermented/preserved bean curd). Enough wok hei (breath of the wok) and just the right amount of fu yue.



We have some buttered prawns which came crispy peppered with butter bits. Not only the prawns are large, they're very fresh too. Lovely!



Next we have foo yoong tarn (egg omelette) which is my uncle's favourite dish. When it came, I overheard the older folks table remarked it was his fave and that I've remembered. Sin Lok's version is surprisingly not overly oily and have lots of ingredients in the omelette. Lemme recall - char siu (BBQ meat), chopped prawns, spring onions, onions and errr not sure what else.



I've ordered an old school dish - diced chicken in yam ring. The yam ring was cut by the wait staff, I was too late to ask her not to do it, so now you can only see one "opened" ring. The yam ring is made from mashed yam mixed with tapioca flour, shaped into a ring and deep fried. The diced chicken is cooked with an assortment of vegetables of onions, capsicum, baby corn, carrots and cashew nut. This dish was quickly eaten up at our table.



The piece of resistance came finally! We only have half a piggy for each table since most of the older folks shun roasted suckling pig. Guess who untung (benefited) the most??? Heh... I tell you and I'm sure Yozora would vouch for this too - this is the most crispy and delicious suckling pig in town! Very reasonabily priced too - only RM120 per pig!



The last dish that came was a beancurd with angled loofa. By then we were already rather filled. However, the beancurds slowly disappeared from the plate as well. The beancurd they've used is homemade of the eggy kind which is very fragrant. They were braised with angled loofa until the angled loofa soften till you can slurp them up from your spoon.



Did not order any dessert as I've brought along these cupcakes to served as Birthday cake for my dad and aunt. It's their first time having so many cakes per se as their cake hahaha cos usually it's one whole cake. Even the wait staff can't help but to stand around to admire them. It's Strawberry White Chocolate Cupcakes, recipe will be posted later.

All the above dishes, plus nuts, tea and rice (not sure how many bowls) inclusive of taxes costed us RM475.20. Reasonable or not for two tables of 7?


Restaurant Sin Lok
3rd Floor Ampang Park
Jalan Ampang
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603-21614664

Copyright - who cares? The Star doesn't!!!

Updated on 17 April 2008 10:54 AM

I thank Mr Jeswant Singh, the Editor (Multimedia) from The Star, for his swift reply and sincere apology over this matter. He has made a formal request to use the picture, which I've conditionally agreed. I am satisfied that they have taken the appropriate action and appreciate their candour in dealing with this matter in such a quick manner.


----------------------------------------
Updated at 16:18 PM

(Click on the pictures for a bigger and clearer image.)

At 14:39 pm I captured this when the video is still on Page 5...



And at 15:13 pm pablopabla left a comment stating that the video has been removed and I've captured this screen at 15:35 pm...



Earlier, I merely posted asking for advice but now after they've removed the video, I'm annoyed. Since they're aware of their mistake, up till now I have not hear from anyone from The Star.

Being the mainstream media of Malaysian, I'm outraged how The Star could plagiarize my work without giving credit to me!

This is in spite of the fact that the source where the picture was taken has explicitly made known that all works which is to be used requires the party to give credit to the authors. Moreover, they are not allowed to use my work for commercial purposes. (See the first picture above, they're selling links on their site!).

This is utter breach of ethics in journalism by a mainstream media like The Star when the Govt is encouraging CSR practices and the industry players are moving towards CSR. Unfortunately, The Star choses to polarised themselves! This is a clear action where it is totally divorced from the words!


-----------------------------------

What would you do when this happened???

This is my photo on my Flickr album...



The same photo appeared in the 11.21 mins of the video Snacks for the Sikh New Year in http://thestaronline.tv/.



Check the credits...



I've applied Creative Commons Attribute-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic for my photo.

