Steaks & Salad

My apologies, this has turned into a food review blog rather than a cooking one! Some recent turn of events has kept me away from the kitchen here. So I thought I'd share some cooking we did in Oz instead!

One nice thing I noticed was that most people there finish work by 5.30pm, giving them ample time to stroll off to Woolies (or Woolworths) to pick up ingredients for dinner. So you aren't limited to having to work around what's in your freezer or fridge. Another nice thing about Aussie and UK grocery stores is their practice of marking down food that has been on the shelves for a while. So if you're not too fussy, you can pick up bread which has been marked down from $1.50 to a mere $0.60 or meat which has been reduced! The reduced food is still fresh. It's only perhaps been sitting on the shelves a bit longer than the others. As a self-confessed grocery store lover, I must say that wandering about Woolies was definitely one of the highlights of my trip! :)

On one of our nights, we saw porterhouse steaks on special for approximately $7+ so that was dinner that night!
J's sis, A, marinated them in a delicious mix of herbs, soy sauce and pepper before grilling them. They were done medium and pink juices still glistened when we cut into the meat.

I offered to prepare the salad and did a simple one with lettuce, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and cheese.

We ate the lot with fettucine, hot from the pot.

It took less than an hour to get dinner ready and the steaks filled us all to bursting! Washed down with red wine and easy conversation, it was a great meal!

Snakes Alive!

As a student, one of my favourite lollies (chewy jelly sweets...these Aussies have a name for everything!) used to be Snakes! We snacked on all kinds of snakes and green was always my absolute favourite. So I was delighted to be reacquainted with my snakes again on this trip. And being a kind sister, I brought back a bag to share with my siblings.

Just showing off my artistic side! :p

These are the flavours in the bag of snakes. And my favourite is still green! If you look close enough, you may see the snake's little "head" and the criss-cross design on its "body"! I love picking it up by its tail and munching on it slowly tail-first! Lolly or not, I can't bear to eat it head-first! Haha...It's not too sweet and the chewiness is rather addictive especially when a sugar rush is needed!

Slithering off....Sue....

The way breakfast was meant to be!

J's sis in Oz, whom we stayed with, had a cosy apartment with a lovely kitchen and the most wonderful collection of kitchen gadgets! So lazy, home-cooked and substantial breakfasts were a daily feature in our Sydney itenerary.

Just an idea of what our typical breakfasts were like! On the right are a combination of pork and beef sausages. Australia, like the UK, has delicious sausages filled with spiced minced meat. Those are such a rarity in KL and we made sure we ate our fill everyday! This, in addition to bacon, eggs and a tomato for presentation and fibre - a hearty start for the long day ahead! I came very close to buying home some sausages for my foodie siblings who love them but figured they probably wouldn't survive the flight home!

We often ate breakfast with a noisy chattering bunch of breakfast buddies! These delightful lot of wild lorikeets and cockatoos, with the odd pigeon or two would often fly in for a bite with their human counterparts!

What a lovely way to start the day! How I miss those breakfasts, especially when a quick bite of bread is all I have time for now!

Great nasi lemak!

If you go to the Sunday pasar malam at Taman Megah where the huge food court "Ming Tien" is, try out the lady who sells nasi lemak at the end of the pasar malam stretch, facing the mainroad. That's definitely one of the best I've tried so far.

The rice is steaming hot and very fragrant with coconut milk, the sambal is good and not too spicy. She has side dishes like curry chicken, sotong, kerang, petai, some french beans and kangkong.

Her pricing is quite reasonable (my pack of nasi with a huge serving of kerang, french beans, half an egg with the usual peanuts, cucumber and anchovies cost RM2.50) and she doesn't have a lot to go. I saw people who would buy a few packs at a time so if you wanna try it, go early.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of it (couldn't wait to dig in!).

- eternity -

A Taste of Haven

What's the taste of heaven? Perhaps you'll find out at TasteHaven!

A temporary change of jobs has taken me into the jammed KL city. Cooking for the past week has been impossible with traffic jams so it'll be food reviews for now! But the flying wok adventures should be back soon *fingers crossed*!

