Simply busy days...

I didn't visit any restaurants recently. Quite busy at work, and have lots of things need to be done. Here's some really nice but unhealthy food to share: 

Vegetarian Kam Heong Prawn. It really taste good, sweet, and spicy. Why is such vegetarian food is not healthy? Simply due to the use of 'vegetarian prawn'. People shouldn't eat this for regular basis. Long term vegetarian should avoid this. Overall, it's still tasty, I would be glad if they use tofu to replace the vegetarian prawn.

Here's some Kulim Takoyaki! It's not cheaper than the one in Queensbay mall, but they have more octopus inside! Less vegetables. I still prefer the one by Tako Tao. I love crunchy vegetables! This version of Takoyaki by Zoshin at Tesco Kulim, taste better than Sushi King's. I personally thinks that Sushi King actually "fry" their Takoyaki O_O".

Heading to the wet market to get some really fresh vegetables! I prefer shopping at the open wet market compare to those indoor supermarkets. They are fresher, and cheaper too. 

Water crest soup with peanuts and tofu! This is how my recipe of water crest soup should be! It will always comes with a piece of tofu, boiled until it's stiff and chewy! You won't get that taste using those packed tofu sold in supermarket. Must get those fresh tofu at open wet market! They will have some soy fragrant in it! Who saids tofu do not have any taste?!

This one, it's not as good as my mom's. She can boil the tofu until they turn into light brown greenish color. May be I still need to let it boil for another 2 hours. mmmm :P

2011, All wishes came true - opposite way.

I never really blog about my trip to Japan 2011. It was a stunt, I went oversea alone, to a land using a language that I don't really understand, and a place I've never been. I wish to blog about my wishes made at Ueno Park Shrine. Where strange things happened.

1. I wish for my parents to be happy and healthy. Outcome? My dad's hernia operation wasn't successful for the first 2 times admitted to hospital. I ended up out of patience, government hospital keeps on postponing his surgery. It wasn't a wish come true, after all, it is my hard time. He had been done CABG in the pass, any other surgery for him, will be considered as high risk. 

2. A wish for my brother's success in his career. It wasn't good at all. After I came back from Japan, he told me that his project was canceled. Then, in the same year, he change employer. Still a bad wish.

3. Friends and relatives to be happy, it happened that my best friend also had told me that her career wasn't work well. She changed her employer too. Going downwards for some months, she changed employer again. It wasn't going well.

4. This one, is a serious one. I had wished for good weather. I think the most obvious thing happened is, the 311 earthquake, right after I came back to KL on 10 March 2011. 

5. Wishing for a better Malaysia. 2011 wasn't good at all. With the police brutality during the yellow event, seems like our future will be hopeless.

This is the only thing I wish for myself. This thing is actually bright pink in color. Yes, it is for fate and love. Of course 2011 until now, I'm still alone. Thus, nothing really happens. Somehow, I put it in my car and tell people that it is for traffic safety. 

Some of my friends really gives lots of meaningful insights to me. For instance, I do pray for something sometimes, but not everything is under our own control. For example, I wish to have a new hand mixer, it can be bought using money, so I can work for it, to earn money and buy it for myself. However, for things like world peace, natural disasters, luck and fortune, it is something not under our own control, where we unable to ask for it. I can't expect all people to have same level of conscience to have world peace. I can't tell the earth not to do have earthquake tsunami cyclone or whatever. I can tell Mr. Lim to let me win the casino game. After all, love and fate, is something not under my own control.

I think this person is nice, it doesn't mean that this person thinks that I'm nice. Love takes both side to have that common feeling of wanted and belonged.  

