restoran KM [dennis's kopitiam] at jln kuchai lama

those who go to FGA at kuchai lama, taman goodwood, old klang road know this is its best kept secret! dennis, the owner/chef has been cooking up a delicious meal every time for the last 20+ years! his corner shop is just outside FGA's basement entrance. gavin loves ordering his mee ganja, also known as ginger beef kueh teow, so named bcoz of its addictiveness. I love the black pepper kueh teow [above] with pork and I order it most of the time.
for today however they'd run out of beef so gav just had his usual kung fu chow kueh teow which was, as always, excellent! they also cook up a great spicy chicken rice, kung pao pork rice and kam hiong pork rice. but, they're not just good at cantonese dishes, I love the ham and egg sandwiches here too.

gingerbread people

I used this recipe and made heaps of these. then i made them all smile with glee at the prospect of getting eaten up by some kid!

baked chicken

do you have one of these? they're really nifty. small enough to bake/roast small amounts of food. like if you want to toast a croissant you don't want to fire up the big oven right? or like me i usually cook for two. for just 2 pieces of chicken, to heat up the big oven is just too much of a waste. I marinated the chicken in bottled teriyaki sauce overnight and put them in this nifty foil tray and put the whole thing on my small toaster oven for about 10 minutes.
the chicken tasted just like roasted chicken, succulent and juicy,and all without using any added oil! [there's fat on the chicken already] I'd definitely try this again.

herbal chicken soup

this is a review of uncle sun's chinese herbal chicken soup mix. it comes in 2 paper sachets that you boil along with the chicken and water.

it says to add 2 pieces of garlic but i added something like 6-7. you can't ever have too much garlic!
I used chicken ribs. the instructions didn't say how much chicken to use so it's up to guesstimation!
for fun and creativity's sake, I added more goji,ginseng slices, ginger and red dates and even threw in a few choy sum stalks. and salt of course. the packet said to boil only 20 mins but i did like a chinese auntie and boiled it 3 hours!

it tasted pretty good and flavourful except that I added too much ginseng so it became slightly bitter. if you don't like the bitter just don't add ginseng.

pumpkins!

my first pumpkin that i planted from seed!
pumpkins have male and female flowers, the ones with the "swelling" at the bottom are the female ones and of course, the swellings are the pumpkins!

kid's party food

this week is graduating week for most of my JMC classes [as in graduating to the next book] and we always mark it with a little concert and party. all my parties at subang parade invariably have big apple donuts, conveniently picked up at their stall downstairs. this round had only chocolate and nut flavours. perfectly fine with me! i love all their donuts.
of course sausages and fries are always a favourite too.

mango pudding

i love mango pudding. it's actually like jelly, but with a creamier consistency. but ultimately it's mango flavoured gelatin.
this one was bought at a little shop on the ground floor at wisma cosway in KL [we wandered in there coz it was just outside novotel] i thought wisma cosway was an office building but the lower floors are actually retail outlets. it's a very very old one, its shoplots are in compact little rectangles, right out of the 80's! one plus point though is that the things are are much cheaper than say, 1 utama! these containers mango puddings were RM1.50 each. yum. i'll try making them one day and see how it goes.

beef bourguignon

beef bourguignon is a french beef casserole/stew flavoured with wine and bacon. i tried making it today but didn't cook it long enough so the beef was tough. the recipe said to stew it for 2 hours but i didn't read it through and only simmered it for 20 minutes!

however i did find the wine/beef stock/bacon flavour combo pretty good. it had mushrooms and onions in it which further enhanced the meaty beefy flavours.

we had it with steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes.

jln alor - shui kee

i'd heard so much about how great the food at Jln Alor is but every time i go there i get conned by some idiotic overpriced tourist trap restaurant. actually i still dont know which are the "good" stalls but i sure know which are the rubbish ones! definitely the first one on the road is rubbish, the one called dragon view. they charge RM10 for a bowl of fish porridge that tastes just like any granma's fish porridge! probably not as good as my own grandma's....
and hardly any meat in it!

another time we tried the hawker fare but got conned by an RM5 plate of charkueh teow that was as tiny as penang portions!

anyway tonight we were determined to find a good one along this road and managed to sit down at this chinese rice n' dishes place called shui kee. it's really easy to order here because all their dishes are clearly documented complete with price and photos and descriptions. there were 4 of us but we ordered 5 dishes so ended up eating too much and couldn't finish.

my rule of thumb is to order the same no. of dishes as diners [when it comes to chinese rice n' dishes meals]
this fried ommelette was fluffy and tasty and oily.

i love kailan and this came with a garlicky salty gravy which i liked.

of course kangkung belacan is always a favourite. the sauce is savory and slightly sweetish.

the black pepper venison was okay but the texture of the meat was dry-ish

butter chicken - creamy sauce. it was really delicious but i suppose the most unhaelthy dish here!

altogether it was RM63 for the 4 of us including drinks. not too bad considering having "value" meals at macD's would've cost the same amount!

