Breakfast at Phang Key ( pronounced: funky ) in Happy Garden, along a road called Jalan Lazat. This is the perfect place to go when you've just woken up late on a lazy weekend, and don't know what to eat.

The food here is pretty ok, it's not a royal dim sum, but tastes are marginally better than the regular dim sum places out there in Klang Valley.

If you're one who hates crowds and hates waiting for seats, then this is not the place for you. Usual waiting times around here is about 5 to 15 minutes. If you're lucky, you'll just happen by a table that's about to leave without anyone standing around waiting for them.

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Another thing that always comes to mind when coming here is there's this guy / helper, who's name is called "Ko Chun" ... which is incidentally the same as the character played by Chow Yun Fat in God of Gamblers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_Gamblers ). The funny thing is, he wears this same "Toronto Canada" shirt every single time. Attached a photo of him as well... see if you can spot him on your next visit!

More about Phang Key at Jalan Lazat, Happy Garden

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Dim Sum breakfast at Jalan Lazat - christinelifeslikethis.blogspot.com
2. Phang Key Dim Sum at Happy Garden - vkeong.com
3. Dim Suming at Restaurant Phang Key - connie-stillbelieve.blogspot.com
4. Restoran Phang Key at OUG - keetable.wordpress.com

What is Dim Sum?
Dim Sum - wikipedia.org

Been hearing about this place with udon in Taman Bukit Desa called "Sanuki Udon" from our friends Qwertyjuan Project 365, Day 19 Sanuki Udon and Vernieman - foodspotting so often it's not even funny anymore. After trying it on a lazy saturday afternoon, there's only 2 things we can say, cheap & tasty.

Sanuki Udon is one of those places where the food is good, and you don't mind having it on a weekly basis, and to top it off, it is cheap. Located in Taman Bukit Desa, it's hidden in a clump of housing area along their single row of shoplots. You can easily get to it just off Old Klang Road, immediately after the exit from Jalan Syed Putra from Midvalley.

The menus are pretty basic, with 8 types of cooking "styles"? but also offered in cold and hot variations. To mix it up a little you can order your udon noodles with toppings of Karaage, Kakiage, etc. Or you can order them as side dishes.

It was supposed to be a light lunch, so we ordered the following...

1. Original Udon Noodles (Hot)
2. Cha Cheong Udon Noodles (Hot)
3. Karaage Side dish
4. Kakiage Side dish
5. Mini Salad Side dish (with wasabe dressing)

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The noodles are basic, although the Cha Cheong Udon looked a bit sticky and gooey, but tasted ok.

The Karaage (deep fried chicken) was extremely tender and juicy.

The Kakiage was a "little" on the oily side.

The Mini Salad with Wasabe dressing was real nice.

Overall the meal with 2 hot green teas costs us a total of RM21 which is pretty reasonable.

Note: They seem to have a different menu for evenings where there are a lot more meaty dishes and also there are some other sets and japanese steam boat sets which they offer.

We will definitely be back to try out their full menu! Will drag along a couple of other friends and maybe even get some video commentary out of them at the same time.

Conclusion, if you're around midvalley / old klang road, and wanna just fill your tummy with some cheap and good japanese udon, Sanuki Udon at Taman Bukit Desa is definitely the place to go.

More about Sanuki Udon

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Sanuki Udon, Taman Bukit Desa - awhiffoflemongrass.com
2. Fresh Udon @ Sanuki Udon - masak-masak.blogspot.com
3. Sanuki Udon @ Taman Bukit Desa - kampungboycitygal.com
4. Sanuki Udon - cumidanciki.com
5. Sanuki Udon - eforericyong.blogspot.com

What is Sanuki Udon?
Sanuki Udon Noodles - ec.kagawa-uac.jp

Although Wong Ah Wah has been well-known in KL for their grilled chicken wing, this visit we made was to savour their tai chow recommended by Samson. We were spoilt with choices of roughly 90 plus dishes presented in the all pictures menu, not forgetting other dishes not listed in the menu. I guess those dishes are kinda prepared upon requests. Geez, look at the thickness of the menu! But mind you, there are no price listing for the dishes.

Disappointing moment: the waitress did not know how to recommend the house specialty. When I asked "What's your house specialty?" She goes "Huh? Errr.... Umm...." It was disappointing to me because I considered it to be very important for the waitress to be able to give appropriate recommendations to the customers. We could very well missed out on their house specialty and order only the very common dishes. This is especially important when there are dishes not presented in the menu. Sorry to get so worked up but I seriously have rather low tolerance for this matter.