Review: Restaurant Wong Fook Kee

On the day I posted up the Harm Choy Tong (Pickled Mustard Cabbage Soup), I was secretly hoping for a bowl to warm me up on that super cold afternoon (it was raining heavily that day). Sighhh but have to wait for weekend before I could cook another pot. Fate would have it when we decided to drop by Restaurant Wong Fook Kee at Tengkat Tong Shin. Whilst ordering, they ask if we wanted any soup, hubby asked what kinda soup. When the words "harm choy ngarp" (pickled mustard cabagge and duck soup) came up, hubby quickly said yes... hahaha he's a soup lover. Later I confessed to him that I was hoping for some that afternoon and he burst out laughing.

The soup came and we both happily slurping away. Certainly warm us up! I was glad this is the boiled soup and not quick-boiled type. This one have enough "fire" (meaning have boiled for long hours). This soup has duck meat, pickled mustard cabagge, tomatoes and sour plum inside, which is quite typical Nyonya style.



Wong Fook Kee's specialty is actually their claypot mutton but we did not order any since hubby don't really fancy mutton, instead I asked for their Harm Yue Far Larm Poe which is claypot pork belly with salted fish. Sighhh I forgot to ask them to add more salted fish cause it lack of the salted fish taste. Otherwise the pork belly is quite tasty.



I asked for the 4 Heavenly King vegetable dish, known so by cooking 4 types of vegetables usually a combination of any of these four angled beans, brinjal, french beans, petai, or ladies fingers in sambal belacan. This dish is only okay but I'm not complaining since it has my fave petai inside hehe.



The dishes and one bowl of normal sized rice plus one bowl of small rice costed RM25.70 without any drinks. As far as I remember, Restaurant Wong Fook Kee has been around for ages serving Chinese dishes for lunch and dinner. They serve "homey" kinda dishes. Give them a try!


Restaurant Wong Fook Kee
43 Tengkat Tong Shin
50200 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603-21412865

Technorati Tags: malaysian food + tengkat tong shin

Review: Restaurant Hung Kee

**Non-Halal**

One evening I wanted to eat wantan mee but it's hard to find good wantan mee at that hour. I know most will ended up at the Sungai Besi wantan mee but seriously their quality seems to have really gone down the drain that I won't grade it as wantan mee anymore. Suddenly I recalled Restaurant Hung Kee is opened at night now but not sure if they serve wantan mee cause they also serves dai chow (stir fry) dishes and noodles. So hubby suggested we take a gamble.

Boy as I walked in the place, I was really glad to see char siu (bbq pork), siew yuk (roasted pork) and roast chicken hanging on the hooks. Loads of fresh noodles on the display too... wooohoooo very the happy hehe...

Since this place have always been labelled as "cut throat" place, we're more cautious in our order these days. The trick is NEVER order the meat in platters! It's best to stick to individual portion. There was once, we both paid more than RM25 for our platter of char siu, siew yuk and roast duck and 2 plain wantan mee!!!!

This round we ordered 2 plates of char siu wantan mee since they've ran out of siew yuk!!! So fast finish even though we saw some when we walked in. We also have 4 pieces of sui kow (dumplings).

The sui kow came first and it's filled with minced meat and prawns and have strips of black fungus (moke yue) which lend a crunchy bite to it.

This was how the dry version of wantan mee with char siu looked like. I loved the QQ (bouncy and crunchy) noodles and the sauce is just the taste as I would have expected out of a wantan mee. However was a tad disappointed with the char siu. They've cut it soooo thick which render them a bit tough especially they've given me the lean meat. Sighhh... but I'm not complaining, especially when the wantan (meat dumpling) is soooo plump with meat!!! Not only that, the bowl had SIX wantans inside!!!!! It's sooo hard to find plump wantan let alone they gave 6 each instead of the usual which can range from 2 to 4 pieces.

We walked out satisfied having to pay only RM13.50 for 2 plates of wantan mee (small), 4 pieces of sui kow and a glass of Chinese tea. Heh... so don't say I didn't impart the tip of ordering single portion ok ;-)


Restaurant Hung Kee
28-5 and 28-6, Jalan Loke Yew
Pudu, Kuala Lumpur

Check out EatinOut for the map.


Technorati Tags: malaysian food + wantan mee