Review: Restaurant 88

**Non-Halal**

On this auspicious day, I managed to dig thru my files and found these pics. It must have been fated that I didn't blogged about Restaurant 88 earlier LOL!!!

Hubby took me to this dai chau (big stir-fry) place in Sunway Mas one evening. He said it's one of the place they will go after their prayer sessions. He dictated the usual pai kuat (ribs) dish and I picked the Marmite version. A very lethal combo indeed... the tender ribs coated with a sweetish and sticky Marmite sauce.



Next, we have their signature tofu dish - choy hiong tau foo. It's basically deep fried homemade eggy tofu topped with a stir-fried mixture of minced pork meat, dried shrimps and choy poe (a type of preserved vegetables). I like this a lot as the stir-fried topping is very fragrant indeed and especially when the choy poe are crunchy!



We have the usual vege dish of fu yue yau mak (stir-fried romaine lettuce in fermented/preserved bean curd).



All the three dishes + 1 bowl of rice + 1 glass of chuk cheh sui (boiled sugar cane) and 1 coconut came up to RM30.30 for two of us. 88 Restaurant is a corner coffee shop, diagonally opposite My Kitchen.


88 Restaurant
Jalan PJU 1/38,
Sunway Mas Commercial Centre,
47301 Petaling Jaya


Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Quick Stir-fry Vege for 15 Minute Asian Light Meals

Today not only mark the special date of 08.08.08 and the opening of the Olympic Games at 8.08pm... it's also Jaden of Steamy Kitchen's birthday! Happy Birthday Jaden!!!

In conjunction with her birthday, the very generous Jaden is running a 15 Minute Asian Light Meals contest. So, here's my entry...

Quick Stir-fry Vege

Chop up some celery, carrot, baby corn, yellow capsicum and enoki mushrooms. In a wok, fry some chopped garlic in some oil until fragrant. Chuck in all the vegetables and stir quickly. Add in a couple of dashes of oyster sauce to taste and sprinkle a wee bit of water in the wok. Keep stirring until water dries up. Dish up and serve hot with rice.

Note: You can virtually use all sorts of vegetables for this dish.

Technorati Tags: vegetable

Review: Restoran Claypot Brothers @ TTDI

**Non-Halal**

We tried out this place next to Mama's Kitchen (hmm funny I didn't have a post on this, must dig out the pics one day) in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, called Claypot Brothers. As we walked in, right at the left entrance... there is a cooking station for the cook to fry oyster omelette and cooking claypot rice plus a row of pre-cooked dishes and desserts available. Oh the right is basically the chopping station for lor ark (braised duck) and porridge.

After scrutinising their simple menu, I noticed that they're of mainly Teo Chew dishes. Other than serving claypot rice, they have a variety of porridges other than plain ones to go with the pre-cooked dishes. There is orh nee (yam paste dessert) in the menu too!

For ourselves, we ordered a serving of peppered pig's stomach soup (RM6.00) which came in a rather low in height clay bowl. Hmm... I thought I've ordered a soup but the bowl is filled to the brim with slivers of stomachs and harm choy (pickled mustard cabbage). It's my first taking a stomach soup with harm choy. It's not too hot nor peppery, would be just nice for those who can't stand them. There isn't much soup in the bowl so hubby asked for refill which they gladly did. We drank them all up, no sweat at all. Perhaps the place was airconed??



Next came the oyster omelette (RM8.00) which certainly paled in comparison the one we had in New World Park, Penang. I think it lacked the wok hei even though the oysters were plump.



Finally, our minced pork with salted fish claypot rice (RM18.00) came. It smelt great! It's basically a disc of minced pork cooked on top of the rice. The rice were left as it is - plain and white. The sauce is served separately. Frankly, I think it's not worth its money for the minced patty is kinda thin and there isn't that much of salted fish. Well...



Overall, the place is decent and clean with the exception of flies flying around, most likely due to the smell of salted fish which is as expected but it was rather annoying indeed. The foreign waitresses dressed in traditional uniform which my hubby claimed its typical Hakka ladies clothings back in the olden days but the lady boss of Claypot Brothers doesn't seems to know, to her it's just another traditional Chinese costume.

