Chinese Cuisines at Restoran City Star, Petaling Jaya
I was invited by Ken for dinner together with his friends from Tour2U at Restoran City Star in Taman Mayang, Petaling Jaya during my Kuala Lumpur trip. This double shop lot restaurant owned by Mr CM Wong has a nice and clean environment with one section of the restaurant air-conditioned.
Our meal consists of several recommended [...]
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Fiftythree
Once in a while, the ladies who keep me sane at work would cast their boyfriends aside and indulge in a day of eating and shopping together. We went to Fiftythree for lunch, first time for all of us.
Fancy potato chips served on a platter of charcoal was our amuse bouche of sort.
Following shortly was a little gunny sack bag containing the exact number of mini bread rolls as there were folks on the table. There were heated ball bearings at the bottom of the sack, keeping the rolls warm. Now, I am all for the novel idea and presentation effects but the bun, oh do I think it sucked. It had a too hard crust, a too dense innard and too salty in general. No amounts of good butter could save it.
The appetizer was chilled cherry tomato and watermelon, with horseradish, and mozzarella foam. This dish, I’m guessing, was trying to get this interplay going between temperature, texture, and flavour. If so, I think the idea was a great one but the execution fell short. I found the horseradish too dominating and the dish could do better without. That, plus the heavy cream sauce lining the bottom of the plate was quite redundant too.
The main course was barramundi with pear and blackcurrent jam. This was more palatable and the fish was fresh. The sweet jams surprising went well with the fish and the bits of fried shallots added delicious enthic flavours.
Dessert was apple risotto with rosemary foam and struesel of sorts. There was no rice in this dessert. The apple was chopped and diced finely to resemble risotto. Served warm, the cinnamon notes harmonized with the scent of rosemary pretty well, if not unusual. My palate could not decide if I was having a savoury or sweet course. Interesting dish that was easy to eat but I would not order it again.
Fiftythree remains an interesting place to visit once in a blue moon because I truly was not really impressed enough to come back again anytime soon.
Fiftythree
53
Tel: 6334 5535
Lunch: Tues – Sat
Dinner: Mon – Sat
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The Friday Wine Lunch @ Kannichikan Yakiniku with Jacob’s Creek
Once again I was invited to the delectable Friday Wine Lunch by Pernod Ricard @ Kannichikan Yakiniku with Jacob’s Creek (thanks Yik Peng!). You might remember last time it was @ Chinoz on the Park with Wyndham Estate.
An interesting concept this time, Japanese influenced Korean BBQ. Who says the…
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Yung Kee, Hong Kong.
Yung Kee, ?? has been touted as THE place to get roast goose in Hong Kong ever since it bloomed into the successful enterprise that it is now. Upon obtaining the name and the address, I didn’t think of doing anymore “research” on the place and was a wee bit overwhelmed when I found myself in front of Yung Kee. I certainly wasn’t expecting an entire building as I was thinking more along the lines of a roasted meats shop (???). Tsk Tsk. Anyway, since we were there, and I was determined to get my roast goose (??) and waxed sausages, so we headed in . Once we stepped in, we were ushered to the lift, where a lift attendant was waiting, and whisked upstairs to the 4th floor where it was rather empty and quiet as it was past 9pm. I later found out that it was a blessing in disguise as waiting time could peak at more than an hour during meal times.
We were attended to by the assistant Captain and she was very friendly and courteous. We didn’t really have a need for the menu as she immediately asked how big a portion of the roast goose we would like. Then next, was if we wanted (??) as well. Ah, such predictable tourists. Hehe. But we were left the menu anyways and it was quite interesting browsing it and taking in the number of Cantonese dishes they serve here. But most enlightening was probably the page where it listed all the awards won, including for best restaurant, best service etc. and recently, the prestigious .
The gorgeous century egg with pickled ginger. Century eggs are basically preserved duck or chicken eggs in a clay and ash mixture for months, and not exactly a hundred years. Lol. I would say that the century eggs here are divine – with the clear translucent tea-coloured “egg white” and the creamy, grey yolk. The green of the yolk is normally due to reactions to the alkali in the lime and has a slight ammonia aroma to it but it’s akin to eating blue cheese, an acquired taste. One that I can’t get enough of. Nearly licked my chopsticks clean of the sticky yolky spots. Hehe.
