Saturday, March 6, 2010

Sizzling BBQ@Dao Rae, Taipan USJ

Demona: It's been like forever since I last blogged about food! Crazy hectic period for me. Company's tri-annual team event, chasing sales, dealing with housing issues, and finally.... April had come to an end and I could finally take a huge and deep breath.

Yes... I'm still busy venturing and eating, eating, eating along the way. Just lack of time to put them down in words.

Dogma and I had been crazy fans of Korean food lately. I was renting in Pinggiran USJ then, that was why our Dao Rae experience was in Taiping. The craze for all these kimchi-madness heightened even more when I finally moved in to my new home in Hartamas, land of Korean food!

Demona: Got protein, got vegetables, no carbs. Fairly good diet for those weight watchers! The lettuce leaves were fresh and crunchy, somehow psycho-ing you to forget about the charcoal grilled oily, juicy, slightly fatty BBQ flavoured pork and beef. Mmmmmmmmmmm!

Demona: I know.. I know. The thrill of eating BBQ food is to grill the meat on your own, as burnt as you wish, as rare as you wish, as flavourful as you wish. However, these two lazy asses just gawked at the raw meat cookin on the burning hot coal sizzled grill plate by the kind and helpful bangla waiter. All we did was open our mouths (say Ahhhhhhhh.....) and close our mouths, and the rest, we leave them for your own imagination.

Demona: Yes, mr.kind and helpful bangla also grilled these to perfection for us.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... ngarm, ngarm, ngarm, ngarm.

Demona: The part I loved most about Korean food was the generous refillable servings of a wide range of appetizers in the midst of eating the main dishes. They were served in little bowl like plates and you could ask for a refill if you really enjoyed that particular appetizer and wanted to have more, more, more, more. "Si Beh" worth it!
If we were to eat on a normal basis (the usual amount of food we need to consume to feel full), by eating 2-3 rounds of these appetizers would keep your tummy full and happy already. Being the Malaysians that we are, words like buffet, refills, eat-all-you-can are like magic. Our tummies just won't fill up full somehow.
We also ordered a spicy stew soup but left the picture out. The soup had a balance of veges, tofus, and beef strips, making it a full meal being on its own. By the time we finished the bbq meat vege wrappers, we were too full to drink down the soup even if it tasted really delicious. However, no good food should go wasted right!
Guess what did we do?
Guess. guess. guess.
We tapao-ed of course! And um... there were still some 3/4th round appetitzers left on the table. No good food should go wasted right! We quietly dumped them into the soup as well before we asked for it to be packed. Urks..... shhhhhhhhhhh! hehehe.









Taiwan Trip 1

During my recent trip to Taiwan, mom, dad and I had lunch at one of the Restaurant Chain owned by aFamosa Group ( one of the richest family in Taiwan). The restaurant concept was pretty unique, with per pax cost is fixed at NTD499, and comes with a myriads choices of starter, antipasti, maincourse, dessert and drinks. Such system allows the restaurant to more precisely forecast revenue and prevent freeloaders like Dogma/Demona who would normally share a meal in any restaurant. ( Tough times call for tough measures)

The services here was engineered to perfection and each sequence of presentation was probably rehearsed and preplanned. A typical trait of restaurant owned by engineering firms i guess.
Antipasti: Asparagus and radish with some vinegerate sauce i think. Fresh.
The killer meat: I ordered Wagyu beef. While it was not top grade wagyu, it was still pretty decent and have a sweet, tender, kinda melt in your mouth texture. Somehow the meat was a tad sweet for my liking. Dad ordered a veal skillet which was less tender but more beefy... The beef was accompanied by fried garlic chips, which was pretty appetizing.



The dessert was quite a let down, basically black sesami panna cotta with some green tea biscuit crust on top of ur spoon.

At the end of the lunch, the restaurant even give you free pens, and gift for you to bring home.
Who don't love free gift, doesn't you?

Assorted Wine

We had ordered this bottle for Michaelangelo Solaris. Placido 2006 Chianti. Once open, some sweet, sourish note occure with some significant red fruit. It was pretty much a simple, fruity wine that is lack of much complexity. However, priced at about RM100, it was pretty decent value..

Demeocq Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2007. Simple, light weight palate with red cherry nose. A wine suitable over lunch but skip this is u are seeking for banyardy, earthy and complex burgundy pinots.

CNY House Party at M's

It was a warm warm CNY again in 2010.
Sweltering heat with pearl sized sweat dripping over Dogma's angular chin, we seek refuge at M's house party over the weekend.

We gobbled down tons of food (tumerik chicken wings, vegetarian duck-wannabe, beehoon and a myriad of home baked cakes and the finely sliced Prawn Salad in thousand island dressings) and wash it down with bottom-less Heineken fountains.

It was a nice meal and drinks but like all good things, the joyous meal came to an abrupt end, when the host systematically clean up Dogma's wallet during the night long gambling marathon.

Dogma managed to made it out alive, albeit RM80 poorer

It must have been the dog with a quirky stare that took my luck away.

A nice party nonetheless.


Friday, March 5, 2010

CNY @ Dogma's house



2010 CNY was a short trip back home, and a pretty quite one as the weather was excruciatingly hot and dogma fell ill half of the time.
the above, was what dogmama brewed for dogma, a doubleboiled american ginseng, for almost everynite in taiping

FanGrilled Pork, Marinated 24 hours in secret home sauce: Smokey, Sweet. This is one meat that satisfy even the Neanderthals

Smoked Duck Slices from Taiwan with chopped Chinese Celery: Saltish and Exotic,you dun get this at any mom and pop shop

MOm prepared a feast for one of the reunion dinner with relatives.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Beaulieu Vineyards Coastal Estate 2005

this is basically a table wine from the famous Beaulieu Estate Vineyards in USA.
My first BV estate was the Latour 1994, which was singing and marvellous...
However, the entry range of Coastal Estate series was pretty much shit. Jammy Blackberry with hollow midpalate, and some unbalanced alcohol heat.

I took 2 sip and left the rest to demona's friends to devour it.