On the brighter side, take note, if you are:
a. in KL city
b. looking for delicious and flavorful chinese dishes
c. starving to near death
then Wong Ah Wah will be your food saviour.

Well, it may sound exaggerating but it was truthfully based on our personal experience. The service was freaking fast! Food was served in like 10 minutes upon ordering. No, it wasn't prepared in advance. And no, it wasn't somebody else's rejected order. Gosh, I have no idea how they did that. It was unbelievable but true.

"Fan shu yip chow fu yu" (potato leaves stirred fried with fermented beancurd) The yellowish white creamy sauce is made from the fermented beancurd. [Search for picture of fermented beancurd and the descriptions.] It does look similar to some cheesy and creamy pasta sauce, doesn't it? But I can guarantee it taste no where similar to those pasta sauce. For those who have not tried this before, it's worth giving it a shot because the flavour is unique and definitely different from the usual chinese stir fry vegetable.

When this dish was served, we discovered something shocking, Marianne, a KLite has never seen potato leaves in her entire life let alone tasted it. It's like so weird, so eccentric. This is one of my all time favourite veggie. And I have not known anyone who doesn't know how potato leaves looks/taste like. Are you one of them? If you are, please leave a comment here. I'm sure Marianne would love to meet you.

Thai style beancurd, voted by Wilfred, Samson and Chloe as the dish of the night. This is one of the dishes not listed in the picture menu. Don't ask me how do I get to order dishes not in the menu because it was recommended by Samson. Hehe... this is one of the advantage of knowing someone who loves to eat and have dine in many places. Good recommendation! It tasted really SUPERB! Are you now salivating and fantasizing the softness of beancurd? Hold on a sec! Rewind! This beancurd is not soft! It is spongy/springy and incredibly flavourful. I mean the beancurd itself is savoury...

Assam Tilapia, the fish is fried till very crispy and crunchy on the outside but the flesh inside is still very succulent and juicy. With the combination of sour and spicy sauce, it was altogether a perfect dish. Yummy!

The la-la was fresh but it didn't have much of the sauce's taste which was concocted with chinese cooking wine and loads of chili padi. As the sauce was very tasty thus it was voted by Marianne as her favourite dish of the night.

The Before and After picture of the food we ordered. Nothing left at the end! Man, did we enjoyed the food!!

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Price for 4 pax:
Taufu  - RM 15.00
Fish   - RM 25.00
Veg    - RM 10.00
La-la  - RM 12.00
Drinks - RM  7.80
Total  - RM 69.80
5% tax - RM  3.49
Rice   - RM  3.00

The price is a bit above average price (as compared with other tai chow places). Note: It might be slightly (as in few ringgit) cheaper during normal period since we dined during CNY season.

Overall, we had a thumbs up dining experience!

Restaurant name: Kedai Ayam Panggang Wong Ah Wah
Address: No. 1, Jalan Alor (Off Jalan Bukit Bintang), 50200, Kuala Lumpur.
Telephone: 603-2144 2463/2148 3413
Business Hour: 5.00pm - 3.45am (Closed on Monday of alternate week)
Dining Date: 05 Jan 2006 8pm

Ratings:
Food: Wilfy [5/5] Marianne [4/5] Chloe [4/5]
Service: Wilfy [4/5] Marianne [3/5] Chloe [3/5]
Cleanliness: Wilfy [3/5] Marianne [2/5] Chloe [2/5]
Value for money: Wilfy [2/5] Marianne [3/5] Chloe [2/5]

More about Wong Ah Wah

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Wong Ah Wah Chicken Wings at Jalan Alor - tankiasu.xanga.com
2. Wong Ah Wah - eatfirstthinklater.blogspot.com
3. Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings - j2kfm.com
4. Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings - 3-meals.com
5. Kedai Ayam Wong Ah Wah - followmefoodie.com
6. Wong Ah Wah - samlee86.com

Try grilling your own chicken wings?
Grilled Chicken Wings Recipes - cooks.com

Double cheese burger (left) - RM26++ & Tapas Club House (right ) - RM20++
How about crunchy bread stick as free snack?!
Enjoying your cravings in environment such as these:
Now, how do you like that?? *eyelashes batting*
Are you craving for some burgers or sandwiches? Then drool at these!!

