Penang Streets Foods- Char Koay Teow

Almost anyone staying in Malaysia love streets foods. Last holidays, we had decided to visit the infamous Penang Sister Char Koay Teow @Lam Heng Cafe, 185 Macalister Road, Penang. It is so easy to miss the Lam Heng Cafe because it is just at the corner & it is quite difficult to get a parking. We have been circling the same street for at least 5 times just to get a parking. It was almost 2pm, I guessed whatever we ate must tasted so good because we were hungry. LOL.........

However, I was glad that we finally found a parking. Honestly the shop is very old, feel like I am going back to 80s. But the shop owner are e-commerce savvy, you can find them in Facebook. Take a close look at the Lam Heng Cafe signboard, it was tagged with "Facebook".

Char Koay Teow in Hokkien language (one of the Chinese language) means fried flat rice noodles. If you ever visit Penang, you must not miss this signature fried noodles. These flat rice fried in a sizzling hot wok with oil, bean sprout, eggs, prawn, chili (optional), cockles (optional) & chives. Most of the time, customer will drop the chili if they ordering for the kids. Some people do not take cockles due to personal preference. Please tell the stall owner when you order, they have very good memory even though the crowd is big.  Well, for myself, I will want all these ingredients in my Char Koay Teow.

Besides that, we also order Hokkien Mee (Hae Mee) & Loh Mee from the other stalls. I thought it was pretty good. Hokken Mee (Hae Mee) is noodles served together with hard boiled eggs, small shrimp, meat slices, bean sprouts and kangkung (water spinach) in a spicy prawn broth.

 

Loh Mee - noodles in dark soya sauce broth thickened with corn starch and beaten eggs, served with eggs, meat slices and bean sprouts.

We always prefer to stay in studios apartment. Gurney hotel offered a very reasonable packaging. In Malaysia, hotels price is higher on Friday, Saturday & Public holidays. It could be pricey to travel during those peak period. My recommendation is to travel off peak period because Penang had lots of tourist.

We continued our dinner "makan trip" around George Town. We recommend the below few dishes that you must try if you ever visit Penang. We just drive around George Town around 7p.m., then randomly pick an eatery full of people &  full of hawkers stalls. It will never goes wrong.

We had.......

Lor Bak - Marinated minced pork, rolled in thin soybean sheets & spices.Deep fried. Usually served with small bowl of Loh (a thick dipping sauces thickened with corn starch and beaten eggs) and chili sauces.

Rojak Buah- assorted fruit salad tossed in a special thick black prawn sauce. It is combined with sugar, tamarind  and lots of fruits (pineapple, guava, green mango, cucumber and pickles fruits) tossed in this sauce with crushed toasted peanuts and dried squid too sometimes. There are a few variations, Rojak Buah is my all time favorite after eating all those deep fried stuffs.

My kid favorite: Oysters Omelet is juicy & fresh.

.

By the way, when come to feasting, you should follow the crowd. We see a lot of customers ordering this stir fried clamps. We tag along to order the same things when the waitress served it up to the table next to us. Oh....YES! It was good.

P/S: The only side effect is I put on weight. @_@

Read More

Bidor Duck Noodle - Restauran Pun Chun (Perak)

On the North bound trip from Penang back to Kuala Lumpur on our last local trip, we stopped by Bidor for lunch. This is actually a very small town. Wikipedia is correct. Before the advent of North-South Expressway, travelers had no choice but to pass through this town through the federal trunk road. As this town is (still is) rather famous for its variety of food, travelers frequently choose to stop-by at one of the eateries before continuing their journey. That was what we did. The town is so 70s.........

 

The most famous eatery is Restaurant Pun Chun for its duck thigh noodle in herbal broth. While waiting for the food, we need some snacks to fill up the stomach & we bought these Chinese yam dumpling (wu kok), it was tasty. So old schools.

Honestly the queue was really long, we had waited for almost 30 mins. The surrounding was quite stuffy, a lot of customers and it is not air conditioned. Imagined it was 33'C. The building was old and my child started shouting for "Food!". Headache.......Phew....finally the noodles came!

You can order 2 types of duck noodles- dry & soupy. I preferred the dry duck noodles because the soup which was served in a single bowl tasted so much better. It was more concentrated. The broth of duck soup noodle was less concentrate. Besides, due to serving  the large customer crowd, the dry noodles was cool when it served.

The most pleasing experience for me is actually "shopping" for fresh fruits.Once you step out from the duck noodle shop, you can see a lot of stalls near by selling the local produce fruits. Surprisingly, the "GUAVA" were excellent! After we back from the trip, I have done some research to confirm that Bidor is the supplier of some of the better quality guava & mango. Yes, it was good. It is a MUST BUY if you are in Bidor. The mangos were tasty. I should have buy more mangos too.

Another MUST BUY item from Bidor is PETAI (the stinky bean).It was fresh, crunchy & juicy. These are good for kidney.

When we reached home, I immediately tested the Petai recipes which is quite unusual to me. Normally, most of us cook Petail Sambal Udang, but the aunty who sold us the petai said that is not probably the best way to cook. I was skeptical initially. However, what she said is quite true. The Petai taste even delicious if cooked in a more simple way.

Thanks for her recipes. I learn something new.
To share with you:
Ingredients:
Petai
Sliced onions
Ikan bilis
Soya sauce
Some water
Method: Stir fried all the above ingredients with oil. The full flavor of Petail shines.

 

Read More

Ipoh Famous Fried Noodle - Classic Chinese

 

A pleasant surprise we found in the town of Ipoh-Restoran Tuck Kee at Jalan Yau Tet Shin, New Town Ipoh. It is same row as the famous Lou Wong or Onn Kee Beansprout Chicken Rice (refer below pic).

