Jom, Makan Time!

Long wait for my pan mee

2009-08-01T12:42:00.003+08:00

Saturday, August 01, 2009

My wife told she once went to a pan mee stall in SS18 Subang Jaya and has to wait for over one hour for the food to come. Another unusual feature was that this stall only sells “mit” pan mee only, while “yau pan mee” or “chou pan mee” are not sold here.

So here we were one Sunday morning hoping to experience and taste the long waiting pan mee but found it closed.

We made it there again one Saturday morning at 9.30 am. My wife hurried first to the stall before we could find a table and she was given a queue number of 72 and was told to expect a waiting time of 30 minutes.

To kill time and control our impatience we first ordered a fried koay tiou from another stall for sharing.

The ordered pan mees came at 20 minutes later.

I supposed this waiting is not too bad but it might be longer on weekdays.

The taste? I noticed only a small quantity of minced pork compare with other pan mee outlets was added. There was a lone small meat ball which I ate last reluctantly but found it surprisingly tasty and “smell nice”.

Also different was the only 2 or 3 fried ikan bilis used unlike others.

The texture of “mit pan mee” tasted ok and no problem to finish all. The soup appeared a bit brownish, a bit salty and sweet. Quite ok.

To conclude, I thought it is ok for a revisit if patience is the essence of your outing.

Subang Jaya SS15 fish ball and Yong Tau Foo noodles

2009-07-11T17:14:00.004+08:00

Saturday, July 11, 2009

One of my favourite breakfast outlets is the fish ball and Yong Tau Foo noodles shop at SS15 Subang Jaya. This is one shop specialises in fish balls and Yong Tau Foo only. According to the signboard the business started since 1982.

The fish balls sold here do not contain the usual chemical and are tender and tasty to bite. I also like the Tau Pok stuffed with fish paste. There are also other Yong Tau Foo such as green chilli, fish cake foo chok, meat balls, beef tendon balls, fried foo chok etc which are all nice to eat.

If you have your noodles prepared in soup style then all your selected Yong Tau Foo will be mixed with noodle in the soup. Otherwise they will be prepared in a bowl of clear soup which contains some Tung Choy to go with the dry style noodles.

The clear soup with Tung Choy tasted okay to me and I will normally finish it to last drop. Our recent trip to the shop for breakfast cost RM27.60 for 3 person inclusive of drinks.

My best steamboat restaurant

2009-07-07T23:38:00.005+08:00

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Though it would set me back for quite a lot of money for each outing, this Ketam Village Steamboat restaurant, located at P1 level in Ikano remains firmly as my favourite for steamboat meals.

Needless to say, the servings are fresh with good variety of appetising items. The shop is inside Ikano so you will feel comfortable for having steamy hot steamboat meals in an air-conditioned environment.

Each dinner has his own steamboat pot positioned in front of him and patrons can either choose to order individual steamboat servings or a combo set. This individual serving style is a good idea as there is no need of lengthy discussion and sometimes even argument on what to order in a typical share all steamboat restaurant.

Be prepared to go there early as the place will always be fully packed with dinners especially during weekend evenings. We had to wait for a good 25 minutes before a table was finally freed up at about 8.30 pm.

It cost us about RM80.00 for 3 individual sets during our visit there last week.

Pricey food court near PLUS highway

2009-07-07T00:06:00.004+08:00

Monday, July 6, 2009

When I was on a working trip to Singapore last week by bus, the bus made a stop at a food court just after exit toll plaza at Yong Peng.

In a way the express bus has detoured to a private food court outside the highway. Surprisingly I could see there are actually two food courts located at a short distance on the right hand side just after exiting Yong Peng toll Plaza.

The express bus stopped at the second food court to allow the passengers to have a short break. It was about 5pm. The bus has departed from KL at 1.30pm earlier.

There were several stalls selling the usual hawker foods such as claypot noodles, prawn noodle, wan ton noodles, cut fruits and etc.