Tapas, The Oyster Bar, in Hotel Micasa
Micasa All Suite Hotel,
368B, Jalan Tun Razak, 50400, KL.
Opening: 6.45am - 1.00am

Ratings:
Food: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Cleanliness:4/5
Value for money: 3/5

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More about Tapas The Oyster Bar

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Tapas The Oyster Bar - my.88db.com

What is Tapas?
1. Tapas - Wikipedia.org
2. What are Tapas? - spanishfood.about.com
3. What is Tapas? - wisegeek.com

This is what you would see before you enter Dragon-i. The bigger four chinese characters written on the left side of the sign board reads "Long de chuan ren". If I may translate it to English, it would means the descendent of dragon. On the right hand side, the smaller chinese characters read "La mien xiao long pao" (i.e., literally means "pull noodle small dragon bun"??).

Stewed Beef La Mien in Soup. The big chunks of lean beef was not tender so the meat texture was kinda hard when you chew on it. I was hoping for the meat to be very tender, like it could simply melt in your mouth instead of the teeth-abusing, rough and dry texture. Usually, stewed beef that are very tender would consist of beef that has some layer of fats to achieve that tenderness. So on the positive side, lean beef is less fattenning and would be more appealing to those who are health-conscious. The broth was tasty, very much to my liking.

The Shanghai Pork Rib La Mien comes with a generous serving of pork chop which was crispy yet juicy and well marinated. The noodle was a  bit soggy though and the soup was those plain soup "ching tong". No complains on the pork chop but I was hoping for the noodle to have a richer texture, like very QQ (springy) since it's hand-made.

The La Mien with fried chicken taste pretty much the same as the pork chop noodle cause it was served with the same type of noodles. But personally I would prefer the pork chop over the chicken chop simply because I prefer to eat pork.

The open kitchen concept next to the entrance displays how the chefs prepare the xiao long pao, steam dumpling with soup/gravy in it.

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Overall, I would say that you can pop by if you are shopping around in 1U and suddenly feel like having some decent chinese food to fill your tummy. Other than that, I personally will not purposely make a trip to 1U just to savour their food cause I can definitely get much tastier and cheaper chinese food outside. However, the xiao long pao is definitely worth a try since it's something you don't get like everywhere and anywhere.

Dragon-i
Lot S313A, New Wing
1 Utama Shopping Centre
03-7725 8822

Ratings:
Food: 3/5
Service: 3/5
Cleanliness:4/5
Value for money: 3/5

More about Dragon-I

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Dragon-i (籠的傳人) : 1 Utama Mall - attablefortwo.com
2. The Quest For Siu Loong Pau - Shaolintiger.com
3. Dragon-I Restaurant - nicktay.net
4. Dragon-I at 1 Utama - mouthwatering-food.blogspot.com
5. KY eats - Dragon-I Restaurant - kyspeaks.com
6. Dragon-I - karynkhoo.blog.friendster.com

What is Xiao Long Bao?
1. Xiaolongbao - wikipedia.org
2. Lots of pictures of Xiao Long Bao - flickr.com

Apparently this beef ball noodle in O.U.G. (Overseas Union Garden, located along Old Klang Road) is very famous or well known, i've been eating this for over 5 years on and off for lunch and i don't know... :wall: So today i decided to do it justice by taking a few pics and telling you about the beef ball noodles in this place.

A choice of meehoon, mee, loushufen, kuey teow noodles are available, and choice of mixed beef parts with beef balls or just plain beef balls is also a choice for you. They also sell Yong Tau Fu on the side, which consists various types of veggie with meat inserted (yong).

The beef balls

The specialty here are their beef balls. Tasty to the point of hovering on too salty, but just not yet. their beef balls taste has apparently been tuned to perfection, which is why sometimes you can see people coming in to purchase large bags of 50 - 100 frozen beef balls for use in their own cooking. their beef balls aren't exactly large by any measure, but they do taste good. The texture is nice too, with a slight rubbery bounce when you bite in.

The noodle

I ordered the mee, thin strands of yellow coloured noodles similar to the traditional wan ton mee noodles. The noodles are dry covered with their special sauce of minced beef and a couple of stalks of steamed veggie. The minced beef sauce mixed with the noodles are how can i say, very very tasty (which is why i've been eating this pretty often through the past 5 years), has a unique taste to it that i can't quite place (i guess that's what makes it special:mrgreen: ).