What will be my wishes this 2012? Nothing... I wish for nothing. I think, that's the best for everything. :)

在办公室的情人节

就这么过了一天。我依然是光棍。当然，偶尔很期待收到布偶或是巧克力。看到FB里头，朋友们收到的鲜花，布偶，巧克力，一大堆马币，名牌包包，香水，护肤品，高级餐馆，温馨自煮佳肴，白面包。。。等等。。。你说，我心里怎么不会感到寂寞？那些不寂寞，不妒忌的，自认清高无比潇洒的，应该是出家当尼姑和尚修女神父的料啦！

在办公室的情人节，普通的过。。。

48HoChiak! Black Canyon Coffee (Jusco Seberang Prai City Mall)

Black Canyon Coffee
Location: Bukit Mertajam, Penang.
48HoChiak Level: 8/10
Cuisine: Thai Fusion
What's Best: Most of them are great!
Price Range：RM8++ Mid eco range

My favorite place of all time, their chef is good, nice manager and waiter (handsome and friendly from Bangladesh who can speak little Mandarin). The food on menu are all fusion Thai style, but you can make authentic Thai food orders. 

The bad thing about their food, is they use a lot of herbs. Those herbs might not be consumable. You might need to remove them. For example, their Tomyam Noodle Soup, they use a lot of blue ginger and lemongrass. However, you may tell the waiter that you want them to be removed, but i personally prefer them to be served, because they do give some great taste to the soup.

Today, I ordered the special Thai Fish Cake, the photo is not on the menu, but they are listed. This appetizer is actually quite expesive, RM12.90 for 5 pieces. Once you have a bite, you will realize how good it was!!! Succulent, juicy, fresh coriander and long beans adding in some crunchy texture, with a slightly chewy fish cake texture... totally awesome! Even I was already full after the Fried Seafood Fettuccine above, I still able to finish this up and wanting for more! It is so so so addictive! 

Black Canyon Coffee! Must try!

48HoChiak! Goku Raku Ramen (Gurney Paragon, Penang)

Friday, working at Penang and hiding myself from traffic jam at the bridge. I went to the other side to visit the new open to public high class resident at the Gurney area. Not much to see here, but there's some interesting foodie places.

Goku Raku Ramen
Location: Gurney Paragon, Penang.
48HoChiak Level: 7.5/10
Cuisine: Japanese
What's Best: Ramen!
Price Range：RM18++ Mid range

Overall, this place wasn't bad at all. Their green tea is refillable, open kitchen... luckily the kitchen hood is strong enough. 

I've tried their signature Goku Raku Ramen, small size. The bowl did came out small in shape, as you can see on photo, but wait, the bowl is actually tall in shape, thus, their small size is our daily regular size, and the large size, should be the Sumo size. RM18.90 for this 'small' bowl can be considered worth it. The soup is really great! Savory, thick and most importantly, even though its heavy, it won't make you feel thirsty! However, their garnishes are out of my expectation. The Char Siew is not tender enough, and the egg, supposed to be flavored but it's not. If you love plain and fresh garnishes, you might love it. I prefer the traditional way, tender meat and well flavored egg.

Overall, I'll be back! Too bad it's not Halal! This is not a vegan friendly place.

48BorHoChiak! 17 Saloon, Gurney Plaza, Penang!

17 Saloon Cafe, Gurney Plaza, Penang

Location: Gurney Plaza, Penang.
48HoChiak Level: 1/10
Cuisine: Fusion
What's Best: EXPENSIVE!
Price Range：RM18++

PS additional information added 12 Feb 2012: I heard from a friend that it is not a common style in this restaurant to ask the customer to pay first. I would take it as I was disrespected that time. After much consideration, I degrade Saloon 17 to 1/10. Not a good place to stay, and expensive low quality food they serve. Thus, I've made this a separated post.

 

Here's the expensive food! 17 Saloon near Starbucks at Gurney Plaza. Saloon??? I don't know why they call it "saloon", it doesn't seems like giving you some great hairdo. The decoration is what attracts me.  

Moment of truth! The food! It's a bit disappointment. The portion is so small and it can be considered PRICEY! Expensive and not worth the price tag! I would prefer to go opposite have some expensive Michealangelo Than having this simple spaghetti! They are nearly at the same price! This one only have 2 medium size prawn and 4 medium size calamari rings! 