I have to pay RM6.00 for a bowl of fish ball noodles, with 7 nos. small fish balls, some purple veggie and some lettuce in it. I also have to pay RM1.80 for a black coffee which I only pay RM1.20 in some coffee shops in PJ/KL. I saw the price of cut fruits here are RM2.00 per piece. On my way back I saw it was only RM1.00 per piece in a stall in KL Sentral.

Although the fish balls tasted reasonably okay but I considered the price of food here unbelievably much higher than the usual rest area food stalls along the highway.

Malaysia Champion Chicken Rice

2009-06-21T17:53:00.003+08:00

Sunday, June 21, 2009

It was kind of surprise when I first heard of chicken rice competition in Malaysia. It is such an innovative idea to have a contest to fight out for such a novelty title. Mention EPL champions and most people will quickly think of Man Utd or Liverpool or Arsenal. But being Malaysia Champion of chicken rice is no small matter because most of us eat chicken quite often and it is curious to know how does champion chicken rice taste like.

It was one day some time ago that I first ate at this chicken rice shop in Kota Damansara that I accidentally found out from the numerous framed photos on the wall that the operator of this shop was in fact the Champion in the Grand Final of Malaysia Chicken rice competition in 2007!!

In Chinese the name of this shop is called “为食鸡“and is located near Jalan PJU 4/15. I could not find the road name plate for the exact road name.

I first noticed this shop setting up here about 3 or 4 years ago but did not try out. I thought it was just another one of the many chicken rice shops in town.

How did the chicken rice taste? To me the chicken meat tasted sweet and tender and may be you will get this quality every time you visit there. People will just feel confident to eat chicken rice there because the taste and quality from a champion are expected to be consistently good.

The shop also serves bean sprouts and meat balls.

Breakfast at Century Pine Hotel Cameron Highland

2009-06-21T01:04:00.007+08:00

Saturday, June 20, 2009

During our family's recent holiday in Cameron Highlands we stayed in Century Pine Hotel as we did since 2005.

I remember the rate for a deluxe room then was RM170.00 per night but this time round it was about RM251.00 per room night for just a superior room.

Free breakfast for two are included.

May be somebody could share their experience on where I can get a more competitive hotel rate in Cameron Highlands.

Uploading the photos on our free breakfast to share with those planning to stay at this hotel.

I would say the breakfast was nothing to be shout about. I also accidentally found out that my breakfast table was dusty and uncleaned. I have to wipe it using a tissue paper and saw black dust stains.

Nasi Kandar Pelita

2009-06-21T00:23:00.007+08:00

Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Pelita chain of nasi kandar is my favorite place to go for a fulfilling lunch or dinner. For years I have never got disappointed after each visit.

I fully enjoy the curry dishes here, especially the fish curry. The rice is always steaming hot and not lumpy. I would always go for fish curry, boiled egg and a veggie and a mixed curry gravy on the rice. Occasionally I would have curry squid added.

A mixed gravy will see the waiter taking a swift scoop of a few drops of gravy from each of the seven to ten types of curry dishes on display.

The taste?

….not too spicy, sweet, saltish and good flavour making up all in one of a good taste. I could even just eat the plain rice with only the curry gravy.

Each meal will normally cost me less than RM8.00 inclusive of a teh tarik. Not too bad.

I have tried out at other nasi kandar shops but I still feel most comfortable with Pelita.

Top photo shows a "rojak mee" and the one below a mixed dishes rice with curry fish. I will take and upload better photos later.

My Big Mac

2009-06-20T23:29:00.004+08:00

Monday, June 08, 2009

There are times that I would go for the Big Mac:

-When it's a bit too late for lunch in coffee shops where almost everything are sold out after 2.30pm;

- When I already have Chinese foods consecutively for a few days and need a switch of flavour;

- Whenever I am lost in deciding what Chinese food to have for lunch.

I will try to beat the the 1pm to 3pm deadline for a discounted Big Mac at RM7.95 instead of usual price of RM10.10. During this discount hours soft drinks are also refillable. Do expect several long queues at the ordering counters.

