Second Dimsum Visit@Imperial Pot, Publika Solaris Dutamas

http://foodventuras2.blogspot.com/2013/09/second-dimsum-visitimperial-pot-publika.html

Siew Pao Master@Seremban

During my recent fieldwork in Melaka, Nilai and the final pitstop in Seremban, my dear friend Vivien popped into my mind.. After my tummy started calling out to me... Siewwww paooo... Siewwww paooo....

She was so sweet to search for adds and map for me to make my way to "Siew Pao Master". Apparently serembanites love their paos from here. The name itself intruiged me, and my tummy.

It took us a while to finally find the shop, signage wasn't very good and one who isn't familiar with the roads would have easily missed it.

The pungent whiff of buttery aroma just hits our nostrils the moment we stepped out of the car. Fuh, exciting!

`

So happens, a fresh tray of eggtarts just came out of the oven. And vivien said, eggtarts are superb. Luck was SO on my side!

Bought the paos and eggtarts, and went home a happy soul :)

Eggtarts i must say, delicious! The egg was so soft but still a tiny thickened curdle just enough to hold itself together.

The siew paos, yummy too! Fragrant, buttery, and chunky pork bits! Although, I still could not tell at this point which is the best siew pao that I've ever tasted. Tough.. Many famous stalls selling actually taste equally good too.

Any other siewpao recommendations?

Fish noodles@kopitiam next to Say Huat, Seksyen 17 PJ

One of the above average fish noodles i've ever eaten.

Strong fish broth coupled with springy lemongrass. Chef was pretty generous with the fried fish chunks also.

Yums! RM 6.50.

Only downside to this place is: please be prepared to sit in a 'sauna'. The kopitiam was so stuffy and humid, plus steamy hot soup = suckling sweaty Demona.

Sin Nam Huat Chicken Rice@opposite Loh Guan Lye Hospital

Gorgeous view of Gurney beach. An early morning jog when the sun was just rising up.

Serenity. beautiful.

The few times I came to Loh Guan Lye hospital, always missed the chance of trying this crowded chicken rice shop opposite its main door. Today, I must try!

Char siew and roast chicken. The size of this serving was for 3 persons. We stared among ourselves and shook our heads. This ain't enough for 3 pax man. I went to the chef's meat chopper desk to order another plate. Both items, roast chicken and char siew were so so only. Average I'd say. Quite oily.

This was the extra plate that we ordered. The total bill with drinks came up to around RM18. For the price we paid, I'd say it was quite a good deal. It would have cost RM 25-30 in KL. A good quick lunch meal for me, but definitely not the best chicken rice or char siew that I ate. Thumbs up for the steal deal pricing, considering that it is Penangite food!

Hee Lai Ton Restaurant@Shaw Parade, Jalan Imbi

Apparently, Hee Lai Ton's branch in Shaw Parade is famous for its value-for-money dimsums. I am a BIG dimsum fan and was eager to see what this place had to offer. Our lunch coincided with the CNY luncheon for Air FM (...?) Never heard of the existence of this radio station before. The DJs were the MCs for the event. I had my lunch served with some lame jokes, performances and never heard of chinese songs.

Okay, back to dimsum. Gigantic siew mais, alright. Taste was average, but steal deal RM 7 just for their size.

They are famous for their char siew yoke. We were late, so this was the final kopek that we could get. It was, quite fatty for me. Urks. Those who enjoy fatty charsiews would love 'em I suppose. Overall rating, 6.5/10.

Oversized har kaus. 2 prawns inside woey! Steal deal. I salute its value-for-money deal. The only downside was, the prawns for this batch of harkaus might have been soaked a bit too long in the bicarbonate water. Chewy, tangy alright, but the prawns lost their flavour.

The CSPs, a let down. I love CSP alot and am quite particular about how they taste. Good ones, I will not add any sauce. Bad ones, I always resort to adding chilli flakes / chilli sauce.

The fried carrot cake dish was the worst. The chefs were probably overworked due to the radio station luncheon group, because they spent too little time frying my carrot cake. They were quite hard, and I believe they were a bit undercooked. We found this, quite hard to finish up.

Verdict: The aunty lady waitresses were honestly, quite fierce and most of the time, they may come across as rude, but I guess they were just being loud to be heard and not rude, else their voices would drown in the midst of the noisy packed crowd of patrons. You will definitely get your pennies worth paying for your meal here (tummy definitely full) and the taste for some dishes are not bad.

Shanghai part 2

Xiao Yang Sheng Jian Pao
- a pretty famous local chain selling fried pork bun + beef blood soup. Ohh so tasty..