Restoran Yang Kee
No 52, Jalan Hujan Rahmat 2, Taman OUG,
Jalan Kelang Lama, Kuala Lumpur,
Wilayah Persekutuan, 58200, Malaysia

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More about Yang Kee Beef Ball Noodle

Other Blog's Reviews
1. Yang Kee Beef Noodle at Taman OUG - taufulou.com
2. Hakka Noodles at Yang Kee - tummy-rumble.blogspot.com
3. Beef Noodles at Yang Kee - masak-masak.blogspot.com

While digging though our old photos, we came across some Souled Out pics from 2002 and 2004. Since we've visited this place at least once a year, I can confidantly say that we enjoyed the experience there. So here are some of the photos + comments from Chloe...

Now this is challenging 'coz first of all, this wasn't my food, it was another friend, Ferdinand's dinner. Secondly, it was taken a few years back in Souled Out during a uni-mates gathering. Thirdly, the picture isn't self-explanatory enough for me to recall anything. And fourthy, ... err... actually there's not fourthly. ;p

Enchillades (grilled chicken and veggies fillings) and cheesy nachos with salsa. Yummy, yummy 'coz it was very cheesy.

The very flashy and huge chunk of golden thingy was fried chicken meat. It has some cheese and ham wrapped inside as the fillings. It was rather oily and dry plus the steam veggies are quite plain too. I'm definitely not a big fan of dry and plain dishes. Standing tall next to the plain dry dish was lime-flavoured margaritas. Ok, I admit that this is based on my analysis of the look of the drink. It has a slice of lime sitting on top and it has salt lining the glass so it has to be lime-flavoured margaritas. What else could it be??

Well, all I can describe is that plate of pasta looks gluey, sticky, cheesy and orangy. In front of it was a glass of tomato juice ordered by our health-conscious & doctor to be, Thomas Chang.

A glass of Bloody Mary complimented with a lemon wedge.

A generous piece of golden fried salmon with some steam veggies (the same plain veggies again?? &*&@*$^@$... why can't they serve something better? Like some mashed potato with creamy brown sauce served in Chillis'). In addition, it had some linguine with spinach pesto, which tasted rather normal. It was rather filling for a big-eater like me.

Creamy & cheesy fettucine cabonara topped with some bacon crisp. It looks shiny and glowing, don't ya think so? It's starting to look a bit fake to me, like those plastic-like food display in Japanese restaurants.

This drink comes with a very intriguing and obscene name: PUSSY FOOT!! Imagine offering your friends to taste this exciting drink while bursting out "Who wanna taste my pussy...foot??" *giggling proudly with my own awesome & spontaneous joke, or at least I think so*

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We love Souled Out, don't we? This was our second Souled Out encounter. Another plate of same dish, fettucine carbonara with bacon crisp.

A bowl of pumpkin soup which according to Wilfred tasted like pumpkin. Duhhhhh... But well, probably we still have to give credit to it 'coz at least it tasted like pumpkin and not something else....

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Five baby sausages and two scoops of mashed potatos with some brown mushroom sauce. This pathetically small serving doesn't look filling to me at all.

This was supposed to be the so-called Fisherman Platter. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a plate filled with:
1. over-cooked rubbery squids which you can chew it for hours like a chewing gum
2. three pieces of not-so-fresh prawns which had texture similar to that of pigs' liver (I just hate pigs' liver, it's definitely a no-no to me although I considered myself pretty adventurous when it comes to food. I had to give up after trying it a couple of times.)
3. a piece of fried fish fillet which was covered with too much of flour batter

More about Souled Out

Other Blog's Reviews
1. SOULed OUT at Desa Sri Hartamas - alyfood.wordpress.com
2. SOULed OUT at Desa Sri Hartamas - ivyaiwei.blogspot.com
3. SOULed OUT at Desa Sri Hartamas - jasonmumbles.com
4. Souled Out at Desa Sri Hartamas - superwhite.cc
5. Souled Out! at Desa Sri Hartamas - thefoodtalk.com
6. Souled Out - Chap Goh Meh Celebrations - foodpoi.com

Official Website
souledout.com.my

Arrived at Low Yat at about 1pm with my brother and cousin in tow cause they were bored at home and wanted to get out of the house. Decided to have lunch first, we were initially planning on going for our usual at the vegetarian shop on the Lower Ground floor of Plaza Low Yat, but when we reached the place, the lot was covered with boards with a big "Under Renovation" sign. Lazy as I am, I just went to the nearest food source, next door. The Kopi Club

Was gonna go get some replacement parts for my house computer stuff (caused by stupid lightning the other day) at Plaza Low Yat (where all computer people / geeks / nerds like me call their second home).