Boh Tea Café in Cameron Highland

2009-06-07T22:18:00.008+08:00

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Ever seen how green and raw tea leaves were processed from the stage of harvesting from tea plants to packing? If you haven’t then this is the place in Cameron Highland that you must visit.

The Boh tea cafe , plantation and factory is located just after KEA Farm, a popular road side vegetable market outskirt of Brinchang town heading towards Kampung Raja.

The 2 km branch road from the main trunk road to Boh plantation is not for the new drivers because it is narrow, sometimes passable by one car only and also winding. At some points of the journey you have to temporarily stop at lay bys in order to allow the opposite cars to squeeze pass you. There is no guard rail along the steep hilly roads so the car will plunge down into deep ravine if it goes out of control.

Despite this difficult access the stream of visitors never stops.

There are three main sections of visit at this place, the tea cafe, a mini market selling Boh tea products and lastly the factory. There is also a tv room showing the video of the history and activities of the Boh Tea company.

Visitors are allowed to enter the tea factory for a glimpse of the processing of tea leaves.

Along the hall way leading to the waiting area to the factory also on display are numerous pictorial highlights of the history of Boh Tea Company. From these pictures I learn to know the British who started the Boh Company in 1929 was called J.A. Russell. He first came to Malaya with his parents and four brothers in 1890.

After going through the historical background and the tea leaves production process most visitors will be too glad to head to the tea cafe which is located at the main entrance of the visitor gallery for a cuppa and light snacks. Available at the cafe are various flavour types of Boh teas, cakes, curry puff, scone, nasi lemak and sandwiches.

Most patrons will prefer the seats at the far end of a cantilever tea room overlooking the ever so eye pleasing of contours of green tea plants on the hill slopes below.

Due to the general cool climate in the area, it is comfortable and peaceful to have tea here especially if you are the chatty type.

For three of us the tea for three, 1 scone, 3 pieces of curry puffs and 1 strawberry cake cost us RM24.40 which was reasonable.

The cafe is often packed to its brink during school or public holidays. You are expected to take quite a while to look out for a better sitting area if you so prefer.

On the whole, the visit is enjoyable and memorable with many photos taken with the beautiful hilly background of green green tea plantation.

Bah Kut Teh in Cameron Highland

2009-06-06T23:41:00.002+08:00

Friday, June 05, 2009

To have Bah Kut Teh as our lunch or dinner when holidaying in Cameron Highland is considered not a good option for me because:

No feedback so far by others on any recommendable Bah Kut Teh in Cameron Highland;
There is plenty of good Bah Kut The stalls near our home in PJ. Why come so far to take?
Always hoping to find some good foods that are different and unavailable in PJ.

For these reasons we, as well as many other holiday makers here are seen more interested in taking steam boat and seafood meals.

We will however squeeze in a Bah Kut Teh session if the last one we had back home was quite some time ago, i.e. at least 2 week or when we have become stale with other types of foods. Who knows if we happen to find a “gem” here then we can boast to our friends and looked well travelled.

With this in mind we roamed around the small eatery shops in the side roads of Brinchang at about 1.15 pm and not after long we settled to a second Bah Kut Teh shop we spotted. The first one we spotted told us that they only sell for dinner.

We ordered the following:

Mixed Bah Kut Teh with soup (we were told they also serve dry Bah Kut Teh) for 2 persos;
Pork leg stew with vinegar – “Chee Keo Zhou” for 1 person;
Oiled veggie “Kai Lan Mieu”;
A pot of Chinese tea;
One portion of “yau char kuay”.

I must say that all my enthusiasm of finding a great Bah Kut Teh in this cooling highland begin to quickly fizzle out as soon as I saw the appearance of the vinegar pork leg served to us. A few pieces of pork throttle cuts with thick layer of fat and skin were floating in a claypotful of dark brown looking gravy. The pork pieces looked overboiled, did not look firm and without disseminating a good aroma of the any ingredients used.

I obliged to just taste two pieces and gave up.