The drinks! is the best! I ordered their mocktail, cranberry something, it's great! Though, it's still a little bit pricey! I won't visit this restaurant until they improve their recipe. The food is just too expensive!

17 Saloon is not halal. They serves pork! Another annoying thing is, they ask people to pay the bill first before the dishes came to the table. Not to forget, the price tag is expensive, so it's kind of reverse effect of their marketing strategy. For example, normally, we eat first, then we pay the bills. When the food is good, we pay the bill in high price, then we won't feel bad. If the food is bad, and they have expensive bills, they will get really angry! Let say, if people pay expensive bill first, and then they have great expectation on the food. Instead, they found out that the food is actually bad, however, they might not feel that bad, because full belly makes them more patient? I'm not sure of the logics and psychology involved, but I'm still not happy because the food is too expensive! Not because of the taste, its simply due to the price tag. If you looking for expensive, yet satisfying and reasonably priced food, better go for Michaelangelo opposite of 17 Saloon.

48HoChiak! Sushi Kitchen (Sg. Ara, Penang)

Today, we are celebrating one of my colleague's birthday at Sushi Kitchen. This is a very interesting place, a vegetarian sushi cafe, hidden at a quiet place, far away from mainstream attraction. Though, this place is pretty well known for the vegetarians. 

Location: Sungai Ara.
48HoChiak Level: 7.5/10
Cuisine: Japanese
What's Best: ???
Price Range：RM6++

The dining environment is very pleasant, with some soft romantic English songs and a bit messy old retro antique decorations. It is some strange combination. 

The food, they are light and served in right portion. The sushi taste a bit sweet and light. The pricing is quite expensive, twice higher than the regular sushi compare to Sushi King. Although they did some nice vegetarian combination, I don't think its worth that price tag due to some of the ingredients are readily bought, such as the sweet tofu pockets. They use all organic products in their cooking. 

For the other dishes, their noodle soup and friend rice does seems better. 

Japanese Udon with light miso soup and seaweed

Sweet Potatoe Noodles. Their soup is made of smashed sweet potato. It kind of reminds me of the Mee Jawa, where they boil the potato until it melts, creating the thick gravy soup. 

Spicy Fried Rice, they use brown rice.

Loving Vermicelli Soup. It is light sesame oil and wolfberry soup with some love shape carrots. 

Low Beauty Roll and the Family Sushi set. The "Low Beauty Roll" is actually fried taro roll. Overall, the food taste great, light and healthy.

I bought this Matcha Anko cake at the Bread History (Queensbay Mall). The cake taste nice, light and fluffy and not much 'girl's enemy', What's the girls's enemy' here, CREAM of course! I bet most of the girls dislike thick cream on their cake.

View Larger Map

Thaipussam at KL

Although its a holiday in KL, most of the KL people went to Batu Caves for Thaipussam celebration. Left the city center quite pleasant, and the best of it, no traffic jam! The Shopping centers are not so crowded as it should be. Thus, best for window shopping. 

At first, we went to Sunway Giza, there's nothing much to see. Not even for food hunting! The buildings are nice though, especially Full House restaurant is there, and also Saloon 17, the restaurant which I poorly rated previously! I'm still angry about the 3 medium size prawns,4 squid calamari, and a piece of lettuce spaghetti which cost me RM17.90 not including tax. Thus, we decide not to dine in any of the restaurant there. 

So we head to Pavilion Mall at Bukit Bintang. I was "amazed", shock and couldn't believe my own eyes! What had happened? Such high class shopping mall in the largest city of Malaysia, and their car parking system doesn't even have those parking lots sensors? And the parking fee here is way higher than the malls in Penang! (Both Queensbay and Gurney Plaza and even my company's car parks in Penang have those sensors to help use finding empty lots)

Enough complains, we have a great shopping and food hunting at the Tokyo Street. There's a huge lantern decoration, reminds me on the Asakusa Temple. Overall, not bad!