And the piece de la resistance… served with plum sauce, the glistening skin tempted me as I struggled to get a worthy shot of the dish. The goose is reputed to be massaged and marinated before roasted over a charcoal fire. For those of you who have never tasted goose before, imagine a richer, slightly more gamier version of duck. I have always liked goose, esp. the braised versions made by my grand aunt when she visits from China. Anyway, I digress.
At first bite, the skin wasn’t as crispy as I hoped for, nor was the goose served as warm as I liked it to be. In fact, it was rather cold and the fats had started to take a gelatinous texture. But the flesh was tender and juicy with flavour. And the succulent meat tasted delectable with the plum sauce. And underneath the pile of meat is some fermented soybeans which are yummy to pick at.
I feel that even though the roast goose here is one of the bests I have had so far (save for it being served like a cold cuts dish), I also felt that it was a tad overpriced at HKD420/goose. But since we were only two, and didn’t even order half a bird, I reckon our portion (??) hovered somewhere around HKD150.
After all that indulging, we needed a vegetable dish to balance the meal out and opted for Stir-Fried Baby Bak Choi with Garlic. It was a simple dish but the baby bok choi was prepared so well that it was still crisp and light and had that delightful crunch.
Our meal came up to above HKD220 for two but I had no idea how much each dish costs as HK restaurants don’t seem to give detailed receipts much. In fact, no receipt is given until you insist on it and mostly it’s a printout of the total figure. Having tried their goose liver sausages in and wanting to get some for my gramps and parents, asked the assistant Captain who attended to us if they were still available and she was so nice that she asked me what I wanted, packed it and brought it to our table! But these don’t come cheap though, at HKD198/catty (?) or 600g. But they are so sinfully good… should know as I revisited the taste by making .
Anyhow, overrated or not, Yung Kee still warrants a visit if it’s your first time in HK. Or if you can only head to one place in HK for roast goose.
Yung Kee Restaurant ???? ()
32-40 Wellington Street,
Central, Hong Kong.
????????32-40 ?
Open: 11am – 11:30pm
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Penang Food | Greenlane Market Apong
While we were having our breakfast at waiting our foods to arrive, a light breeze carried some nice, fragrant smell that the food database in our brain quickly searched for association of this fragrant smell. The flashed images of apong quickly came into our attention.
Our heads immediately turn to the direction of the aroma to look for a familiar sight, apong stall.
In a small stall setup, we see this man preparing to cook some apongs out from the two charcoal stove. Hmmm.. with just only two stoves available, there is not much output that can be produced at one time. Tam Ciak commented this man could be a retiree trying to past time and make some pocket money at the same time. Quite enterprising, eh?
The man is quite friendly and chatty as we stand nearby to wait for our orders. As Huat Koay begins to snap pictures, one of his friends teased him of being famous which the man blushes and look downwards most of the time… heheheh
This indian snacks is sold as a side dish at the stall besides apong. Hmm.. what is the name of this snack?
Using the charcoal to bake/ steam the apong will result in slow yet much consistent finished product because of the slow heat used. Of course, with the charcoal fire burning, it will last longer than using the gas stove.
The pan can fit each apong nicely like mini size wok. The heat from the charcoal will slow bake/steam the apong till it is ready for consumption. Normally, the mixture will be poured onto the middle portion and the seller will turn the pan around until the mixture covers the bigger surface area.
Of course, the remaining will usually falls back to the middle which is why the middle portion is always thicker compared to the edge. The more mixture put each time, the thicker middle portion it will be.
The apong that is ready is put in front of the stove on top of the banana leaves but then there is no cover on top to prevent flies or insects to contaminate the food. Surprisingly though, we did not see any fly or insects nearby the stall, pure coincidence?
The apong is much crispier and tastier with thinner middle part which Huat Koay prefers compared to the one at . Maybe we were just plain hungry that time…
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Penang Food | BM Yam Rice
It has been quite some time since we had our crazy adventure to travel across the Penang Bridge during lunch time to fill up our fatty tummies. Our last trip probably was months ago when we drove all the way to find and . This time, we ventured slightly further to the Bukit Mertajam town, (Yes! it is ’s territory…hehehe) to find some mouth watering and delicious food at this crowded, small town.
Hey, are we not supposed to go to eat? Then why are we standing outside a shop with “Eastern Printers”??? Hmm, fret not, move your eyes lower and you will see the “Yam Rice” right below. This is the right place, the famous BM Yam Rice. Apparently, there is another shop at Chai Leng Park (near Post Office) that claims to be BM Yam Rice as well. Are they related at all?