The oyster sauced boiled kai lan mieu was also a disaster. The stalks were long and hard and rough which will take long time to chew.

The only consolation was that the mixed Bah Kut Teh tasted reasonable but not particularly special. This was the first time in eating Bah Kut Teh that I did’nt order an extra rice even though I was not fully filled.

Total billed came to RM47.50.

Dinner in Cameron Highland

2009-06-06T15:56:00.008+08:00

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Finding a budget place for dinner in Cameron Highland is not difficult. Just go to the main road of Brinchang town and you can notice there are 2 rows of Chinese restaurants lining along the road side and brightly lit with colourful signboards.

If you stroll along these shops you will be flagged down by the ever so swift talking “touts” to persuade you to dine at their restaurant.

There must be around 15 or so restaurants on both side of the main road and almost all of them offer steam boat dinner.

As for us, we already have a steam boat dinner last night so we prefer to have a rice dinner tonight. Our regular eatery place for this is the one next to a “Ramasamy” mini market and is called “Restaurant Makanan Laut Cameron Highlands”.

So we are here tonight again at this place and while driving a while ago I could see that all the restaurants here were very crowded probably it’s school holiday season.

It took me quite a while to find a parking bay in Brinchang town. The whole town is normally bustling with holiday makers at night because here is the place for dinner in Cameron Highland and also there is a night market in town, which is a must visit for all the tourists here at night.

Under such situation, It is virtually impossible to find a parking bay along the main road and the small open car park in front of the Supermarket Jimat unless you are lucky.

So I normally have to try the nearby side roads and alleys for parking.

Settling down in the restaurant, our orders for tonight are:

1. Steam oyster mushroom;

2. Hot plate Japanese bean curds;

3. Sweet and sour prawns;

4. Fried mixed veggie.

5. Chinese tea “Pur Earl”.

Steamed oyster mushroom is always my favourite. I enjoyed the sweet Chinese wine taste of the still boiling gravy and the fresh, tender white mushroom. It came with heating fire under the plate like steam fish servings so the gravy is steaming hot when served.

The Japanese bean curds were cooked with slices of Chinese cabbage and carrot and thin egg omelette at the plate base. The gravy was tasty so no complaint.

The sweet and sour prawns have medium sized prawns first deep fried and cooked with sweet and sour sauce. It came with chopped cucumber, tomatoes and big onion. Prawns were fresh and the flavour good.

The fried mixed veggie has cabbage, cauliflower and “choy sam. Gravy tasted sweet and no complaint also.

On the whole we enjoyed the dinner. We have to order extra rice for myself and my son and this is a proof of the reasonable tasty dishes we got tonight. Total bill came to RM64.50.

The only complaint was there seemed to be quite a few house flies keep descending on our tea cups and dishes. I have to be alert at all times to wave them away as soon as they landed on our table.

So in all the dining and tea places we visited today and yesterday in Cameron Highland we have problem with the houseflies landing on whatever food and drinks on the table.

Can they look into this problem seriously？？?

Vietnamese Beef Noodle

2009-06-02T15:30:00.003+08:00

Tuesday, Jun 02, 2009

Lunch time at the food Republic in the KL Pavilion shopping centre was overwhelmingly crowded. Hard to get a seat when we were there at 1:10 pm.

I have a vietnamese beef noodle soup at RM11.90 net from a stall called Vietnam Kitchen. It has sliced beef, tripe, red chili cuts, green herbal mint leaves, lime cut, beef balls, spring sprouts and tasty thin soft "keow tiau".

Tasted quite okay overall.

Nasi Kandar at Jalan TAR KL

2009-06-02T15:18:00.003+08:00

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Passed by this mamak shop at 12:30 pm and saw a queue like this. The curry dishes must be nice. Any feedback?

Pork Bee Hun Soup

2009-06-02T09:41:00.002+08:00

Sunday, May 31, 2009

We live in Kelana Jaya in PJ and there are not many eatery outlets where I can find a good "pork noodle" stall.

