Demona: My aunt recently went on a business trip to Penang, which involves a meeting and a tour in the Penang Adventist Hospital. Diplomatic stuff. She brought home a box of cinnamon rolls from the Aventist Bakery, the resident bakery in the hospital.
Demona: I must admit, I am overall, pretty skeptical about hospital food.
Demona: Whaddya know.... it actually tasted good! The dough was fluffy and it was wholemeal based. The little grainy bits here and there, gave each bite a healthy, wholesome feeling, which suited well with a hot cup of coffee on this sunny Saturday morning. Another well deserved brownie point was that the baker eased on the butter/oil content, unlike cinnamon rolls which you get from big names eg: Saint Cinnamon which are grossly, heavily coated with oil and sugar, definitely not for the faint hearted. You can see some faint yellow coloured sugary butter coating on some parts of the dough.
Demona: Instead of purely adding processed sugar, coarsely chopped apricots and mini raisins were added in between of the cinnamon roll layers. I think that this is a good improvisation. Besides that, it gives a nice feel to have chewy bits to bite on in between the dough layer. You can see the fruit bits from the pict!
There is one part that the baker can improve on, is to add a little bit more cinnamon to the rolls, to bring out the smell and flavour even more. In this aspect, the big names definitely win them all.
Nevertheless, I much preferred my cinnamon rolls baked in this wholesome manner. To be frank, I would never buy the cinnamon roll from the big names.
One, they do not attract me, I find them small, overly oily, and costly.
Two, somehow or rather, I feel like I am cheated, to buy these expensive cinnamon rolls which are drizzled over with hershey's chocolate syrup, or pre-supplied blueberries and jam, which .. kinda' like, buying a pathetic, miserable looking ham sandwich, with a tiny piece of lettuce and some butter and mayo from chain bakeries versus two big chunky slices of grained bread, coated with garlic butter, toasted with a healthy portion of smoked ham, lettuce, some cheese, maybe brie, sprinkled over with pepper, salt and herbs as you like, using your humble and loyal tiny toaster, until the bread turns golden brown and fragrant.
Haha. You know, that homey feeling. I apologise. Dogma knows me well, I am a descriptive person.
Maybe I can baking cinnamon rolls next time! :).. Dogma..*winks*.
Demona: My muslim colleague brought me here for lunch during my field work in Penang. She hasn't tried the food here herself, but heard good reviews about this place and seems, this is the first Chinese Muslim restaurant in Penang. The restaurant had minimal interior decoration, and at my first impression, it looked no different than a mamak place, especially the non-airconditioning area downstairs. The weather was fiery hot that afternoon, lucky us, there was a cooling airconditioning option upstairs. Needless to say, these little princesses (and prince) chose the 2nd option.
Demona: The Kong Pow chicken tasted average. Just chicken bits, with capsicum slices and groundnuts. Nothing much to shout about as the sauce tasted like it came from the sweet and sour sauce maggi bottle. No where near our Chinese KP chicken non-halal counterparts.
Demona: This was an interesting dish. When it first came, I could not make out what it was. Initially, I thought it was a deep fried fish looking at its shape. To my biggest surprise, it was actually a brinjal. Nicely, sliced into a giant curly spring, then coated with flour and deep fried. It left me wondering how was the brinjal cut into such a shape. It went really well with the sliced mushrooms, and sweetened sauce. I had never eaten this in a chinese restaurant before.
Demona: This was CMR's trademark dish. Fried mutton. Under normal tummy growling conditions, I'd only take mutton when it comes in the form of thickened curry, or rendang, or barbequed (which was also rare). Never once I had mutton which was cooked like the one above. Surprisingly, it tasted really nice. Some what like jerky, but not as hard as one. I couldn't consume too much of it though, after a while, my breath does smell a little awful and my tummy started to feel sickly. I'm guessing this meat really worked your digestive juices hard to finally break down its structure.
Demona: Who wouldn't think of Char Kueh Teow when the word "Penang" comes up. Heck, even the locals themselves debate on which CKT is the best in town. That shows just how many CKT stalls there are in Penang, all frying their best-est to be the labelled the most "hoh-chiak!" in this food haven.
Demona: This may seem like a humble looking street side kopitiam.. no frills, no thrills. You could smell the buttery aroma of the toast bread and coffee when walking from the other end of the lane towards here.
Demona : Kopi ais kurang manis. The "kau" coffee is at the bottom layer, with the milky layer on the top. Mr.CoffeeMaker left it for me to decide how sweet I want my coffee to be. The more sweet I like my drink to be, the more I stir my drink.
Demona: I was amazed with the toast-bread man when I saw how he prepared that white deliciousness. He had to squat, facing the warm burning heat from the charcoal inside this giant metal barrel (which is also used to boil water on the top), holding the metal tray laid with slices of white bread and constantly putting the slices in and pulling them out in order for them to toast evenly brown all over. Imagining myself doing it, my back would have ached like hell with the never ending squats, and my fingers would probably have damaged skin from holding the heated up metal tray..JPG)
Demona: This is my first official work trip to Penang. I was obviously excited.. hey, I'm in the food haven town! (besides Ipoh, of course). Once my colleague and I landed in Penang, we met our local colleagues here for a quick bite before heading off to work.
