Hawker Stalls Around Changkat Ceylon, Lorong Ceylon and Jalan Mesui

Come lunch time, Changkat Ceylon, Lorong Ceylon and Jalan Mesui will be abuzz with activities. It is very popular amongst the office workers around this area to have their lunch at the hawkers at these stretches. I used to come here very often when my office was nearer. These days I will only come here once in a long while due to the distance.

There are a lot of good stuff around here ranging from the mixed rice stall located within a Chinese temple along Changkat Ceylon (that leads to Wisma MPL's carpark) which sells vegetarian dishes on the 1st and 15th of the lunar calendar. No doubt the dishes are very tasty but it's super duper expensive, hence we will shun this place as much as we can as sometimes the price can be very ridiculous. Right outside this stall, there is a row of hawker stalls. The first one is a mamak which does quite an ok mee goreng.

Next to this mamak is a Chinese noodle stalls offering wantan noodles, pan meen etc and on Fridays, they serve this bowl of prawn mee...

Looks good eh??? Lots of huge prawns (I think 5 pieces) topped the noodles that came with generous amount of kangkung that I liked. They don't have pork slices nor ribs (unlike the one behind Yut Kee) though which I don't mind. The broth is quite all right but of course can't beat the ultimate one at Jalan San Peng. This bowl cost RM5.00 and only avaible on Fridays. One tip on eating at this stall... you should only come here when it's not crowded and almost every table have been served. Otherwise it will be a long wait before your noodles arrive. It's not pleasant sitting underneath the hot zinc roof.

I had that bowl of noodles last Friday, came teatime, I devoured this yummy banana walnut cupcake. Thank you Yozora. Am so shy now cos my cupcakes are really lacking in presentation. Look at hers... nicely crowned with walnuts!

Okie back to the hawkers haha... The scenario at the next stall is right about the same. They serve curry laksa, fish paste noodles and so forth. The wait is as long and pretty chaotic with their orders.

Next, along Lorong Ceylon opposite Menara PMI, you'll noticed its rather smokey cause this Malay mixed rice stall specialises in ikan bakar (bbq fish). You can find lots of fish choices here ie. kembung, keli, pari, cencaru etc etc. They're all well marinated and go well with the air assam (tamarind juice with chopped onions and cili padi) or the sambal. Other than ikan bakar, I loved the Malay dishes here too. Prices of fish will go according to the market price. This plate below of one huge cencaru, some soybean sprouts and half portion of rice plus a glass of iced lime juice costed RM6.50 but thanks to JT for paying my lunch that day.

Behind this stall, is a carpark which housed my favourite Indian stall under the yumyum tree. The Indian style of food here is more like homecooked food according to my Indian colleagues. I hardly see such dishes at other Indian stalls or restaurants. I loved the deepfried tenggiri slices topped with the special minced cili padi concoction (looked spicy but not all the time tasted hot), flaked kembung fried in onions and grated coconut with green chillies (I'm drooling now), tofu cooked in sweetish sourish tomato sauce, the various stir-fried vegetables that I can't name but some of them have dhal and grated coconuts in them and they don't cook the vege until they turned yellow. I spied Yasmin Ahmad here once having lunch with her colleagues. Be early though as the food tend to finishes by 1.15pm. BTW, the sister's stall is located at the open air food court in Menara Boustead Parking Annex. All the cooking is done here before sending over to the stall.

Next to the ikan bakar stall, there is an uncle selling tau foo far (soybean curd) and tau cheong sui (soybean milk). This uncle serves a wicked cold soybean milk with gula melaka syrup. I've done the warm version but it just doesn't kick.

Along Jalan Mesui, housed the famous No Black Tie, Palate Palette (which used to be Doodee that is now operating as The Elephant at Happy Mansion, Petaling Jaya) and Lightworks. Other than these funky places, you can find a "nothing to shout about" chicken rice stall; futher down towards Palate Palette... a couple of aunties selling Chinese mixed rice that I really liked cos the food really tasted homecooked and the variety of dishes changes along the week. I hardly visit these days cos by the time I walk here, the dishes would have all long gone! 2 doors away is the shoplot that sells yue wart meen (fish paste noodles) or pork noodles. If not for the difficulty to grab a seat and stuffiness, I don't mind eating here. There is a wantan mee stall here as well but I've never tried them out. If not mistaken there is a vegetarian mixed rice stall in the very same shop.

So that concludes my walkabout of hawkers in this area. Anyone game to join me for lunch?