Dinner tonight was at TasteHaven in Taipan, USJ - a branch of a famous Klang restaurant specialising in Red Wine Mee Suah. For the uninitiated, Red Wine Mee Suah is a popular Foochow dish that's rather hard to find nowadays. The red wine is made from fermenting red rice/yeast which is then added to a stock to create a light but fragrant broth. Mee Sua (a long thin noodle made from rice flour) is served with this soup with chicken and a poached egg.

I opted for the red wine chicken soup without the mee sua. It came in a big bowl with generous servings of boneless red wine chicken, an egg and a healthy sprinkling of spring onions. The soup was deliciously fragrant with a hint of the distinctive wine.

Bro opted for the other speciality - Lala (clams) fried rice. Again, it was a generous helping of fried rice peppered with small clams and scallions. It was nice but the taste of the clams were rather mild, making it quite ordinary. In Bro's words, "It was more like scallion fried rice!" However, the sambal that accompanied it partly made up for the plain rice. It was sweet yet hot, adding a needed zing to the rice. Bro cleaned off 2 saucers of it!

Dinner for 3 of us (J's red wine mee suah wasn't photographed) came up to approximately RM30 with drinks. Each portion averages RM6.90 which isn't too expensive for the portion size. Small eaters probably would have trouble finishing one of their portions. It's a comfortable family restaurant with bright furniture and very fast service. The waiters and waitresses too were quite pleasant and didn't pull long faces when we requested for extra chilli!

They have quite an extensive menu with lots of interesting-sounding dishes and tong sui (Chinese dessert soups), some of which has been reviewed by The Star newspaper. We do enjoy their light and simple dishes and look forward to trying the other dishes in the future. Especially since they offer a wonderful 29% off your total bill on every 29th of the month! Plus a lucky draw which you can enter on each of your visit! Now, with great offers like that, who can refuse?! Maybe it is a taste of what heaven could be like, after all!

-Sue-

Char Kway Teow Boycott!!

There are no pictures as I forgot the camera and I'm blogging from Penang now. It was around 4pm and we were feeling peckish, so off to Lorong Selamat we went for some lobak which was blogged about in the last Penang post.

From the start, we ought to have known that that was an ill-fated meal.

First, there was no fish slices left at the lobak stall. So all we had was 2 rolls of lobak and a prawn fritter.

Secondly, the coffee shop would not take "No drinks" for an answer and insisted that we order drinks as we were sitting at their tables. WTF??!! Pardon my french :p We ended up ordering a "liong char" that was so watered down it might as well just be sugar water coloured brown.

And then, the last straw came.

While we there, the smell of char kway teow from the famous lady who fries it in front of the coffee shop selling ice kacang wafted over to where we were sitting. My companion decided the smell was too good to resist and proceeded to place an order.

A little background on this famous or rather infamous lady and char kway teow stall is relevant here. Her char kway teow happens to be one of the most expensive in Penang but was fairly nicely fried as it had the nice slightly burnt flavour that all char kway teow needs. And then, she introduced a system whereby if you wanted to eat the noodles, you'd have to queue in the hot sun next to the stall, and depending on whether you were eating in or taking away, you were given a pair of chopsticks (depending on how many plates you wanted) or a pair of disposable chopsticks respectively. Due to this degrading system, we boycotted this stall for the longest time.

This system must have failed for they are now back to delivering the plates of noodles to the customers. Taking heart from this, we placed the order.

When it came, we were surprised that the lady asked for RM5 although on the stall, it states a minimum price of RM4.50. There were 3 big prawns but that's pretty standard fare here in Penang.

Then, the noodle itself looked poorly fried. The noodles were pale and did not look appetizing at all! But the worst was yet to come. Taking a mouthful, my companion nearly spat it out for it tasted BURNT!! As in literally "Oh-i-forgot-to-keep-an-eye-on-it-and-now-its-burnt" burnt. I took a mouthful to test and true enough, it was burnt.

To add insult to the injury, it was tasteless. A very very poor imitation of a char kway teow I might add. Nevertheless, having paid RM5, we forced it down our throats.

Now, across the road from this lady is a wizened little old man selling the same char kway teow. We had seen him a few times but never tried it as the lady was more famous. However, today, we decided that we simply HAD to try his. And so we did.