I consider the following types of "pork noodle" soup not up to my liking:

1. One that will leave a thirsty feel after makan;

2. One that has very "dilute" soup, not tasty, not sweet and not slightly saltish, just too plain;

3. One that gives oily appearance.

I found one good stall today at SS15 Subang Jaya. Go try it.....

Nyonya / Peranakan food in PJ

2009-05-24T22:09:00.009+08:00

24-May-09 Sunday 7.30pm

It's dinner time and also headache time for us as we, a family of 3 will have to decide where and what to have for our dinner. Weekend Saturdays and Sundays are non-cooking days at home.

Deciding where and what to eat can prove to be a difficult task for me as we have to consider a numbers of factors such as the foods and the place are acceptable to everybody's liking and most important of all it will not cost too much.

If budget is not a problem then it's easy as we can just pop into one of the many expensive restaurants in town.

One such regular budget and yet serving tasty food place for dinner for us is this small nyonya food house in Atria shopping centre in Damansara Jaya Petaling Jaya.

This is what we ordered:

1. Asam fish curry;

2. Nyonya fried chicken;

3. Clay pot Japanese Tofu;

4. Otak-otak;

5. One hot chinese tea, one iced lemon tea and one barley drink with chin-chau.

On the whole the dishes were tasty. Two additional "big rice" were ordered. The asam curry fish which also have lady's fingers and long bean in it tasted not so spicy and oily, was delicious with tastes of tamarind, kungit, balacan and serai. The siakap fish used was tender and tasted okay.

My son Justin always likes fried foods so no problem for him to finish all the three big pieces of fried chicken.

The clay pot Japanese tofu was cooked with a variety of vegetables which saved us from ordering a vegetable dish. It has cabbage, cauli flower, squid, kai-lan, chicken fillet, carrot and ginger slices. Gravy was slightly starchy and tasty.

The nyonya otak-otak was one chunk of steamed meshed fish cake blended with kungit and wrapped in banana leaf.

We did bottomed up and finished all the dishes with ease and this means that we will definitely come back again soon for more.

Total billed for the food and drinks were RM63.30. No complaint.

The name of the restaurant is called Nyonya Foodhouse (established since 1992), located at Lot G16, The Atria Shopping Centre, Jalan SS 22/23, Damansara Jaya, 47400 Petaling Jaya. Tel: 7729 7279. It also has a branch outlet at Arena Food Court, 1-Utama shopping complex.

Ipoh Chicken Rice in PJ

2009-05-24T14:14:00.008+08:00

On Sunday 24-May-09 my family of 3 went to have a chicken rice lunch at Jalan Gasing, PJ.

This is our favorite place whenever we want to have a chicken rice meal. When we arrived at about 1.00 pm the shop was quite packed and noisy as we would usually find in chinese restaurants. We took the last vacant table on the ground floor. The shop also has a dining place at it's first floor to accommodate the big crowd.

This time we ordered :

1. Steam "Choy Yin Kai" or kampong chicken half chicken;

2. Fried La-La for 1 person;

3. Bean sprout or "Nga-choy" for 3 person;

4. Fish ball soup of 8 fish balls;

5. Two iced and one hot chinese tea.

Dishes were served within five minute so we did not have to endure a long wait.

As usual the dishes were all tasty and we enjoyed to the last bit. Chicken was tender. La-La was stirred fried I like the soupy gravy which tasted sweet and slightly pungent as some shredded cili padi was used. Bean sprout was fresh, fat and crunchy on biting. Fish balls were tender and smooth to bite.

Total billed amount was RM58.40, quite reasonable for me.

The shop also serves other dishes such as curry chicken, roast chicken, roast pork, bbq chicken, curry prawn and curry fish head. You also can order "Hor-fun" instead of rice to go with the dishes.

We would recommend this shop to anybody who wants to have a chicken rice meal in PJ and KL area.

The name of the shop is New Restaurant Ipoh Chicken Rice, located at 107, Jalan Gasing, 46000 Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03-7956 0958.