Spicy lobster
- we had this again during the lobster off season. It was extremely pricey this time.
For 1.5kilo + 3 hairy crabs it cost a whopping rm150

BBQ supper
- this is good. Similar to lok lok but the food are all barbequed.
My first attempt resulted in charred rubbish.
On my second visit, the owner bbq for me and it was oh so delicious. She load it up with cumin, spices, chilli and salt when bbq-ing. Each stick cost between rm1 to rm2, and washing it down with rm3 beer. This is awesome

2012 CNY dinner@Oriental Pavillion, Jaya33

The time for CNY gathering among us colleagues + ex-colleagues is here again. We aim to maintain this tradition every CNY. Last year it was held at Jaya Palace (the food sucked, service was horrible).

The commonly ordered CNY dish, claypot rice with salty chinese sausages, smoked duck and pork. I never got accustomed to enjoy the lardy taste of "lapcheong"s, hence I retire for this dish whilst my friends continued whalloping the porky pork slices.

Rice was so so. Nothing much to shout about.

Lou sang! My second and final one for the year. We warned one another not to jinx the lousang wishes. Last year, just before officiating the lousang action, my friend voiced out some negativity about our sales targets. We missed our target last year = no bonus = low salary. This year, we were reminded not to mention negative things before lousang-ing. What superstition! haha.

Glazed BBQ grilled pork rib. Each person was given a plate of pork rib the length of an average 15 cm ruler. THIS WAS EXTREMELY GOOD. I was in luck to be served with a lean pork rib. There was one extra rib left, and my greedy self wanted to grab the next rib but too shy!

Presentation seemed unattractive. Taste was also unattractive. Plain jane cooked prawns. No recollection of its taste either.

Tofu with vegs and mushrooms. Quite delicious but the best rendition of this tofu goes to Duck King if its deliciousness is maintained. I haven't eaten in Duck King for quite a while, there is a possibility that the standard might have dropped. The sad and true reality of good restaurants in KL. Many were good when initially opened, as it gets popular, the quality starts to drop.

Seared pear with hasma. I was running with a temperature (which ruined my appetite a little already) and my friends advised that this dessert would be the best for someone who has a bad sore throat. The hasma dessert, was average. Nothing unique about it to make it stand from others served elsewhere.

Total damage per pax from 9 diners = RM 90. @_@. Wowwww... quite, steep. Not sure which was ex, but the only thing that I would pay for is the pork ribs. The rest are... so so, just slightly above average.

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!

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.

Wan Tan Mee@kampung boyan, taiping

A simple breakfast with my parents and granddad at this tiny zinx roof top place with a few hawker stalls.

The stalls here serve noodles cooked in all styles you can think of: from fried, to soup, to stirfry you name it.

As with all small town folks, we rarely remember road names but rather buildings and objects instead. This place is located right next to the huge chinese temple at Kampong Boyan.

I ordered the WTM, with tambah lauk 2 meatballs. RM3. Simple, humble, nice and gives a feel of homecooked. Chef threw in quite a lot of porklard too.

I saw how these people take care of the temple and how fervently they prayed. I felt ashamed and humbled for I had not followed His statutes well.

I gave a silent prayer for the people, and for my family, and for my breakfast WTM.

Amen!

Sek Mee Choy@Kepong

One of those nights where the tongues were itching for good food.. but the hungry minds just could not decide on which food to eat. We stopped by the roadside just to crack our heads , " What to eat?! " Surely, this scenario is familiar to many of you isn't it?

Suddenly, the memory of my colleague and his hard efforts in driving us from work, through the heavy traffic to Sek Mee Choy at Salak South for lunch popped up.

We then decided to go to SMC, Kepong's branch. Also through the heavy traffic.

Thank you, smartphone. The GPS finally brought us here.

RM 2.00 a bowl of vegetable rice. I liked it for the the dried shrimps (Heh Bi, in hokkien). It reminded me of my mom's fried rice back at home. Dogma's expression , "Pfft! My mom always makes this at home. Very easy." OK - Lorrrrr.
 

Fried bittergourd with salted egg yolk. RM 8. The bittergourd was slightly undercooked, a little hard but still edible. Super bitter alright, but with a nice salty end palate with the shredded fried salted egg yolk. The portion was quite huge for 2. Initially, I was a little worried that we might not be able to finish the food, but who would've known... we DID clean up each plate. Sweats.