His char kway teow, although not as tasty as the lady's usually is, definitely was better fried, it looked appetizing and tasted so much better than eating charcoal! Best of all, his cost RM4.50 just as he had stated on his price list! Oh and the old man speaks perfect English and is very friendly. He said he had been selling char kway teow at that very spot for 25 years now and I wish him 25 more to come!!

Tip to all:
Avoid the lady selling char kway teow in Lorong Selamat Penang. You would probably regret paying the high prices for what is, at best, mediocre char kway teow and at worst, burnt noodles.

Alternatively, opt for the old man across the road. Noodles are well fried and tasty enough though it can be a bit spicy for those who aren't used to spiciness.

Taste or infamy - The choice is yours.

The Roast Duck King

As a young, impressionable and poor student in Australia, I used to wonder what all the hype about Australia having one of the best roast duck in the world was about. Well, that was until I sank my teeth into the first juicy, succulent and tender piece of roast duck! I was sold after that! And for a "I'm-not-a-fan-of-duck-person", it was quite a feat!

J, on the other hand, had never been to Australia and instead of me extolling how good the roast duck there was, it was best to let the duck do its own quacking! So, it was only natural to head straight to Sydney's Chinatown for a roast duck fix at our first opportunity. And there it was! The King of Roast Duck!

BBQ King is on the corner of Goulburn St and Sussex St, right in Sydney's Chinatown.Look at the many ducks hanging up there, glistening with mouth-watering delight!

It was about 3pm when we headed there with rumbling tummies after touring the Sydney Aquarium and we had the restaurant all to ourselves! We were immediately seated and a menu was barely pushed into our hands when a waiter quickly trotted out of the kitchen with 2 sets of bowls and a big, steaming hot bowl of watercress soup with generous hunks of pork ribs! We were a little hesitant in tucking in as there was no indication as to whether it was complimentary. But hunger soon took over and we drained the soup as a delicious appetiser to the meal.

We ordered 1 plate of roast duck rice to share which was wise as it came in a HUGE portion.

There was at least a quarter of a duck on that plate! And every piece was sheer heaven - Juicy, fragrant and tender morsels of meat topped with a crisp skin which J savoured with pure delight. A true roast duck lover's dream!

That plate was A$12. It's a little pricey after conversion to RM (approximately RM36). But with a big bowl of free soup, free tea and all that wonderful duck, it was well worth it! Now, just to know where good roast duck is in KL whenever that roast duck craving hits again!

-Sue-

I'm Back!

Hi all! *Pokes the blog* It's Alive! :)

A big big thank you to Eternity and Tuk for all the wonderful entries while I was away! Do keep up the posting!

T'was a great holiday with lots of good and yummilicious food! I didn't take as many shots as I would have loved to but I do hope you'll enjoy what I have! I'll be interspersing my Ozzie entries among my other blog entries so do look out for them!

Boo_licious, I'll be getting to that childhood meme once I get my sleeves rolled up and cracking! Thanks for tagging me!

Till then, happy eating!

Cheers,

Sue

Light snacks at KTZ

If you're looking for light snacks for tea time, KTZ has some very appealing selections on its menu. I went to the SS2 branch one weekend. They serve chinese cakes and desserts. Our order was more than just a light snack because everything looked so good. We ordered "loh mai kai" (glutinous rice with chicken meat), steamed radish cake, yam cake and a taiwanese pizza.

In the midst of digging into the Loh Mai Kai above.

The white slice is the steamed radish cake while the slightly darker coloured one is the yam cake.

For dessert, my favourite is the "mango loh". It's a large bowl of shaved ice with mango flavoured syrup and generous slices of mango on the side. For someone who don't fancy sweet stuff, I find the sweetness level just fine. The syrup tastes quite fresh and genuine unlike some that tastes preserved.

The "fruit loh" was also popular, seeing almost one being on each table at the cafe. A sweet syrup is poured onto the shaved ice and topped with lychees, kiwi fruit, watermelon, mango and cincau (black jelly). Very refreshing dessert!

- eternity -

Jelly Mooncakes

Mooncake festival is here again so break out the paper lanterns! And speaking of which, break out the mooncakes!!

Move over lotus paste and egg yolk, ping pei and baked!