5% service charge is charged on the total bill.


Restoran Claypot Brothers
50 Jalan Datuk Sulaiman
Taman Tun Dr Ismail
Tel: 603-7710 9289
Coordinates: 3°8'31"N 101°37'45"E

Seapark branch:
8, Jalan 21/19, Seapark,
Petaling Jaya
Tel: 603-7877 8931

Technorati Tags: malaysian food + claypot

Review: Pacific West Tempura Fish Fillets

Let's do a product review today. This Pacific West Tempura Fish Fillets was introduced to me by Yozora. I bought one box (about RM15 thereabout if I'm not wrong) and kept in my freezer for some time before cooking them over the weekend. I didn't go to the market and was sort of ran outta fresh food, save for a couple of yellow capsicums and half a head of iceberg lettuce. Thank goodness for the convenience of having frozen food around!



I shallow fried the fillets straight out of the freezer as stated instead of deep frying them. Lucky my experience had told me that these frozen stuff will cause hot oil to splatter all over as it cooks. Well, I manage to contain the splatters with a lid over my pan hahaha... phew, otherwise cleaning up will be difficult let alone getting burn marks all over my arms! Easy peasy...

Back in my head, I decided to make a super simple pasta salad to go with the fish fillets. I made these before frying up the fish so that they can be served chilled. I diced up the yellow capsicum and tear iceberg lettuce into small pieces. Cooked some elbow shaped pasta, drain them and dumped them into cold water to prevent them to cook further.

Next, I found a pack of edamame the same time in the freezer and decided to make use of them. Cook them according to the instructions then I removed the beans from the pods and dump them into cold water for the same reason with the pasta. Whilst I was doing this, my boiboi came and kaypoh asking me what I was doing. I gave him one edamame which he chewed and told me it tasted horrible. I disallowed him to spit out (bad mummy huh? hehe), hence he swallowed them reluctantly. So how to get him to eat them???

Very easy actually... just toss the edamame together with the lettuce, capsicum (something he won't eat on its own as well) and pasta with some Japanese mayonnaise and lots of freshly grounded black pepper. Chill in fridge before serving. My boiboi lapped these up after he has finished his fillets without any questions ask what's inside the salad!



A very satisfying lunch indeed. Thanks Yozora for the recommendation ;-)


Technorati Tags: frozen food + pasta

Chicken with Black Fungus and Lily Buds

I don't have the exact recipe for this. From my experience, fry ginger slices in some sesame oil. Add in the chicken pieces and cook till lightly browned. Next, add in soaked black fungus and lily buds. Pour in just enough water to braise the chicken. Add in some abalone sauce to taste. BTW, if you've noticed, salt is not added in any of the confinement food.


Technorati Tags: confinement food

Merdeka Open House 2008: Mee and My Malaysia

Updated 4 August 2008 14:20pm

The poll is closed and the result is very clear indeed. 67% of respondents have voted for the usage of non-halal meat and beef for this year's event. So there you go... you may use non-halal meat and beef!



Thank you for your participation.

------------------
Updated 17:20pm

There are some requests to allow the usage of non-halal meat and beef which I think to a certain extend could make the noodle dish more authentic. Well, to make things easier, I've set up a poll right above my posts for the mass to decide. Go vote now!

------------------
31 July 2008 14:20pm

Thank you for all the suggestions. After going thru them, I think Jo's theme is the best fit. Hence, I don't need to set up a poll to pick the most popular one. Her suggested theme was Mee and My Malaysia with the reasons that there are many ways of cooking noodles be it laksa, fusion spaghetti (I presumed laksa Johor??), char kuey teow, mee goreng mamak, Hokkien mee and etc. She was very spot on that we, Malaysians, are never short of mee. I think this was brilliant!

It's not easy to pick and come out with a theme where virtually everyone can participate eg. if the theme is based on kuih-muih or colour of Jalur Gemilang; not everyone would know how to make kuih, plus it's quite tedious to make kuih... when it comes to colours, I guess we have a certain limitation in terms of ingredients that come in blue which I can only think of bunga telang.