Technorati tags: malaysian food

The Last Song For The Year

**Non-Halal**

Today is Yuanxiao (in Mandarin, Yuan literarily means "First" while Xiao refers to "night") Festival, more popularily known as Chap Goh Mei (in Hokkien). This is the last day the lunar new year is celebrated, the song I meant here is Yee Sang (raw fish in Cantonese) haha cos we'll need to wait for another year before we can savour this delicacy again. Errrr but in my case, this may not be my last cos I'm having a dinner tonight :p

Earlier, I had lunch with Mr Chairman and the Evil Cow at Restoran Hong Ngek which we visit once in a while. How irony my first review on Hong Ngek was round about Chinese New Year too and with the same few people as well!

Luckily Mr Chairman called earlier to book a table else we would be left stranded without one as the place is packed to the brim. Again, we ordered half portion of yee sang even though there are 3 of us! Ahem, we did finished them all actually. So far this is one of the better place for yee sang... so many slices of fish and the balance of sauce and ingredients were just right.

Mr Chairman ordered a pork ribs dish... which is succulent, tender and flavourful. Each of us have one piece and I would say they are generous in size. There is a slight spicy taste on the caramalised marinade that clinged on the ribs. Absolutely fingers licking good!

Next, we have a dish that have a little vegetables, a little seafood, and a little tofu. A perfect dish of a little of everything for the 3 of us. I'm not sure what's the name of this dish but it's one of those CNY dish lah that have fish maw, dried oyster, clams, black mushroom, dao bao (made of soy bean sheets), fatt choy (black moss), Chinese cabbage and broccoli. The slight starchy gravy is sooo tasty that I flooded my rice with them.

The lunch with 2 bowls of rice and tea for all costed around RM67. I took a peep when Mr Chairman was paying. Thank you Mr Chairman for the lovely lunch.


Restoran Hong Ngek
50 Jalan Tun H.S. Lee (aka Jalan Bandar)
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 603-20787852.
Opening hours: 10.30am-7.00pm (5pm on Saturdays). Closed on Sundays and public holidays.


Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year + yee sang

Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

Yeah, I know, it sounded weird... Chicken in Milk but this is Jamie Oliver we're talking about heh. Had wanted to tried this recipe from Happy Days With The Naked Chef for ages cos sometimes I do like to challenge myself with weird stuff at the expense of my home test bunnies (my poor boiboi and hubby hehe).

I got some chicken thighs meant for roasting but kinda bored with the same old butter, rosemary and lemon routine. Since I have four thighs, I made two by stuffing butter, rosemary and lemon slices underneath the skin, well just to be save in case my Test Bunny Jr have nothing for dinner. Placed them over some pumpkin and roasted in the oven.

Next, roughly following Jamie's recipe... and this was the outcome...

With the recipe from the same book, made a simple salad of cucumber and carrot ribbons done by using a peeler dressed with soy sauce, apple cider vinegar and fresh ginger strips to go with the roasts.

Verdicts: Test Bunny Jr and I loved the weird combi of chicken and milk. I think I've poured in too much milk hence you can see lots of "gravy" swimming in the tray, plus it was low-fat milk so it did not have that creamy looking gravy as seen in the book. Test Bunny Jr asked for seconds with loads of milky gravy poured over. Actually me and him were practically drinking away the fragrant gravy.

Test Bunny Sr was curious why one tray has so much gravy and the other had none. He asked me what's inside the gravy. The moment I mentioned milk, his mind went on a shutdown mode. He gave me THE look... nehhh that "OMG this woman I had married had gone NUTS" look. Hehe he's more of a conventional guy, preferred to stick to normal things, so he only liked the usual roast (sooo boring!). However, he did give me a bit of face by trying some.

In the end, I asked both test bunnies to point out which one they liked best... the senior one pointed at the boring roast whilst the junior one needless to say aimed his finger at the milky one! Atta boy!!!


Technorati Tags: roast chicken + Jamie Oliver

Review: CNY Set Dinner at Fatty Sang Restaurant

This year Fatty Sang has set dinner planned for Chinese New Year. My mother decided to book the RM398 set, the most expensive set available as the boss said this is the most value for money set. Anyway, yeah it's cheap cos this is a no frill, no aircon nor any specific wait staff assigned to your table heh!

To cut all the craps, let's get on to the food. First up is of course the yue sang. The salmon fish slices was in an almost frozen state but the overall mixture is quite all right.

