Famous Pun Chun Duck Thigh Noodles@Bidor

Thanks to the heavy post-CNY traffic from Ipoh till past Tapah, it motivated us to make a pitstop for dinner at Bidor. My first time trying the famous, widely known and spoken about, duck thigh noodles. The location was easy to find, just turn right from the toll and go straight all the way till I see the shop on my right.

The restaurant was packed with tired and hungry travellers, mostly stranded due to the bad CNY traffic on the highway.

Our food took an hour to arrive. Grrrr. And our drinks never arrived.

I must admit, this was really, really good. The duck thigh meat was very tender, results from brewing in the duck broth for long hours. The herbal soup had a combustion of various flavours: red dates, herbs, salty and a sweetened end palate. Yummmmsss...

We ordered a bowl of wantans as our side dish. The wantans were really big! Chunks of prawn and meat bits inside. Soup was a little too oily for my liking. Putting that aside, this was also.. yummmmmmssss..

Total damage for 3 bowls + 1 bowl of wantan = RM 29.

Coughs. A little steep of the portion given, in a small town like this. But every penny worth invested. People kept coming to purchase the instant coffee mixes, dried food and local chinese biscuits and crackers. I bet vendors who want their items placed in this shop for sale must really provide excellent customer service since the turnaround time of visitors here are so quick. In my 1.5 hours meal experience there, not a single second went by without a customer purchasing an item from the rack.

Would I come back again for this? Yes, and if the waiting time was reduced to 10-15 minutes, would be greatly appreciated.

And if the owners could do something about the cleanliess. The floors are piling with used tissues, plates, chopsticks, remnants of plastic rubbish. I understand that some hawker food areas can score slightly worse in this category, but this one was dirtiness to a whole new level. It irked me a little when used tissues on the floor were blown by the breeze and brushed through my feet. Yikes!

(Awesome duck noodles) - (long waiting time) + (improved cleanlines) = Demona's re-visit!

CNY Eve Reunion Dinner@Demona's home in Taiping

 Apek Shandy greets Giong Hee Huat Chai! My dog will only raise his front paw when there's food dangling in front of him. Useless fella...

 Sometimes the best food come in the most humble way... Roast pork from Aulong market. Really, really good pork. All raw, jumbled and packed in plastic and wrapped with old newspaper. Unlike the nicely presented, well laid roast pork in chinese restaurants.

 

My house being the hub every CNY gathering. Relatives from all over drove up to Taiping. Not enough space to park in the compound.

 

 My cousin brothers getting all steamy and hot by the charcoal heated grill. Cousin sisters and aunts, sit back and watch while sipping icey cold drinks. And 'patiently' waited for the food.

 We had all kinds of grilled meat: Chicken wings, stingray, salmon, prawns, fishballs, meatballs, sausages, porkchop, burps!

 

Tender juicy fattened chicken wings. Yums! Meat marinater chef cousin brother of mine, brought his trademark herbs all the way from KL. Respecto!

 

 On top of marinating all those meat, he also made sangria. According to him, the key ingredient is the lemon slices. Pretty nice to drink, especially over spicy hot grilled food. As expected, I was one of the only few ones who enjoyed drinking. The rest of the boys went hardcore and followed my dad to bottoms up shots of hard liquor. Jameson and JW Black Label, finished in 1 -2 hours, leaving behind boys puking by the drain and some other happy high. Spirit of CNY!

Gigantic piece of pork chop... all for me and me only!

I collected all the bones and one dog became lucky this CNY, bones supply for 1 week. Lucky Hazel!

A kind hearted soul saves a dog's life

Referring to the previous post on LaoHeong, where by my friend tapao-ed the bone of the pork knuckle to feed the stray dog which lives in his neighbourhood. Here are the picts....

  

When my friend found it, its neck was bruised, bleeding and unimaginably thin. Some stupid owner must have tortured it and chained it to die. Grrr! 

By the look of the dog, no one would tink that it could survive. Thankfully, it met my friend who has an extremely kind heart to constantly pack food for the dog.

 Even after months eating, the dog still looked extremely thin. According to my friend, it recognizes his car and would come nearby his home around 5-7 pm. If my friend does not show up within that time period, it would move on and search for food to survive elsewhere. Sometimes my friend gives it dog food (some from his Retriever's stocks) but being a dog living to survive each day, its stomach could not digest just dog food but require leftovers like bones and rice.

Thanks to my friend, the stray dog now looks a lot healthier! This dog's life has changed thanks to one kind soul.

I'm sure this doggie enjoyed the gigantic pork knuckle bone very much! :) As much as we enjoyed the meat at Lao Heong.