Here comes Jelly Mooncakes to join the fray!!

I have been looking high and low for jelly mooncakes mostly because I don't like or eat the traditional ones so when someone told me they knew someone who made it, I was over the moon! The lady makes and supplies it from her house in Taman Desa, KL and it costs RM22 for 16 mini mooncakes of 9 flavours.

Someone I showed the picture to said they look like little soaps. They do don't they?

I have only tried the yellow and green one so far and its quite interesting. The exterior is jelly with santan/milk so it has a heavier texture than clear jellies and doesn't really taste of much. The "filling" on the otherhand, is a paste of jelly mixed with whatever the flavour of that mooncake is.

For the yellow one, the flavour was corn, so when you bite into the mooncake, you get a mouthful of jelly with corn flavoured paste and bits of sweetcorn in it. The green one was green bean flavoured. Very interesting I must say!

They aren't made or sold commercially so if you get your hands on these, give them a shot! They aren't as fattening and oily as traditional mooncakes, and make a wonderful dessert chilled!! Also, if you know where I can get jelly mooncakes but without filling i.e. jelly all the way through simulating the various layers of a traditional mooncake, let me know!!

Our Favourite Dessert and Fruit

Now that I'm on a roll...

We were being adventurous and gluttony so I decided to whip up our favourite dessert - Tinned Fruits in Jelly.

Again the assembly is the easiest thing in the world and would put the Naked Chef to shame! Open a tin of fruit (preferably in juice or light syrup), and pour into a pan or container.

Get a pack of powdered jelly and follow the instructions. Pour the jelly over the fruit and let it set. Chill and serve!

This is the perfect quick dessert to whip up for parties and dinners or when people tell you to bring something for a pot luck. hee... I usually adjust the recipie a little so the jelly has more flavour and I don't follow the instructions on the pack to the letter... but thats just me. Find your own tasty mix!

On Sunday, we had a wonderful surprise - a WHOLE BASKET of our mostest favouritest fruit in the world - DUKU!!

For all Star Wars fans - No, not related to the evil Count Duku :p

This fruit is a small round fruit about the size of a ping pong ball. There is a hard shell/skin encasing slivers of soft flesh inside. The flesh sits around the seed and is translucent. The best quality ones are even opaque as that means that the seed is a small one.

The fruit is sweet yet tangy and if its unripe its hair-curlingly sour! There are many ways people say they can tell whether the fruit will be sweet or sour. One way they say is to look at the shape of the fruit - if its slightly pointed where the top is, it would be sweet and if its not it'll be sour. I could never fathom that coz when you are fighting with everyone else for the fruit you aren't going to scrutinise each and every fruit you pick up to determine its pointed-ness! You'd be left wondering where all the duku went!

Our tried and tested method is to lightly press the top of the fruit near where the stem was. If it gives easily, it's likely to be sweet. If you couldn't open it with a crowbar, its sour. In most cases, its true but as with everything that Murphy lays his hands on, there are exceptions.

So, best thing really, is just dive in and hope for the best!!

Re-living Student Days

T'was a lazy Saturday and all through the house
Not a bite of food could be seen, not even a 'pau'
So into the larder we ventured and what did we find?
Tins of soup expiring and something came to mind!

We picked up the pasta and tuna and soup
Chopped up some garlic and mixed veges to boot!
Stirred in the tuna, mushroom soup and all
Poured it over hot pasta and
Ta-da!!
A meal fit to feed all!

Bad poetry aside it perfectly describes our meal on Saturday. Bro and I were bored and tired of eating ta-pau food so we decided to relive our student days in grey ol' London with a dish all students who have ever lived on their own can identify with - Pasta with Mushroom Tuna Sauce.

The assembly is simple - Campbell's Mushroom Soup, canned Tuna chunks, Pasta of choice and frozen mixed vegetables. Ingredients can be varied according to your sense of adventure and taste. I have personally done this with Asparagus soup or Celery soup and it tastes absolutely great!!

First, boil up the pasta in boiling salted water - follow the instructions on the pack. Fresh pasta is best but no student can afford it. So dried pasta is the way to go.