On a hot traveling day, a glass of ice barley water is a perfect drink. Maybe we were too thirsty, but the barley water brew was just as good. All the tables will definitely order this drink. Despite of being a small little intermediate shop, it was full house & they have to arrange extra tables beside the road.

All the small dishes are really authentic & good. Boiled octopus with chili & peanut dipping sauces. The texture of the boiled octopus was just right to give the crunch. My kid love this so much. Do you know that children are the most difficult food critics to please, personally I think they are the fussiest.

We just do not know how to describe,  everything sell in this little restaurant is good. It is CLASSIC Chinese old school cooking. It is so 80s.....Gosh...the nostalgic feeling is just overflowing.....

In Cantonese, this is called "Wat Tan Hor" ( 滑蛋河). It means stir fried flat rice noodles in smooth eggs gravy. Thumb up.

Yummy ....on the juicy & crunchy made in Ipoh bean sprout. Simply tasty.

Actually we do not need fancy ingredient to dish up a good fried noodle.  The master chef only use shrimp, pork & vegetables (choy sum)...TA- DA....present the super delicious....

(a) Fried Hokkien Mee - stir fried thick yellow noodles in dark soya gravy.

 

My child asked for a second helping for the same cooking style but using different noodles.

(b) Hokkien Bee Hoon (米粉)- stir fried rice vermicelli in dark soya gravy.

Read More

Perak - Kuala Sepetang Seafood

Last June school holidays, we went to Kuala Sepetang which is very near to Taiping (Perak). This place is not known to many people outside Taiping, unless you are a makan kaki ( gastronomist) . It is actually a fishing village which is located at the northern part of Malaysia.
This is a very old fishing village, you can see from the simple & humble terrace houses. It was noon when we reached there. Yeah, you can see the sun is bright like a giant spot light. It was lunch time, so we went straight to the Kedai Makanan Tepi Sungai ( direct translation: Restaurant next to the river). It is just next to the river, you will know why later. A pretty straight forward name isn't it?
It is a double storey shop, you can actually see the fishing boat is docking down stair.
You will need to walk up stair to the 1st floor. The restaurant is located just up stairs. The catch of the day is waiting for the customer to make their choices. You can pick any seafood you want & get the kitchen to cook.
These little fish looks fresh? Yup....they taste great. We picked those for our lunch.
I can still recalled the prawn mantis swimming lively in the tank.
Below is the view that you can enjoy while having your delicious meal. The river bank is wide, there are a lot of mangrove around.

By the way, it was full house on that weekday afternoon. This restaurant is quite happening even located in such a location.
These were the simple fried little fish. Fresh, crispy & price is very reasonable  (RM10 only). You can't get this price in Kuala Lumpur City (KL) though. It was the appetizer.
The soy sauces fried prawn were excellent too.

The winner is the sweet & sour crab. You MUST order the crab when you visit this place.  These crabs were in  medium size but they are so fresh & delicious. They taste even better than the live meat crabs sold in the KL city.  We don't really quite mind the mess because it is really worth it. Probably because any sea creatures that caught between the sea & river taste better.

The salt & pepper prawn mantis takes the 2nd place. It was a surprise that our bill was RM92. My sister insisted that if we ever go for a north bound trips, we must drop by this place.

Finally, we left the peaceful Kuala Sepetang with a full tummy & sleepy eye. After having such heavy meals, most of us fall asleep inside the car except my husband because he needs to drive.

Read More

Thai Fine Dinning

It has been such a long time we did not update the blog. I told myself, I must at least update ONE article in July. There are still a lot of pics & recipes that I would like to continue to post every month.

We discovered a fantastic Thai fine dining restaurant in Kota Damansara- Erawan. Back 3 years ago, it is a very low profile restaurant. However, due to it's exotic & authentic Thai cuisines, it has become rather famous. They were voted in "The Miele Guide" as one of the Asia's Finest Restaurant 2010/2011. We had a very pleasant dining experience in this restaurant. Of course, it is pricey indeed.

Here is the address:
No.22-1, Jalan PJU 5/16, Dataran Sunway Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. GPS Coordinates: 3.152857, 101.591971
Tel/Fax: + 603-614-123-93

The ambient is cool, very Thailand. You can see the Elephant (Erawan) drawings almost every wall.
Besides that, the lemongrass fragrance filled the air in the restaurant. Kinda relaxing though.

The SALAD is actually the most amazing dish. I thought it was very unique, you need to eat it with the lotus flower leaf. Love the presentation & the exotic flavors. It is a MUST when you visit this restaurant. You need to pre-order it. Love the combination of the peanuts, lemongrass, cili padi (bird eye chili), limes....the complexity of the flavors. It is a fantastic salad.

That's is how you eat it. My sister & my child Love it. She thinks this is such a beautiful dish. This Lotus Petal Salad cost RM38.00.

We also had the clear tom yam gong soup with fresh mushroom (RM 30.00). You can see the freshly slice mushroom floating. Then, we had the roast duck curry (RM38.00) that was packed with spices. Both were in the "good" category. The SALAD is still the best.

The crab meat omelet is in the "better" category. From the pic below, you can see its crispy on the outside & they fried the eggs very old fashion. Simple food never fail to impress me. Love it.

Yummy.......the crab meat omelet cost (RM30.00).

Last but not the least, a MUST order dessert- the mango sticky rice (RM 20.00)which steam to perfection. I give this a 2nd place after the Lotus Petal SALAD. Guess what ....my next patron to Erawan will be trying out different type of salads.

Read More