Gourmet Garden

What do left-over ingredients like sea cucumbers, bacon chips and ABC soup mean to me? EXPERIMENT! The raw sea cucumbers were left idle in the freezer since Chinese New Year and the bacon chips were acquire like two to three months back, couple with no other fresh vegetables and meat produce on hand I decided to make a quick dish out of these idle ingredient sitting in the freezer.

First thing is to do is to thaw the sea cucumbers, then boil it in just hot water and a few pieces of ginger to remove that fishy smell and taste. After boiling for a few minute, transfer it in to a colander to drip dry. Then it is time to put the thawed bacon in to a dry warm pan. Why dry warm pan? This way I would reduce the oil splatter. When the bacon is dry add in the cooking oil (was using peanut oil) and cook them till brown after which throw in a few cloves of garlic (here was using only 3).

After the bacon chips are brown or firmed up and the garlic starting emit that garlicky aroma, pour in the sea cucumber and stir fry until the liquid dries up. When the liquid is evaporated, I proceed to scoop some spoonfuls of last nights ABC soup to braise and further tenderise the sea cucumber and also to infuse more flavour into the sea cucumbers. The ABC soup is actually soup made of carrot, potato, onions, meat and flavoured with crushed white pepper corns. This time the soup had an added ingredient of sweet potato. In a way, this soup could also be used as soup stock to cook other dishes if the pepper corn is left out. 

When the soup is almost fully evaporated, season with a pinch of salt and pepper and flavour with some oyster sauce. 

Once the soup is all evaporated and what are left are just oil and some gravy, it is time to remove the pan from the flame and serve. We actually left the oily gravy in the pan and tossed our instant cooked noodles in it. Then we had the sea cucumber and bacon chips with our noodle. It was better than using the powdered seasoning that came with the noodles. And that was what we had for dinner! 

Popularity: 22% [?]

We have heard and read much about the new fad in town, Coconut Jelly. Thus, during the Labour Day weekend after much request from our church members, we organised a ‘makan’ trip in the Georgetown and Tanjung Tokong area. And for the finally of the trip we brought them to the current food fad, Coconut Jelly, located in one of the old districts on the Penang Island. 

Legend has it that the trend started from here at Joez Coconut.  This Joez Coconut, under another business name, traditionally sells coconut base products like the refreshing coconut juice, coconut milk, etc. But after the son of the proprietor and yours truly, Joel Jeyachandran took over the business from his dad they begun to venture into producing and selling the now famous coconut jelly.

The coconut jelly is produced by heating and cooling the coconut fruit whole, no sugar or other chemicals and preventives are added. But sometimes a small amount of sugar would be added if the coconut fruit is too young or the meat is not ripe enough which would produce a sour end to this otherwise refreshing dessert.  As the product is without any preservative, therefore it must be refrigerated to ensure that it can last at least 5 days.

The end product of the secretly kept recipe is a very smooth and silky pure coconut nectar jelly with fragrant coconut aroma and sweet flavor of ‘Pandan’. If luck is on your side, you might also get to scavenge mouthful of rich coconut flesh with every spoonful of jelly.

Add: 201, Jalan Dato Kramat, 10150 Penang, Malaysia.

Tel. : 604-229 6063, 016-440 9049 

Business ours: 11.00am-7.00pm daily.

Tips: If you take it fresh it would have a hint of Pandan. But if kept in the fridge for few days more the coconut jelly would develop a much richer taste with a stronger nutty taste. Be sure chilled it thoroughly before savouring it.

Popularity: 24% [?]

It was on a busy afternoon, we just came back from a food review at Agryll Road and we had to rush for another gathering in Island Glade area. It was a pot-luck cum fellowship with the church’s young adult group. For our part, I decided on this untried recipe which I saw in the tele, which I modified to suit the ingredients that I had on hand.

It is a simple but time consuming recipe, pan sheared scallops and bacon. I begin by placing bacon strips in a shallow pan to just brown them on both sides, and also to collect the bacon drippings for my scallop.

After the bacon strips have been browned on both sides I then removed them and placed the bought boiled scallops on the pan glazed in the bacon drippings. The scallops were season with some freshly crush rock salt and black pepper. It would be best if fresh scallops are used as it produced a light sweet taste. Boiled scallops would normally have lost that sweet taste, and it is most often prepared with something that can give them flavour like the sweet sauce the Japanese uses for grilling.

After both sides of the scallops have been browned, remove the scallops and deglaze the pan with seafood soup stock, liquor or white wine. At this instance I was using vodka to deglaze the pan, but from the experience I would prefer wine because it would then infuse that fruity taste of wine in to the scallops. Vodka was a bit blend for the boiled scallops.  

After deglazing and evaporating the alcohols from the liquer put the scallops in and toss them in the natural gravy until it is all soaked up. Then you may proceed to construct the tapas with a tooth pick. Each tapas stick consists of one scallop and one piece of bacon. And that is all that you need to do for these simple tapas.