So we had our dinner at Cafe Takahashi, serving some fusion style pasta. The price of the pasta is at RM21.90, with a portion just right, lots of mushrooms, olives, and 6 medium size prawns for the fettuccine. While the scallop asparagus spaghetti looks good too, in the same price. 7/10 taste great and it's in Pavilion! I have to revise my review for Saloon 17, giving it 1/10 instead.

I've tried some sweets at the Tokyo Street, macaroon and meringue cookies. They are same type of sweets, made of egg whites and sugar, but macaroons have better texture and has some almond taste compare to the all sugar meringue. If you dislike sweets, better not try it!

I forgotten this delicious Daibu Mee near Salak South area. Next time I'll ask more info about it! :P That's all for my KL trip! Hope to have holiday again... T.T it's going to be far far away.

Final CNY Holiday at KL + Klang

It's going to be the final CNY holiday. During this final hour, must collect the final amount of angpao as much as I can. That's why, this week, I've visited KL. 

There are the final Dragon & Lion Dance at Petaling Street. I really miss the Dragon Dance. They are not performed often during CNY. In fact, not many people able to hire a Dragon Dance, since it needs a team of people (more Angpao needed). This year, it's the year of Dragon, thus, Dragon Dance is more common.

Petaling Street is a beautiful place, and it's a great place to shop and food hunting. Recently, the merchants selling lots of fake birkins, and they are not cheap. The best I can get is about RM100 and the quality of the fake isn't good at all. Besides, Gucci is the one brand having most of the high quality fake bags here. All are not in my liking, I was looking for a trolley luggage with Mickey Mouse prints on it. Last time, I saw those a lot, but not this time. Somehow, the trend is changing.

Heading towards the KTM station around Pasar Seni, here's some of my favorite street food. Keropok Lekor nipis! They are expensive but really fresh and delicious! 5 pieces for RM1! The snack is made of fish and they are fried fresh!

Later having dinner at Klang, visiting one of the famous Bak Kut Teh restaurant in the town! I'm not going to rate this restaurant due to my short visit. However, there are some Bak Kut Teh tips I wish to share here. Fong Keow Bak Kut Teh at Taman Rashna, overall, not bad! 7/10!

There's lots of option in every Bak Kut Teh restaurant here. Normally, the best time to have Bak Kut Teh is during morning hours, where the soup is still clear and full of the Chinese herbal flavour. During the end of the day, the soup will have more meat flavour. Besides, you have lots of options to choose, single bowl of soup, or clay pot bowl. Soup or dry, with You Teow or intestines... etc... Just be sure of what you want and make your order clearly.

Handmade Noodle Soup with my BF on it!

Taiwan is a very special place, creating various strange romantic stories. However, I think there are some very dramatic difference between the modern days compare to the old days popular stories.

Some common old days Taiwan love drama:

So she was born into a poor family, her mother died young and she was sold to a wealthy family to pay his father's gambling debt. She become the wealthy family's servant girl, and the best friend of the wealthy family's only son. As days goes by, they grown up, and the wealthy boy fall in love to the girl, and the wealthy family members oppose the love and they started to torture the girl... etc etc...

Here's some common modern days Taiwan love stories:

There is local girl working as a sales in a small noodle stall. One fine day, she was riding her bicycle to deliver orders and unfortunately, some ridiculously rich, handsome but arrogant guy nearly ran over her by accident. She splash the noodles on top of his luxury car and he went out have some quarrel with the girl. Don't know what had happened, this guy fall in love to this girl, and there's always be another 3rd party, particularly some rich and beautiful young lady who was also in love with this guy. She became jealous and trying whatever insane way to hurt the poor girl, but the guy will always suddenly came out of no where, showing of his awesome martial art skills and saves the poor girl.