Dog owners out there, if you do not have the heart to take care of a pet, regardless what animal it may be, please do not even bother buying or adopting one. It sickens me to hear stories of owners discarding their pets halfway through or owners throwing newborn pups by the roadside when their own dogs get pregnant. These animals have a beating heart, and have emotions too.

Bday Dinner@Shuraku, Solaris Mont Kiara

A treat for the one who turns a year older. A big 1 in addtion to the big 3. 

 Shuraku proves to be quite unique. Its decor is designed in such a way that local Japs may feel at home, and local Malaysians get excited to get a feel of how it's like to eat in Japan. Young college looking kids (probably working on a semester break) working hard grilling those delicious meat on skewers under the burning hot coal. I do respect their attitude and endurance towards working in such an environment. I can't iamgine myself fanning these goodies grilled to perfection, only to be served. I would be eating them on my own!

 Not quite sure why the menu is designed like this. To confuse me? Or to display creativity.

 Minced pork meat shaped into sausage-like and grilled. RM 6. 2 bites max I give you, and it is gone.

This, was a little expensive I would say. 5 short strips of long beans grilled with some coated batter. RM 6.

 These baby squids were fried and served with spiced mayonaise. A little overcooked, as they were too chewy. Luckily, they were small, some were swallowed. :/ RM 16.

I always do feel slightly bad when it comes to eating "baby" stuffs...... Baby squids, piglets, veal.......

 Bomb sushi rolls, with unagi, avocado topped with bonito flakes. RM 28. Super delicious! I quietly thought about ordering one more, but Number31boy being on a sturdy strict diet gave the shake " no-no".

Japanese pancakes RM 25. We ordered to try out what is the difference between Jap and Korean pancakes. The size was the most obvious difference. This was relatively smaller than a Korean pancake. The batter was also more dense. One slice and a half more was too much for me. Tastewise, I guess the slight difference in the addition of herbs made its taste varied from the Koreans. The korean pancakes had a lot more spring onions and leeks.

Total damage for this meal: RM 96. Did we eat a lot? I would say, not really. The pancake was the item that made us felt really full. After all it had a lot of starch and batter in it.

A worthy try, especially if you come with a group of friends. Then, you would be able to eat a bigger variety of food. You could spot local Japs sake-ing while talking about their day at work ( I guess? ).

Tuesdays are buy 1 free 1 beer promotion.

I probably would drop by again sometime in future for a meal. Interesting place!

D'lite Kopitiam and "BadAss"@Ampang Park

Once a while, we would walk across Intermark to Ampang Park for lunch. BTW, food in both areas suck. D'lite kopitiam in Ampang Park, however, serves quite good food, but very good coffee (which is a strong motivation) but due to the limited space in the shop, patrons constantly need to rush their meals as others waiting will stare cock at you and make you uncomfortable. It is almost always packed at lunch time which is one deterrence for us as we usually eat in a group of at least 5 or more.

Those who are working nearby, do give a shot on their assam laksa and curry laksa. Not too bad for the price you pay (RM 6.90) but the coffee is good! RM 3.20 (a little pricey)

This RR's car plate caught my attention. Bad Ass. Behind this RR, parked 2 more RRs. I managed to take note of the stickers on the car.

Apparently these are government owned cars. Few fiery thoughts came in my mind:

a) Do government servants need such lavish expensive cars to carry out their daily duties? No. Public money can be spend on MANY MORE useful things! Grr!
b) Government cars with such car plates. Setting "good" example eh?
c) Road tax was renewed until 2016. More public money wasted. I'm quite sure this car will be traded in for even more lavish cars in due time.

Bloody shyt!

Lou Sang at Lao Heong@Sentul Perdana, Bandar Baru Sentul

Lou sang has never really been my thing every CNY. My family never follow this tradition since I was a kid. I don't understand the significance of this tradition but it is fun to toss and turn food around with friends yelling into your faces " Huat ah! Strike toto ah! Get new job ah! Prosperity ah!"

This was my first for this 2012 CNY. Chinese people always amaze me, on their methods of making money. The lou sang ingredients are dirt cheap (with exception of some salmon slices which would not cost much), and restaurants charge a bomb for this 2-minute tradition during CNY.

Lao Heong's lou sang was at a real affordable price. If I am not mistaken, only RM 25. We were thrilled and surprised at how cheap it cost... until the salmon slices came. Any guesses? 1 mm slice? 2 mm slice? 3 mm slice?

What made it worse was that plate itself was orange too. We could hardly see the salmon.

HUAT AH!