Then, chop up garlic and onions (optional) and fry in some olive oil till fragrant but not burnt. Pour in the canned tuna chunks, stir, add in soup (follow instructions on can again! Don't throw the can away unless you are so familiar with making canned soup that you know how to work it by heart!) and stir until the soup is smooth.

Add herbs - mixed herbs, basil.... anything you desire and can get your hands on - seasoning - pepper, taste et voila!

Pasta with Mushroom Tuna Sauce!!
Assembly Time - 5 minutes
Cooking Time - 10 minutes
Satisfaction - infinite!

Italiannies

Last night we had dinner at Italiannies at 1U. The restaurant has a nice ambience. Haven't been to Italy so I can't say if it resembles a typical Italian setting. It's got simple chandeliers hanging overhead and the touch of the restaurant exudes a very pleasant dining experience.

The menu is interesting, an array of pizzas and pastas, with some meat offerings too. The starters also look interesting. My favourites are the stuffed mushrooms served with melted cheese, and the mussels. The few times I've been there I've tried only several items. I tend to repeat order of the things I like.

The pasta servings are huge, come in lunch or dinner servings. The dinner serving is good for two to share whilst the lunch portion is meant for 1 diner. Last night we ordered a dinner serving and shared it amongst 3 people. We ordered a starter too, and towards the end of dinner we were pushing food around to each other 'cause each was full to the brim.

Italiannies is also a great place for birthday dinners. They can accommodate a reasonably big party and they gather a group of waiters and waitresses to sing "Happy Birthday" with great enthusiasm, not to mention it comes with good showmanship! They remind me of a bunch of cheerleaders. Now that I think of it, each time that I ate there, it has never been without a birthday party!

All being said, the price is quite steep. Our meal of a dinner-sized pasta and a starter of mushrooms with 3 drinks (non-alcoholic, in case you think the cocktails jazzed up the price) cost us RM80.

Was too engrossed with ambience and conversations, forgot the pictures this time...

-eternity-

No catchy title just food!

I couldn't think of anything catchy to say about this post so feel free to suggest! Sue is on holiday in Sydney and I've been entrusted with keeping her blog going. So, here we have tonight's dinner.

Loads of food to feed only 2! To start with there was arrowroot (feng ge in Mandarin) soup boiled with pork ribs and red dates. The arrowroot is a thick fibrous root which looks a lot like a yam. The outer bark is peeled off and then the root is chopped into smaller pieces. The chopping of the root into pieces is literally hell to go through as its hard as a rock! I usually have to use something heavy to whack the cleaver or it just won't cut through the root. I boiled the soup for about 2 hours so it was nice and thick and absolutely yummy. Its supposed to be good for soothing the throat which is just as well as I have been feeling under the weather lately.

Next up was steamed egg custard (in the bowl) which is essentially 2 eggs whipped with the trusty chopstick and seasoned then steamed in the wok for about 10 minutes. It turned out my typical holey texture which frustrates me to no end as I have been trying my utmost best to get the smooth texture that my grandmother makes i.e. similar to chawan mushi texture egg custard. But no luck this time. Anyone with suggestions on how to get the smooth chawan mushi texture feel free to tell me! It may have been the amount of water - not enough? too much?? But it was nice if I don't say so myself! haha...

For vegetables there was "choi sum fa" or sawi with flowers. Just a simple chinese style stirfry with garlic as I didn't want it to clash or overwhelm the palate in light of the last meat dish I had to offer.

The last dish I erm... dished out (no pun intended) was something I shall call Seasoned Grilled Pork Ribs with Garlic Sauce. I had some pork ribs leftover from the soup so I created a grilled rib dish that turned out surprisingly nice! The ribs had been marinated for a few hours with oyster sauce and a dash of montreal steak mix and basil. I then browned it on all sides on a hot grill pan to seal the juices then finished it off under a hot grill. It took only about 15 minutes for it to be thoroughly cooked - you can't be too careful with pork. The final result was a slightly smokey flavoured rib.

Then, feeling it might be too dry, I proceeded to whip up a sauce to accompany the ribs. I melted butter and threw in 2 cloves of chopped garlic, mixed in a dash of oyster sauce, added some water, some black sauce for colour and finally a dash of chinese shaoxing cooking wine. It turned out that it went superbly with the grilled meat as it had a slightly tangy sweet taste due to the wine and garlic, tempered by the mellow taste of the butter. The sauce even went well with the bland meat from the soup. Hurrah for new recipies!!