Getting There

The shop it self is located at the Lower Ground floor, directly facing the side of the escalator and pretty much 1 shop away from the doorway to the underground parking, so if you parked in lowyat, you can't miss it walking out from the parking.

The Atmosphere and crowd

The decor has a pretty old style feel to it, but nice and clean. Small marble tables to accomodate 4 person just nice, wooden stools all round, the place even served hot typical hot beverages (coffee, milo, etc) in the old style white and blue print coffee cups and saucers. I like the setup, it's nice and cozy and casual. Most of the patrons are related to IT in some way, either working or shopping in Low Yat.

The Food

I ordered the Mee Siam, where as both my cousin and brother ordered the Mee Goreng, then we decided to order some spring rolls, but they were out, so we took the yam cakes instead. Since the place is called The Kopi Club, i ordered Milo Ice (yes i know milo is not coffee, but i'm not that into coffee).

	Mee Siam A Mee Siam was basically thin noodles (cantonese : mee hoon) cooked into some sort of a salty soury kinda taste, kinda hard to descibe. Usually the dish would be accompanied with slices of some egg omelette, but mine was served with a lop sided bulls eye. No matter, an egg is an egg. The dish was topped with cucumber slices and some spring onions and matched with a slice of lime and served on a banana leaf on a plate. The taste was alright, nothing special there, but the dish did include a few tiny prawns (inset), which was pretty nice, just wished they chopped the tails off as well.
	Mee Goreng The Mee Goreng was pretty standard with all the usual suspects as ingredients: mee :faint:, some greens, slices of fresh chilly, and a slice of limejust like the Mee Siam. In case you've never eaten a Mee Goreng before, you're supposed to squeeze the lime over the dish before digging in just like a salmon fillet. The taste was what a mee goreng is supposed to taste like, no surprises there. Mee was tender, not too hard not too soft or soggy. and the portion was just nice for an afternoon snack.
	Yam Cake Pronounced as "wu tau gou" in cantonese, this is made of yam into a form of cake with bitesized chunks of yam and other miscellaneous stuff like dried prawns, in some cases, pieces of meat. A Yam Cake is supposed to be a little salty and in most cases served with sweet chilly sauce and some sort of sweet sauce. It is also topped with crispy fried onion and green spring onions and other salty toppings (which i couldn't identify :wall: )
	Milo Ice Rich with milo, a tad on the sweet side, but that's how i like my milo ice overall i'd give the Milo Ice a thumbs up if you've got a sweet tooth.

Conclusion

It's a quaint little coffee shop to have some typical malaysian dishes after a few hours of browsing the hardware and handphone shops in Plaza Low Yat.

The Kopi Club
Lower Ground Plaza Low Yat
10am - 10pm daily
Asian cuisine

Imagine this: you are doing some shopping (or window shopping as most of us do before the pay cheque comes in at the end of month ) and suddenly you felt this intense craving for some fast and cheap Japanese food. What do you do? And who do you call? G.H.O.S.T.B.U.S.T.E.R.S. of course, yeaahh … Love that show, I still remember how Slimey (the shapeless green ghost with the long red tongue) used to leave all that green goo everywhere he (or was it a ‘she’?) goes *eww …* and had a crush on that cute ghostbuster Peter (it’s a she then). Anyway, anyway, sorry for the little digression … back to the review. So WHAT DO YOU DO? Answer: you can either head over to Sushi King (SK) or Genki Sushi (GS).

Granted that this is not a special restaurant or even one that serves special food to write a review on, but I figured there must be some lost souls out there who have never ever step foot into this place and wondering what the big fuss is about or why the heck are all those people queuing up outside this place. So if you are one of them (the lost souls that is), then this is for you *smiles*.