Lao Heong is famous for this La La dish. The spicyness came from the ginger which is heavily locked in the sauce. I am not a huge shell fan, thus I left it for my friends to devour those clams.

Another trademark dish of this restaurant. I must admit, even with overly used oil (from the colour of the fried chicken) they were quite good. Probably nicely marinated. The chicken was a little fatty too, I guess another reason why.

Some veges to feel less guilty.

Yet, another trademark dish of this restaurant. Squid in creamy buttery sauce. The squids were slightly overcooked. A bit too chewy, but the chefs covered the flaws using the creamy sauce. Pretty yummy if you have strong teeth.

This was the ultimatum dish! Pork knuckles ala Chinese style, with spicy sweet thick gravy. It was HUGE. Our eyes gleamed upon its arrival. What I can say is, Germans can pack their bags and send their pork knuckles home as Lao Heong is here to stay! One of the best I ever ate, besides the one in PJ Seafood opposite Lim Tayar, in PJ state.

The skin was so crunchy, but when you plunged your fork in it, the softness of the meat would break down and release a hot steam. Quite a lean knuckle too I must say. The pig had a good run prior his sacrifice to please us humans.

Total damage for this entire meal including lou sang was only RM 25 per pax! Worth every penny lo!

Even with 6 of us around, we could not finish it. Some meat were left and our friend decided to tapao to give this homeless stray dog who prowls in the vicinity of his neighbourhood.

This dog, he believes, was tortured as its neck was found bruised and bleeding when he saw it. Probably struggled to break free from the chains. The dog was so skinny that it was just skin and bones. My friend had been bringing food periodically to feed it and after 2 months, the dog looked better, but still very thin.

When I get hold of the pictures, I'll post them up.

For dog lovers, those images will really break your heart.

This dog is a fighter, it survives until today with a mission of getting enough food to live and having shelter from rain.

The giant pork knuckle bone will make its day.

Home cooked versus outdoors

Which do you prefer?

Spicy fried maggigoreng ayam by a talented indon lady? Or...

Demona's humble tomato puree chicken with mushrooms?

Bali Catering Company

One of the best pastries I tried so far.
Bali Catering Company
Pastries priced below secret recipe, quality is above Canele or patiserie Rui.

Suckling pork ribs is huge and awesome @ rm30

Dinner@Plan B

Dinner a little too heavy for two.

Carbonara: sliced ham, mushrooms and a whole lot of creaminess going on again, burps! Quite nice to eat but arteries may be clogged, guys! Rm20ish.

The mushroom soup (rm10) was truly creamy as crack. You could munch bits and pieces of spliced mushrooms. We could not finish it. Definitely a main meal tho' it is meant as an appetizer.

Duck confit ciabatta: thumbs up! My second time having this. Crunchy duck meat, topped with chopped walnuts and Sundried tomatoes. Healthy to the max. Could only finish half. The other half became my lunch the next day. The chips are better off finished upon serving itself, because the next day they turned treacle-like. Hard as hell. The only thing that is slightly peculiar, is the salad dressing. Too spicy for my liking. Simple olive oil with herbs would have been good enough. Rm23.

The ultimate calorie killer was the macadamia brownie, rm11. Came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with hersheys choc syrup as a finishing. Quite good i must say, the brownie was so soft and chocolatey. Not sweet so as to blend in with the sweet vanilla ice cream and choc syrup.

And now... To let go my fly. Tummy bursting out!

Junkfood@Incheon International Airport, Seoul

Time to bid Korea goodbye. It was a fruitful 10 day journey. Spiritually blessed.. and physically too! Phew. We arrived at the airport few hours earlier than needed, thus had plenty of time to kill.

One last bite on a local ice cream cone. Walls Cornetto still rawked. What I really liked about the airport was that most of the goods sold here were not priced higher than normal. Unlike our nice-to-look-at but inconvenient KLIA, FnB items here cost a good 20-30% higher than normal. Rubbish! Those shopaholics who insist that they have not bought enough, can still do a final round of shopping in Incheon, without having to feel like they are ripped off. In KLIA, you will feel otherwise.

Eating in a local MCD has always been something habitual for me. Especially, trying out items that are not sold in Malaysia. This was a double beef patty with a slice of pork bacon burger, drizzled over with BBQ sauce. If my big toes would bend 90 degrees from other toes, like my thumb and fingers, I'd do 4 thumbs-toes up!

The taste of the fries differed also. I strongly suspect it was due to the pork frying in the oil. They had a moderate hint of lard taste. SINFUL.

After a filling MCD meal, we still had 3 hours to kill before having to check-in the boarding area. We found a spa at B1, and decided to take an expensive and long shower for Rm45, and it was totally worth it! It takes a while getting used to not being embarrassed of being naked around others.