This year, I'm going to let the cooking bit to be on an easier side cos the previous two are pretty challenging. Nevertheless, I was glad there were growth in terms of participations. I hope this year, we'll have more bloggers supporting this virtual party of mine. The challenging bit would be some write up about the dish.

Let's sum it up okay... Mee and My Malaysia theme would require participants to cook up a noodle dish of any Malaysian ethnic, of course the rare and unique ones from your family, hometown, kampung or some ulu place are most welcomed. Your noodle dish has to be something original and not fusionised or tweaked to fit the modern age. However, this rule will be relaxed for overseas participants since it's not easy to source for local ingredients. Don't forget, if you can't cook... try not to get away with store bought noodles hahaha just go charm your mom, dad, grandparents, sisters, aunties, uncles or whoever the cook in your family to come out with a noodle dish.

Next, take a picture (minimum 500x375 pixels) of your noodle dish, type in the recipe (if you have one, otherwise your ingredients and method would suffice if you're the guesstimate/agak-agak type) and write a post on why you cook up this noodle for this virtual party, if the noodle dish your favourite; if yes, tell us why and how you came across this noodle dish. Well, if you can write your entry in BM, it's all the better but I don't think I can round them up in BM cos I have left school aeons ago and it's very rusty hahaha...

Post it up in your blog by 29th August 2008 but of course if you can do it earlier, it’s all the better to ease me in rounding up on 31st August. Those who doesn’t own a blog but wish to participate, kindly do your write up and send it together with the picture to me. I’ll post it up for you.

As long as you’re a Malaysian, you can participate no matter where you’re located. Do note that you must be sensitive to our multi-racial and multi-religion society, hence you'll have to be wise in using certain ingredients that are sensitive to certain religion (ie. dish must be halal and try not to serve beef to our Hindu friends as well).

All entries must reach me by 29th August 2008, midnight Malaysian time at babe_kl(@)yahoo(dot)com. Our virtual party will be on 31st August 2008. In your email, please state the following details:

Name or nick
Location
Permalink/URL of your post
Name of the dish

Looking forward to your entries and happy noodling!


Technorati Tags: Merdeka Open House 2008

Durian Cream Puffs

I've some remainder durian pulp from the Tropical Durian Cake, so I decided to make some choux pastry to turn them into Durian Cream Puffs. The texture of my previous attempted recipe wasn't fluffy and crispy, I went thru my books and found Donna Hay's Profiteroles recipe. I decided to use her recipe since most of her recipes have never failed me.

The pastry did came out nice and crispy. I halved them before placing the durian pulp as filling. I was too lazy to whip up any cream to be mixed with the durian. It turned out lovely but D24 or better quality durian would have otherwise made them perfect! BTW, there is an abundance of durians now and I've heard the prices for D24 and the good quality ones have dropped. Time for more durian?

Profiteroles

1 cup water
100g butter, chopped
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
4 eggs
melted dark chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Place water and butter in a saucepan over low heat and cook till butter is melted and mixture started to simmer. Add flour and beat with wooden spoon until smooth. Cook, stirring, over low heat until mixture leaves the side of the pan. Remove from heat and gradually beat in eggs. (You'll noticed your mixture looked shiny).

2. Place mixture into a piping bag. Pipe or drop 3 tsp of the mixture onto baking trays lined with non-stick paper. (I've dropped in 1 heap tsp and the puff expanded to about 2 inches in diameter after baking).

3. Bake for 30 mins or until golden brown. Turn off the oven, keep the door slightly open using a wooden spoon and leave the profiteroles in the oven for 15 mins or until hollow-sounding when tapped. Cool on wire racks.

4. Place a creamy filling of your choice, such as whipped cream, creme patissiere or chocolate mousse in a piping bag. Push the nozzle thru the base of the profiteroles and squeeze in enough mixture to fill it up.

5. To finish, dip the top of the profiterole in melted chocolate or hot toffee and allow to set. Makes 30.

Ref: Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2, pg 46

If I've tantalised you and you need a quick fix of these Durian Cream Puffs, head on to Happy Meal...


Technorati Tags: durian + cream puff