Malaysian have taken the “Look East” policy propagated by our former PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, to heart and to stomach (literally) judging by the crop of Japanese eateries that had mushroomed all over the Klang Valley in the past few years. GS in Klang Valley alone has 5 outlets, all situated inside a mall: KLCC, Pyramid, 1-Utama, Klang Parade, and The Weld. If you think that GS is a local concept without any Japanese linkage much like how Manhattan Fish Market is not related to Manhattan let alone a fish market in Manhattan, then you are wrong *smiles smugly*. Outside Malaysia, you can also find GS in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Japan (TADAaaaa!!! The Japanese link). In a way, GS and SK can be considered as the McDonald's of the East, or more specifically of Japan.

Note to self: less blah blah and more pictures. Ok, here are some pictures taken on one of our visits to GS:

Green powder scooped up with a small cute wooden spatula to make:

THIS! Green tea or ocha. Of course must mix with water first la.

Wasabi in light soy sauce. To those people who think highly of their ability to consume spicy stuff, word of caution: go easy on the wasabi if you are new to it.

Open kitchen where you can watch the chef prepares your order of sushi or makimono. So now you can eat your food in peace knowing that it does not contain extra ingredients such a boogers from the chef's nose *sniggers*.

Me showing what's on the menu to Chloe and Wilfred and Wilfred sneakily took a shot, hence the slight surprised look.

Closeup of the menu showing all the mouth-watering *drools* food that can be ordered. These are all considered cooked food and takes a longer time to arrive as compare to the pre-prepared sushi that comes whizzing past on a conveyor belt.

Fried tofu ala Japanese Style bathed in soy sauce with seaweed, spring onion and fish roe topping. Crispy on the outside and soft inside, think tofu and not anything else, ok?

Mixed veggie (lady finger, brinjal, sweet potato) tempura. Understandably this dish takes a while before making an appearance. The bowl behind with some black sauce (not soy sauce, not sure what it is called though) is the dip for the tempura.

Spider temaki. It doesn't literally meant those are spiders in there, ok? Those fried things are actually soft shell crabs. This is mine and Chloe's favourite food at GS *yummy*. Definitely a must-try.

Chuka kurage (jellyfish). The jellyfish is sometimes serve as one of the appetizers in the 'Four Seasons' dish at Chinese wedding dinner. It is crunchy (can hear the sound as you chew on it, serious) and the bits of sesame add some zing to it.

I think this was called 'Firecracker maki' or 'Firecracker something'. On the menu, there is a little chilli next to this dish to indicate its spiciness, but other than the generous topping of raw onions covered in paprika powder, we can't really taste any other ingredients that would make this sushi spicy. The redeeming value for this sushi would be the use of the skin of some kind of fish (the pink layer) to wrap the rice rather than the normal seaweed. That pink layer has the taste, smell and the texture of one of Malaysian favourite snack: "yau yee".

Can't exactly remember what this was called already but those are soft shell crabs (yes we have a soft spot for soft shell crabs) embedded in there within the rice. And no, those are not cobwebs weaved by some humongous spiders, it's actually mayonaise. Again, seaweed is not used to wrap the rice, but rather a thin slice of egg substitutes it.

Prices for sushi and makimoto ranges from RM2 to RM8 and cooked food (like the tempura) is from RM8 to RM15 (for prawn ones). Additionally, GS also serves set meals that comes in compartmentalised boxes containing rice, a cooked dish, desserts, salad and miso soup. So the next time you feel an urge for some Japanese food that wouldn't put a dent on your pocket, pop in to a GS outlet near you.

T’was a cold and rainy Friday night when the fab four (me, Chloe, Wilfred and our M.I.A. chick, Lina) venture out to the furthest corner of Kuala Lumpur for some grub. Longing for something hot and spicy to fill our bellies and warm our souls, we decided what could be better than steamboat to do the job, right?

Our quest led us to Kepong, the so-called “steamboat haven”. It’s a haven indeed for steamboat lovers as we find ourselves facing rows and rows of restaurants all serving the same thing. We finally settled for this place called Pulau Ketam Steamboat Restaurant *phew*. Not sure why it is named Pulau Ketam when the restaurant is not in Pulau Ketam also *scratch head*. Anyway, when we reached the restaurant, a man was standing in the middle of the road ushering us to park in this empty space directly opposite the restaurant (woohoo … free parking!! But the place a bit muddy, not good for girls wearing 3 inches heels :S). Since there was a slight drizzle, the man even offered umbrella-ring services to us when we got out of the car. So nice yea?