This was the star dish in my opinion. Star dish for the restaurant too. The Ba Kut Teh version from SMC is a peppery spicy one. Similar to Singapore's style, but 100 times tastier. What was good about it was that the soup was not oily at all, and clear too, thus you wouldn't developed that too-full-can't-digest-after-meal feeling. I would want to have sips of this soup if I'm having a bad flu. The peppery soup will totally clear off my nose boogies! RM 11/portion.

They were quite sincere with the meat also. Meat was tender and fresh. Thumbs up! The only slack part was there seemed to be a miscommunication between the chefs and the waiters. At first, we ordered lean meat with no inerts, but the BKT came totally opposite of what we've asked for. Of course, they changed for us.

Second miscommunication. We ordered Steamed tilapia with ginger, 600 g. Total damage was supposedly RM 18. This fish was the least boney fish among the list of fishes on the menu. I can't eat boney fishes as my tongue isn't slithery enough to separate the meat from bones skillfully. Boney fishes make me gag.

Then came this fish "Song Fish Head" (That's the name of the fish I've been told) and after a few bites, Dogma sniffed it out that this was the wrong fish while myself in stress mode, busy digging out the bones. Wrong fish, and wrong weight too. Heavier. RM 25 total damage.

The fish did have a slight muddy taste even with the piles of ginger on it. Definitely wasn't a satisfying fish meal.

The young owner however, was observant towards the series of misfortunes that we'd been facing. He came over and apologised for all the mistakes in the orders and offered us a free bowl of longan pandan jelly. It was a nice gesture from the owner, although Dogma thought that I am a sucker for freebies.

The food here ain't expensive, and very decently priced for the portions given. Thanks to the owner's attentive actions, my willingness to return for another meal is higher than the time I was eating my fish. But, the next time around, I may limit my choices to just the BKT.

Anyway, taste is subjective, I would still recommend this restaurant a worthy try for value-for-money meals!

Chicken Rice@Ah Kow, Food court near HKL

 My colleague brought us to this food court for lunch, nearby work area coverage, HKL.Many raved about this stall's chicken rice, especially its sesame fried chicken. What I found interesting was that the chef was run by a Chinese man, helped by a Malay lady and people from all races are eating his chicken rice. Now, this is what I call 1Malaysia. Not the freakishly brightly lited up UMNO building promoting 1Malaysia throughout the night, and not sure how they could cover their TNB expenses.

The famous sesame chicken. Not too bad, pretty crunchy on the outside. Being a meat lover however, I'd much prefer Yat Yeh Hing's chicken sitll (fat, thick and juicy), made my money's worth. Nevertheless, interesting taste, with the buttery sesame pungent aroma. Never ate it like this before.

Total foodie damage: RM 5.00. Not bad lah pricing!

Worthy try for a simple day and a simple meal.

Teochew Restaurant@Setapak

One of the popular lunch areas for KL-lites, especially working crowds. Despite the chances of getting the pungent oil stained smell on our workshirts, along with lack of parking space and its location being in a terribly jammed area, there ain't no stopping people from bracing through all these for the food here.

Traditionally, this place is famous for its fish cake, hokkien me and Chow Park Mai Fan (literal translation, fried white bee hoon).

We ordered the fishballs instead of the fishcake this time around. I'd much prefer these, maybe because they were simmered in the soup, giving the impression of being healhty and made me feel that the dish was less oily compared to the fishcakes. Don't get me wrong, they taste pretty fishy good, but a bit too oily for my liking.

Friedvege ( I can't remember what vege this was). My friend could not remember either. All he knew was that this vege was supposedly good for our body as it has therapeutic properties of healing bruises and physical injuries. Whoa-lah, I do not know whether I could trust it but at least this vege was deliciously enjoyable unlike food for medicinal purposes which usually taste bad.

Before I wrote this post, I did ask him again if he could remember, and his advice was ," You want to know the name? Gotta go back there and eat again."

The Fried White Bee Hoon, by far was the best among the three I had for lunch. I'm guessing it has got to do with the mixture of :
i) Good frying skills
ii) Dried shrimps, never go wrong to flavour up the dish
iii) chewy fishball and fishcake slices
iv) fried pork lard.... SINFUL.

Only one downside to this dish... the chef might have spilled too much oil in the rice noodles. It felt like putting on new lipgloss each time I scooped up a portion to eat.

Total damage for this meal, including drinks: RM 25. Not, too bad I'd say. But this restaurant would be more suitable and enjoyable for lunches with at least 4 pax. And oh yeah, if you are not in a rush too.

There was a fruit stall seller just outside the restaurant and we washed down the oilyness with some healthy bites and vits. Pineapples, guava, ciku, for only.. RM 3. Quite affordable I must say, considering the fact that the ciku was quite big.