The moment you walk into this yam rice restaurant, you will see this stall that just looks like typical hawker stall setup. The difference is on the big container at the bottom of the picture above which contains all the soup and the ingredients for the kiam chai th’ng (salty vegetable soup).
The stall layout is simple, clean and hygienic. There is no messy left overs on the table and the soup boiling portion is separated.
You can choose to put all the ingredients in your bowl of kiam chai th’ng or you can customize your soup to your preference especially if you do not take pig internals. We ordered two different types one with lots of pig internals and another one just purely meat and meat balls.
The soups keeps boiling all the time and the workers will keep topping up the soup to keep it warm. After all, you can ask for refill at anytime, if they never top it up, it will run dry eventually… hehehe. In order to keep the soup as clear as possible, a strainer is used to filter out the leftover.
Of course they cannot put everything on the same stall. Over here just right behind the stall is where they put the yam rice and stew pig trotter (lor tuh kah).
This is where the yam rice is being kept heated all the time. If you notice carefully, you can see charcoal pot being used here. Like we mentioned before, to keep the food warm throughout a long period of time, it is better to use this approach as it is more economical compared to gas stove.
Cooking the yam rice is a totally different story. A big gas stove is used instead to cook the yam rice faster. While we were there, we managed to capture this shot that showed the yam rice being cooked and ready to be served soon. Notice there is still water inside the yam rice that is not fully dry yet.
Ahh…. The familiar sight of a black dish that normally served together with yam rice. At a glance it looks like vinegar pork knuckles but it tasted more like stew pig trotters.
This pig trotter is a great companion for your yam rice and a must if you every eat yam rice. Most people will take the part with lots of fat but TuaPui already have a lot of fat on our body, thus we opted for lean meat instead… hehe
Done with capturing the shots from the stall, we head back to our table eager waiting for our yam rice. Chopsticks, check! Spoons, check! Sambal Chilli, check! Empty stomach, check!!
The place was quite crowded yet it took about 10 minutes for our food to arrive. The yam rice, the kiam chai th’ng and the lor tuh kah arriving at the same time. We could smell the kiam chai th’ng’s fragrance which almost instantly made our mouth swallowing the saliva.
The yam rice has quite a lot of yam inside but not every bowl will get a piece of yam inside the rice. Most of the time, we only got the small pieces of yam rice. The rice itself is quite soft with some shrimps but the smell of shrimps is not obvious. In hokkien, “orh pui” literally translated to black rice, but this is not the reason the rice is black. In fact, dark soya sauce is added.
We had two different bowls of kiam chai th’ng, one with pig internals and the other one without.
The one with pig internals basically consist of blood, intestine, liver, tongue, kidney besides meat and meat balls and some vegetables. The second bowl only had meat and meat balls minus the pig internals.
The soup uses pig bones to cook for hours until the frangrance and the taste blended well in the soup. T
he soup tastes salty because of the kiam chai used and you can always refill it whenever you finish yours. The refill is free, of charge. We could not help ourselves with a few times of soup refill.
You can also ask for extra ingredients too.. More meat balls, anyone?
Tam Ciak had a liking towards meat balls and ended up he is the one who sapu (finish) all the meat balls.
This bowl of stew pig trotter smells good as well although the taste is not that great as vinegar pig trotter. Also, the meat is quite hard, unlike what we expected the stew type miss to be soft and easy to chew. However, since we do not have the vinegar type, the stew type is not bad too. Like the saying, “boh hu, heh pun hor” (no fish, prawns also acceptable). But at RM10 per bowl, this is a rather expensive dish given the amount that we had. We could get a whole pork knuckle easily for RM13.
Yes, we ordered the one with lean meat (chiak bak) instead of “sam chan”. The meal for this yam rice cost RM4.50 per person with the yam rice each at RM1.50. The stew costs RM10 per bowl which is quite expensive to have, honestly. Our total meal that day cost RM47.70. BM Yam Rice is opened from 9am till 3pm daily except Wednesdays.
For those with GPS (N 05° 21.690′ E100° 27.787′), you can lock in these coordinates to find this place easily. Do not worry if you do not have a GPS, we still have our usual maps to show you the exact place, shown below.
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Penang Food – Roti Bakar at Campbell Street
Toh Soon is a small side street cafe situated in the folds of Campbell street. This cafe which is run by Mr and Mrs Ooi has always been a hit with the locals all this while, especially their varieties served for breakfast and tea time. One of our pit stops for breakfast during the Canon [...]
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