A little about the restaurant, it occupies two adjacent shoplots but separated by a small alley in between. It’s a typical Malaysian style Chinese restaurant where food taste and enjoyment take precedence over hygiene and presentation. So expect wailing babies, kids running about, funny smell emitting from the drains and flying cockroaches *shudder*. The place was about three-quarters full when we reached there about 8-ish (usual Malaysian time for dinner in case you are wondering). If you are the type that judges a restaurant by the size of its patrons then this would be an indication of a popular restaurant considering that it’s a weekday and that it has been raining practically the whole day long *miserable groan*.

Ok, ok, I know I'm longwinded, so lets get to the food now ... we ordered the mixed style (ying yong: tom yam and ching tong) steamboat for three people on the recommendation of the lady boss. Though there were four ravenous souls there that night, we happily complied with the lady boss so as not too seem like greedy pigs and also because we girls are small eaters *ahem*. Additionally, we also ordered a side dish of grilled chicken wings from a small stall that is affiliated with the restaurant. There was some confusion (an understatement) while ordering the chicken wings as we girls thought that a pair of chicken wings meant one wing but is called a pair because it is usually served cut into two pieces while Wilfred thinks that a pair literally meant two wings. Apparently the person that took our order has the same thinking as Wilfred and we ended up with eight chicken wings!! That is a total of four chickens whose wings were cut off for our enjoyment *eyes wide*… oh well …

The stuff for the steamboat arrived in three plates: one that contains all the dumplings (this is actually an extra order), another that contains the eggs and noodles, and finally a huge silver platter that contains all the other items such as foo chok (bean curd skin?), meat balls (fish, sotong, prawn, pork), pieces of meat (chicken, beef, fish, sotong), quill eggs and some other things whose “official” names we don’t know (refer to the picture). These are the typical stuff that is usually given for steamboat.

Closeups of some of the things ... "Oh, look ... got PRAWNS!!", Lina got hyper on seeing them.

Poor prawnies *shakes head sadly*

While waiting for the soup to boil, the chicken wings arrived. The chicken wings came with its own chilli dip. We tucked into the chicken wings with relish. Verdict on the chicken wings: pretty average, does not leave us craving for more. Each wing cost RM2, a standard price for grilled chicken wings in the Klang Valley (tell us if can get cheaper elsewhere).

The good thing about steamboat is that once you get the soup boiling, the cooking part is pretty much a breeze because you just need to throw in the stuff and wait for it to float to the surface of the soup. And since most of the stuff is pre-cooked, it would usually be a short wait. A tip for eating steamboat is not to be greedy: cook the food in batches so that the food would not be overcooked. There isn’t any rule of thumb on the order that the things should go into the soup but most of the time, the noodles and eggs would be left until the end of the meal to fill up any remaining spaces in the tummies.

The clear soup (ching tong) was a normal ikan bilis stock soup, nothing extraordinary. While the tom yam soup was thick, spicy and sour but seem to be lacking in an important ingredient: lemongrass leaf (fatt fung kam yip). A dummy tip for those new to steamboat: the soups are refillable (DOH!) so don’t hesitate to ask the waiters for more.

A home tip from the chicks and pea here: a bathtub can doubled as a sink to wash dishes (altogether now: ahhh...). This tip was gleaned from our observation of how the dishes are cleaned in this restaurant. Two bathtubs was used: one to soak all the dirty dishes in soapy water and another filled with clean water to wash off the soap. How ingenious and resourceful!!

For those who like the convenience of getting your daily Chinese newspaper or a pirated DVD or two while having your meal, then this is the place for you. Every now and then, a peddler would come around to every table selling things of entertainment value such as newspaper, DVD and lottery tickets to food stuff such as homemade cookies, kuih-muih, and freshly cut fruits. We bought some tako (cubes of santan gelatine with chopped pieces of waterchestnut) for dessert. It wasn’t fantastic or probably because we were already pretty full by the time we got to the dessert. However, we felt its taste could have improved tremendously if it has been packed in folded pandan leaves rather than in some plastic container.

Overall, it wasn’t a memorable dining experience though it does leave each of us feeling content *rubbing tummy*. The total damage for the meal was about RM60 for four person, this is inclusive of the drinks and additional order of dumplings.

Left: the residue remaining in the pot, gross right? Right: the mess after the feast, yes we are slobs