The second course is a 5 varieties platter. The deep fried stuff were nice but a bit salty for us since we're more used to blander food.

Next up was the sharks fin soup. I know it's not environmentally friendly but I doubt these are the real thing. I liked this soup cos it's not starchy at all and has loads of shredded dried scallops. The soup alone is flavourful enough that I did not need to add in any black vinegar or pickled green chillies.

Then we were served this fish, not sure of the name but in Cantonese it's 7 sing parn (7 star). It's just steamed plainly with soy sauce which is a good thing as it doesn't mask the sweetness of the flesh.

We have a plate of prawns in 2 styles, one tasted like marmite but mom said it's soy sauce. The other one has mayo on them. I prefered the soy sauce one.

Next came this dish that have abalone slices and sea cucumber. Errr the dish was massacred before the turntable reached my side. Since I don't like sea cucumber, I reserved my comments for this dish. Judging from the speed of it disappearing, I guess it must have been delish.

We were served the customary vegetarian dish that looked extremely hairy awful hahaha... underneath the pile of black moss (fatt choy) were glutens, beancurd sheets (dao bao) and vegetables. The serving is actually quite huge cos by this dish, everyone slowed down.

We were so stuffed by time the glutinous rice steamed in lotus leaf arrived. I just took one bite and the rice is too soft to taste the "Q"ness. Flavour is ok but not much ingredient in there I think but then I did not dig in.

The dinner ended with a bowl of chilled herbal sweet soup that have dried longan, and honey sea coconut other than herbs. Since my parents were regular there, we were given a plate of complimentary agar-agar. Sorry, no pictures for both as my boiboi took my digicam and fooled around with it.

The food is generally ok but I prefered their ala carte instead as the set have some hits and misses but one can't please everyone yeah?

If you can read Chinese, click the CNY menus to enlarge:

Fatty Sang Restaurant
30 Tingkat Bawah, Jalan Ambong Dua
Kepong Baru
Tel: 012-361 5605 / 012-205 5116
Click here for map.


Technorati Tags: malaysian food + Yee Sang

Today's Lunch

Oh thank you, thank you, my saviour for adding something delish to my otherwise boring lunch that only a horse would eat! Yozora gave me 4 slices of yam cake (woo tau koh) this morning and I heated it up for lunch. Had wanted to save 2 slices for hubby but the yam cake is sooo nice that I gobbled up everything hehehe. After eating such delicious yam cake, I chewed on my horse food... sighhhh. What a huge difference!!!

The delish yam cake...

versus my horse food of vege, french beans, carrots, tomatoes, slices of mandarin oranges, nuts and eggs drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar...

My jaw is still aching from all that chewing :-(

Chinese New Year Goodies

I just got hit by the lazy bug!!! So today only showing some Chinese New Year goodies. With the exception of the chocolate chip cookies, the rest were given to me by friends and relatives. Did you see those carrots??? They're another form of pineapple tarts made by my friend!!! Clever huh? The stems are dyed almond nibs.

Technorati Tags: chinese new year + malaysian food

Low-Fat Carrot and Nut Cupcakes

Something sweet for today... a very moist and fluffy carrot and nut cupcakes which have mash bananas in there as well. This recipe is just perfect!

Low-Fat Carrot and Nut Cupcakes

For the cupcakes:
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger (I've used mixed spice instead which goes well with carrot cake)
150 g brown sugar
100 g grated carrots
100 g roughly chopped walnuts
200 g mashed bananas
2 lightly beaten eggs
175 ml vegetable oil

for icing: (I did not frost mine, too messy)
200 g fat-free cream cheese, softened
115 g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 tbsp walnuts
12 walnut halves

Preheat oven to 175C. Place 12 baking cases in a muffin tray. In a large bowl, combine all cupcake ingredients. Beat on a low speed with electric whisk until ingredients are combined. I've just use normal whisk, worked as well.

Spoon mixture into cases until two thirds full. Bake for 20o minutes. Remove tin and cool for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes and cool on a rack.

To make the icing, combine cream cheese with icing sugar and vanilla with an electric whisk. Beat till smooth and creamy. Fold in the walnuts. Smear onto cooled cupcakes and garnish with walnut halves.

Store without icing in an airtight container for up to 3 days or freeze up till 3 months. My recommendation is to place them in the fridge after the second day.

Ref: 500 Cupcakes & Muffins, By Fergal Connolly book (published by PageOne
Publishing), page 310

Technorati Tags: cupcake