Off to see the Wizard of Oz!

Erm...just to see Oz actually! :p Yes, I'll be jetting off to sunny Sydney! Be back on September 11 with yummy Aussie food pictures! :)

I'll be handing over the blog baton to my dear Sis and Eternity - don't leave it empty! Hehe..

Thanks for dropping by! *waves from airport limousine*

Bye!

-Sue-

Chicken fit for an Emperor

It was a lazy Sunday and after that hearty meal at Asia Cafe, it was a welcome change to cook something light and simple for dinner. Looking around the house, I found a packet of "Emperor Chicken" mix we had bought some time back to try.

The top left corner (sorry, not very clear!) said that the wrappers for the chicken were even included! Perfect for people like us who never have these things whenever we need them! Perhaps one day chicken will be included too?! :)

It was an easy task of rubbing the mix all over and inside the chicken, wrapping it up in the first plastic wrapper...

...followed by the second foil wrapper and putting it into steam for approximately 2 hours.

After 2 hours, the packet was opened to reveal a fragrant and tender Emperor chicken! The herbs had infused nicely into the flesh which gave it a nice herby taste. The sweetness of the chicken too had collected in a broth which made delicious drinking. The chicken was tender but not "meat-falling-off-the-bone-tender" which I expected. Maybe it had to be steamed a little longer as we had to open the wok lid halfway to add in more water.

I think I'll try it next time with additional herbs like red dates, ke chi (Chinese wolfberries) and yuk chok for better taste and herbal properties!

Asia Cafe!

Asia Cafe is a new swanky food court that has come up in SS15, Subang Jaya. It's opposite Inti College and has a mind-boggling variety of food stalls with all kinds of interesting food.

Parents were here on Friday night so we decided to head out there for a nice Friday dinner. We got there to find that Sis and her DB (Dinner Buddy) had started the ordering session and the table was already laden with food!

This were kebabs from a nice Italian man. It had generous chunks of beef and veges and went well with the special sauce.

This was Sarawak kolo mee. It's hand-made noodles tossed in seasoning and sesame oil and garnished with slices of charsiew, minced pork, fishcakes and veges. Goes very well with pickled green chillies!

We're big fans of Korean food so dinner usually includes something from this nice Korean-run family stall with pretty good and authentic Korean food.

We had bibimbap which is rice with veges, kimchi (Korean pickled vege), beef and a fried egg. The secret lies in the gochujang which gives it that nice spicy taste.

To eat, you mix it all up with your chopsticks or fork and dig in!
They had also ordered mandu which are pan-fried Korean meat dumplings served with a spicy dipping sauce.

We took a breather with the jumbo-sized juices they have while others took a walk to see what else to order. See the size of the glass?! The juice is nice and thick, unlike some places which try to pass off diluted stuff for juice!

Dad came back with a Vietnamese lemongrass chicken rice. It had a good-sized fried chicken leg fillet which had been flavoured with lemongrass. It tasted a little like Malay-style fried chicken.

Bro had the calzone from the pizza stall. They do really nice Italian-style thin crust pizzas for a decent price.

Feeling like some grilled fish, I headed over to make my pick from a wide range of seafood from the Portugese grilled fish stall.

It came looking spicy! Under all that lime, ladies fingers and chilli is a fish! It was quite fresh and soft. And tasted delicious with the chilli, which wasn't as spicy as it looks!

For veggie intake, we also had four-angle beans with squid. It came sizzling on a hot plate lined with banana leaves. Sadly, the four-angle beans were too old and tough.

Finally, the highlight of the night (what we were really there for!) - the Chilli Crabs! There's a stall there specialising in Chilli Crabs for RM13 a plate. You get 11/2 crabs cooked in a thick, sweet chilli gravy.

And for RM2 more you get a loaf of fried mantou to mop up all that delicious sauce with!

The after-math! :p This is why Asia Cafe's such a nice dinner choice! All kinds of food varieties to suit every tastebud in a nice and comfortable environment!