"Typing" of noodles, here's some homemade noodle soup. Yes, with my BF's face on it! LOL. By the way, Doraemon is not a good "life partner", in fact, he got lots of girl friends, from Mii-Chan, to Mimi, whenever he saw some feline girls, he will try to woo her. Thus, he is not a good idea to be a used in any of the Valentine's Day gift. If you really want a faithful and great cartoon character, Mickey is the best! He loves Minnie for over a decades and never changed.

Brandy Konnyaku Coated by Dark Chocolate

So today is still in Vday mood. Dreaming about the scenes in the common Hong Kong drama....

From some common HK drama:

So the day is Valentine's Day, the girl went to work as usual. During the office working hour, the delivery boy came with a big bouquet of roses, calling for her name. With all the attentions she gets, she gracefully signed and checklist, and said "Aiya, I already told him not to waste so much money on flowers, he still bought it, haiz, really a difficult person." with a smile on her face, in front of all her colleagues. Colleague A, will reply: "Wah, you mah good lar, got rich boy friend, buy you expensive flowers. Sure you no need to work and become siu lai lai in future lar.". And colleague B will said: "Aiyo, I'm still single. I wish one day I can find a guy as good as your boy friend lor". Then the girl open the letter, and exclaim loudly: "Tzek, haiz, he even reserved a table at XXX restaurant wor. I already told him tonight I'll need to work OT."

Ok, that's all for the Hong Kong style Valentine's Day. I believe many people reading it would feel like wanna puke. Well, that's how it happens for the Hong Kong style Chinese people here in Malaysia too. Expensive flowers and expensive dinner. 

Ok, here's today's dessert. Though the recipe is a failure. Brandy Konnyaku Coated by Dark Chocolate is my latest invention! Yay! Too bad, the surface of the konnyaku is too wet, the chocolate doesn't stick well on it. The size of the chocolate is too big. 

 I only use the Cap Crocodile Brandy in the middle. It's a local wine made in Penang. So it's relatively cheap. After cooking, the Brandy still have it's pleasant flavor. I'm not expert in these type of liquor, I play better using Chinese wine. The result of Brandy + Dark Chocolate is really good. Overall, due to the chocolate unable to stick on the wet konnyaku surface, I have to spoon on the chocolate.

Half Valentine's Day Bento 2012

Since I'm still single, it should be made half. Actually, I think the Japenese Valentine's Day culture is very nice and romantic. The girls have to hand made something for a guy. Here in Malaysia, the we normally celebrate it by with the guy buying a bunch of overly priced flowers and send it to the girl's office or work place with a letter of invitation to an expensive dinner at some high class restaurant. While I prefer the Japanese (Anime/Manga) way.

From some random manga classics:

So It's Valentine's Day, the girl carefully make a lovely bento for the day having a picnic at the garden nearby (local gardens at Japan are all clean and beautiful and cozy, not like those in... ya know what I mean). So she cuts everything in heart shape, carefully roll everything and decorates it nicely. Of course, there will be lots of extra parts of the food left. She throw all of them into her stomach, and that's her meal of the day. She happily dress herself nicely, and went on to her picnic date. The guy saw the beautiful bento, and he ate it. He said, "It's delicious, why not you have some too!" She gracefully replied, "I've ate at home, just let me watch your cute face while you eat." 

Ok, I know, I wasn't a good writer, probably somebody will get goose bumps reading my blog. But there's something very meaningful here. A girl who will take all the leftovers and keep the best for her love one. That's the most romantic Valentine's Day gift ever. For my bento, I cut out the dragon fruit using heart shape cookie mold, then I throw the extra parts into my stomach. Of course, after taking the photo, I ate the bento myself. LOL

So the Japanese Valentine's Day is all about a girl showing her love to a guy! They have another Valentine's Day on 14th March, called White Day, is the day where the guys have to make something triple as good as the gift he received on 14th Febuary. So there's a come and go. Both have given something, and receive something. It's like my ideal love story, like the Gifts of Magi. 

With Love ~ Soo Huey

Oh, the pink plum paste mix with wasabe, taste really awesome with the sweet tamago!