I grabbed all the free samples given from Skinfood purchases. DYI facial while soaking naked in the hot tub, with lady strangers. I'd thought that I would be a little too shy for comfort but after soaking for a while, I forgotten how quickly I started to enjoy myself chilling out by the hot waters, cold waters, sauna, and then hot waters again.

Repeated this: 10 times.

It felt really good just lying down, resting and not thinking of anything. They even provided us loose clothes to change into. You can laze in the common living room area with cozy couches and TV for a short nap, read a book, have a drink. We came out, feeling like a clean sheet of linen. Happy and clean.

The only slack part about the airport was that, most places are closed after 9 pm. We started feeling hungry again after the spa experience, but most shops were closed. The only shop that was packed with patrons was a bar. All drinking to sleep when they board the plane. We bought a bottle of soju, and ate the chips that we bought to tapao back home. This pack of chips cost only abour RM2-3, humble, crunchy, salty. Pretty enjoyable. They started selling these in Korean marts at Hartamas now, for RM6-7. Phew.

Well.. one pack ain't enough for few tummies. We opened another pack, and this one was my favourite. Spicy, crunchy, delicious and for some reason, the picture of the sunflower made me feel that the chips was slightly healthier than normal chips. Thumbs up!

They also sell these in the Korean marts in Hartamas now. Yeah, for double the price too.

Goodbye PyungKang-Cheil, goodbye Sr Pastor Abraham Park, goodbye Seoul, goodbye great foodie. We will be back, hopefully May/October this year!

Dinner like a local before the shytty 3D quality Pirates of the Carribean 4

We heard stories of thrilling movie watching adventures from friends who went to the 4D cinema in Seoul. The ticket cost RM 50, but the thought of watching an action movie with motion master seats sounded like a really awesome experience.

On our final few days left in Seoul, we decided to pay RM 50 for a 2 hour motion master ride.

Sadly, the only cinema that we came across as in Myung Dong, which did not have the 4D choice. We went online to check on cinema websites. Helpless act too, as it was all written in Korean. We went to another cinema branch few stops away from Myung Dong.

Hope suddenly appeared brighter for us when the cinema appeared to look big and prestigious. Despite our

struggles (unable to read a single word on the board, teenage ticket sellers by the counter who could not speak an ounce of English, walking for hours)... no 4D movie.

We settled for Pirates of the Carribean 4 3D. We could not even get the guys by the counter to answer us if the movie was dubbed in Korean or not. We just crossed our fingers that Johnny Depp would not speak Anyong in the movie. 

While waiting for the movie to start, we rushed over across to road and had our dinner. A quickie 1 hour bite before Captain Jack Sparrow went on board the Black Pearl.

 

My apologies on missing out all the restaurants' names, including this one. We were glad that our waitress was a Chinese lady, and she explained a little on some of the food when we ordered. Even threw in a free bowl of eggy-ish soup, somewhat reminded me of the starchless version of "Wa Tan Hor" gravy.

The place was decorated like as if we were staying in a wooden house in the midst of a jungle. Plants were everwyhere, and the place was packed with happy locals (Happy as in .. happy high, from bottles of Soju). Each table had at least 4 bottles of Soju lying around. What impressed me even more are the local ladies and their abilities to hold on their alcohol well. I know a bottle of soju is enough to turn me into a cooked lobster, and tipsy. I can't imagine 4 bottles on my own! Maybe if I stayed here several months more... .I might just pull through 2 bottles over.

The choices of appetizers served were slightly different from the usual stuffs. They gave more bean choices here. I wonder if different areas in Korea serve different appetizers. Hmmm..

The minced beef fried rice. Very interesting flavour! Quite delicious alright, but I wondered where did all the meat go. The pictures above was before the nicely piled rice get tossed all over looking for meat.

Beef curry. Awh so good! The meat was so tender. The meat would just fall off when you scrapped it off the bone.
The quantity was a bit too much for us. With regrets, there was quite a bit of leftover food. We could not stuff them in anymore. BURPS.

Good meal, good meal!

But the movie.... the movie, was disappointing. To think that in a country that produces Samsung products, and wherever you go, you see good quality TV screens displayed in public areas that the cinema quality would be top notch. THINK again.

The 3D was so dark, dim and the screen was tiny. As it was the movie was boring to me, the poor quality made it even worse. And yeah, the ticket cost me RM 40. RM 10 more I would get to sit a motion master seat, argh! By far the worse 3D movie experience that I ever had. Even worse than some I had in One Utama and Tropicana City mall.