Popularity: 24% [?]

After a meeting with our business partners at Queensbay, I decided of bringing Gill to the Thong Shui stall that I used to patronise occasionally after meeting a client in the Sungai Dua area during my working days. This thong shui or dessert stall is manned a husband and wife team who started this business some 2 yeras ago. The stall is located directly facing the Sungai Dua Tesco Extra main entrance at the end of the ‘T’ junction opposite it.

The stall sells a variety of traditional hot desserts and some cold ones like ‘loh han goa’,'pak mok yee’, etc. Majority of the hot desserts are rotated or changed either daily or weekly depending on the supply of ingredients to give their customers a sense of surprise when they open up the pots to see what do they have install for them. Basically their desserts cater to those who prefer a taste of the old and those who do not wish to be overwhelm with to much sugary sweetness. To me it is a good cool-off place and ‘snake’ for a while before continuing with the daily chores.

One of my favourites is the whole-wheat or ‘gandum’ congee. It is not as tasty as those famous ones in Georgetown but it do suffice the craving when it creeps up. The sweet taste of melted sugar and the bid like texture of the bloated grains of wheat is something that you would not forget.

The black glutinous rice congee or ‘or chu bee’ is also one of the comfort food that would calm me down after servicing my client and receiving complaints on the product sold. My mom seldom prepare this delicacies but when she does it was a treat, the rough texture of the black glutinous grains rubbing the walls of the mouth, the rich sweetness and the creamy taste of the added coconut milk. The difference from eating out and home cook is that my mom would include dried longan flesh in this dessert which provide for the unique fragrant and taste.

The traditional ‘bo bo cha cha’ which is a nyonya delicacy, consist of chunks of yam, sweet potato and tapioca and sometimes banana cooked in sinful coconut milk is also something my mother would prepare during certain festival celebration in our family. But after her passing, that seem to be only distant memories.

Their not so common product would be their peanut congee(fa shang wu), black sesame congee(hak chee mah wu) and seaweet and red bean congee are only available on certain days of the week and the prepared amount is not much. So it would be wise get their number to call and enquire before moving to their stall.

Average rating for this place:

3.8/5 for value (slightly on the high side but if the ingredients are of good quality the it should be justifiable)
3.7/5 for taste & texture (certain desserts still need some booster)
4.0/5 for service (friendly and accommodating)
3.9/5 for cleanliness ( everything is kept closed and clean)
3/5 for atmosphere (it would be hot on sunny days)

Location:

Directly facing the Sungai Dua Tesco Extra main entrance at the end of the ‘T’ junction opposite it.

Tel : It would better to get it from them personally.

Business Hours : Daily 3:00pm until sold out. Rest days need to be updated later.

Tips: Enquire for their ‘kuai leng ko’ it tastes sweet and bitter at then end. The texture is more like ‘kuih’ rather than the usual agar-agar or jelly texture.

Popularity: 21% [?]

The remembrance of childhood tastes and food texture are some things that affect ones eating habit and expectations. I can remember as a young tod, my parents or siblings used to like to patronise a Koay Teow Th’ng stall located opposite the Air Itam wet market. It was a treat whenever we visit that place cause I like the texture of the mince pork patties that they cook up. Now I am nearing my mid-30′s and I still yarn for that feeling in my mouth again. I have ventured to many Koay Teow Th’ng stalls in Penang and in Kuala Lumpur in search for my nostalgic childhood memories, and the closest that I could achieve was at Peter’s Pork Noodles in Breikfields in Kuala Lumpur. But know I have found a stall that can fill that void, and it was all the while under my nose.

Me and my wife always travel to Kimberley street for ‘makan’ on Saturdays before our church fellowship, have never thought of trying out Ah Hai’s Koay Teow Th’ng which is next to the much talk about Ah Seng Eco Bee Hoon on Kimberley Street. Numerous trips there over the years and have not tried them, I should be kicked in the head for that kind of mistake!

Ah Hai’s Koay Teow Th’ng is the freshly cooked to order type where you could choose toppings like mince pork patties, slice pork, pork innards, fish balls, fish cake, whole egg, and not forgetting glorious crispy pork lard. And for the noodles there are a few choices too like ‘koay teow’, ‘lo shu fan aka bee thai bak’, yellow noodles, instant noodles and rice vermicelli. My favorite is still yellow noodle and koay teow mix, and Gill’s is ‘lo shu fan’.

Since the beginning I have been talking about hunting for that nostalgic memory in a Koay Teow Th’ng, what is it?!  Well, it is that firm and tender texture of mince pork patties that I had at the Air Itam Koay Teow Th’ng stall which have since disappeared from that place. With this new found ‘makan’ place, I will be able to enjoy that firm and tender texture of the pork patties that I used enjoy in my mouth ages ago. Ah Hai’s pork patties, although, after being cooked for a long period of time in the boiling hot soup base, they still remain tender and juicy. The trick is the fatty content ratio and self pounded mince pork meat. The beads of fats give it the bouncy tender texture and the sweet creamy taste that produces a good piece of mince pork patties. The texture is so different from the pork patties found at Pitt Street Koay Teow Th’ng, which is hand press to achieve that uniquely spring lite textured patties. Both versions of patties offer an individual and total different texture experience of their own.