ginger pork

I got this old cookbook called "ASIAN SPICE" by joan pereyra at a jumble sale on Saturday so decided to try one of its recipes. it's full of those recipes your mum or aunties used to make but never documented. this one was pretty good. i didn't quite follow the recipe exactly when it came to the ingredients but as with all Asian type stir fries or stews, the exact amounts are not mandatory. it turned out pretty good. flavourful and fragrant and "meaty" and i love potatoes in some sort of starchy gravy with rice. that's why the potatoes are my favourite part of chicken curry, not the chicken!

here it is :


ginger pork

Fry some chopped ginger and chopped onions in some oil till fragrant, add 500g sliced lean pork and stir awhile. add 2 sliced potatoes, 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce and 1 cup water then simmer, covered, until potatoes are soft. add 2 quartered tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. top with chopped spring onions and serve hot.

more malay food! im gonna miss this

we popped by at jaring again last sat hoping to get the nasi dagang but we were too late! at 10.30am it was already sold out. this is their mee bandung.
so we just went with the nasi campur instead, with so much choice there's never a dull moment!
damien went for the whole mother lode. kangkung...fried fish, potato cutlet and some other stuff i can't identify.
i kept it simple this time with my favourite sambal egg, kangkng and fried potato cutlet. and lots of gravy of course. [this time steering clear of the scary tempoyak!]
gav kept it really simple with just ayam percik [it's excellent here, with a great "burnt" flavour] and kangkung.

nasi campur at Jaring Sunway

every time we come here i'm at a loss on what to choose. there're just too many good things and no amount of visits here would be enough to try everything! or so it seems to me.
the nasi campur is what most people go for here as there're just too many things to choose from. i dont know the names to most of the dishes except the ayam percik, ikan bakar, kangkung and sambal telur. I do stick to what's familiar most of the time.
today i went for the ikan bilis smothered in some red sauce thing, the kangkung [which i love] and the flavourful ayam percik. i like dousing the rice in some sauce and so far the gravies from the curries have been really good but today i made a huge mistake by dousing my rice in tempoyak sauce! it was horrendous as i hate durian or anything that smells remotely like durian! so imagine my horror when i tasted this FERMENTED durian sauce! ughhh
i thought it was just some coconut milk meat gravy.
that pretty much ruined my experience today which was a pity as the chicken and kangkung were very good indeed.
gav almost always goes for the pari which is grilled on banana leaves and doused in some oniony-chilli watery dip.

sek yuen at jln Pudu

Sek Yuen is the legendary chinese restaurant that my parents knew even before i was born. my dad says it's older than he! i guess he ought to know since he grew up around the Pudu area. walking into the place made me feel like i was in a time warp.
some pro photographers' photos of the place.

the problem for me is that there's no menu so I had to rely on mum's cantonese and let her order whatever she thought was good. if only there were a menu with photos and in english! could someone suggest this to them?

we ended up with this garlicky and ginger-ish braised chicken. tasty.

i always love choy tam. this came with lotsa fried garlic. loved the oily gravy!
looks as if nothing's changed since the 70's!
we also had some [same ol] staples like tofu and "koo low yoke" [sweet sour pork] my parents don't deviate much from their usual fare. i would've liked to try something different but since I got there late they'd already ordered! oh well, i guess we love what's familiar.
i suppose if you're feelin' nostalgic you could come here but parking is difficult.

kong sai at bandar puteri puchong

apparently this place is famous for its chicken rice. but we came at night so we had rice and dishes instead.

this place has really really good steamed chicken. the meat was tender and juicy and flavourful. we also had the steamed curry sauce chicken with potatoes which was excellent too. the tasty sauce was thick and spicy, perfect for putting on the hot rice.
the stir fried veg of course, was good.
i loved these steamed meaty soups. we ordered the chicken feet and lotus root soup and the pork and old cucumber soup. both were delicious. each steaming bowl of soup was only RM4.
the best thing about this place? the price! everything was very reasonably priced which was surprising. we'll definitely want to come back here!

Restoran Kong Sai
44-G Jalan Puteri 5/2
Bandar Puteri, Puchong
47100 Selangor

jassal tandoori house

at jln tun sambathan. in brickfields, i think. we just parked at YMCA coz it was impossible finding a parking spot nearby.

i love this place so we came here again to celebrate my birthday. somehow we often seem to order too much and then try to force ourselves to finish the food. today was no exception!
the naans here are 10x better than any mamak's naans. they're fragrant, crisp and soft at the same time. we hadthe garlic naan and butter naan.
we really shouldn;t have ordered 3 dishes but i got greedy so we had the butter chicken, aloo gobi [potato and cauliflower] and the paneer thing. forgot the name, but it starts with "K". the waiter was very helpful, giving explanations and recommendations as well.

of course, each dish was excellent. all were deliciuos with just the right blend of flavours and spices. the potato and cauliflower dish had bits of onion and ginger in it.
of course the butter chicken was to die for! the sauce was thick and tasty, i don't know what's in it but it had a slightly sourish, rich yoghurty flavour so maybe tomatoes?
my fav, the paneer thing. the cheese cubes were so rich and the thick tasty sauce was so good. i onlyregret that i got too full to finish it in the end. although there were chilli pieces in it, it wasn't at all hot.
we came at 11.30am to beat the crowds so for the most part of the meal we enjoyed the quiet. later we smelled the briyani rice that someone else ordered and i decided we had to try that the next time we come.