What is Koay Teow Th’ng without the sinful crisp pork lard pieces and addictive garlic oil?! The crisp lard pieces were full bodied and fragrant, even after being immersed in the soup it still maintain that firm crisp texture.

My favorite noodle koay teow and yellow mee combination give me that balance of slippery smoothness(from the koay teow) and 3 dimensional firm(from the yellow noodle) texture feeling  in my mouth. But do be reminded that the koay teow would in some ways affect the quality of the soup base (inducing some slight sour taste) and also because that the stock lacks that dominant sweet meaty flavour.

As for my wife’s favourite noodle, the ‘lo shu fan’, it compliments well with the soup base and also the taste of the meaty ingredients. It does not bring with it that sour taste that the koay teow has.

We also had their dry noodles or ‘kon lo’, which we found that the dark soy used did not have that smoky caramel flavour. But to compensate for that lacking, the sambal was of great help to bring the taste of the otherwise dull bowl of noodles.

Ah Hai also offers koay teow th’ng with poached egg. We were surprise that the bowl that we tried with egg on our second visit there did not contain that eggs’ flavour, which I like. It is usually common to taste some hint of egg flavour when it is introduced to any soup base.

Average rating for this place:

4.2/5 for value (generous amounts of mince pork patties & slice pork with the extra toppings at RM4.00)
4.0/5 for taste & texture (soup was not as tasty as Peter’s Pork Noodle, but the mince pork patties compensate for that)
4.0/5 for service (friendly and accommodating)
3.7/5 for cleanliness ( because it is road side)
3/5 for atmosphere (road side mah!)

Location:

On Kimberley Street opposite the new green colour restaurant owned by Bee Ching Hiang

Tel : 016-466 3488 , 017-466 7309

Business Hours : Daily 6:00pm-1:00am(or until sold out). Rest days need to be updated later.

Tips: Do not go too late as the salty taste of the fish balls would be infused into the soup stock.

Popularity: 21% [?]

For Ivy’s Kitchen, an arrangement was made for some of us food bloggers to sample their spread of a-lar-carte dishes and combo meals. The a-la-carte sampling was held on a Friday night and the combo meals were arranged for on Sunday’s lunch. It was good because we could just waltz in after Sunday Service. The Sunday lunch sampling was mainly to introduce the various sets and combinations that Ivy’s Kitchen can dish out daily. Other than sampling the meals, we were also given the opportunity to put-up some personal feedbacks on the food and also give some thoughts on the possibility to utilise some of our know-how to attract and improve in certain areas ranging from food quality and business management.

As usual we try to make it slightly earlier to capture some kitchen action, thus the following shots were possible.

The value sets or combo meals are specially created to cater to those who need to grab a quick bite that is value for their money. The combo meals are priced from RM 7.50 to RM 9.00 per set and what one would get is a rice set, a glass of freshly squeeze fruit juice and dessert, and for noodle sets they are accompanied with ‘thong shui’ and jelly dessert. You can say that their combo meals cater to both rice drums(fun tong) and noodle freaks.

If one does not prefer to get stuffed and just to fill the tank emperor, you could opt for the a-la-carte noodles and porridge offerings.

Combo A: Chicken Rendang

At RM9.00 per set, one would be served with a piece of tender creamy rich aromatic chicken cut, a  bowl of white rice(not nasi lemak because it would be to rich with all that coconut milk), half an egg, deep fried anchovies and peanuts, papadum and achar or pickles vegetables.

Rendang is a dish which originated from an ethnic group of Indonesia, Minangkabau. In many cases the rendang is mentioned as curry, but authentically the rendang is anything but curry. Rendang is prepared through a slow cooking process of the meat of choice in coconut milk and spices until almost all the liquid is evaporated and the aroma and taste of the spices and creamy richness of the coconut milk are absorb by the meat. And through this slow cooking process it allows the meat to become tender, even beef.

Combo B: Beef Rendang

The combo of beef rendang and rice shares the same side dishes as in combo A but is cheaper by RM0.50, at RM8.50 per set. Both chicken and beef rendang shared the same characteristics, creamy, rich, and aromatic, but the beef rendang was slightly spicier hot. Although the rendang dish calls for a slow cooked tender chunk of meat, the beef rendang today had some chewy chunks. One of the reasons for this is that the chewy chunks had less or no fatty contents. But yet is not enough of a reason to shun from this dish.

Combo C: Nasi Lemak

At RM7.50 per set, one could expect a coconut rich fragrant bowl of rice accompany with a halved hard boiled egg, ‘sambal’ anchovies that is prominent with the colour of turmeric and sweet, deep fried chicken wing minus the drum- met, deep fried sardine, crisp anchovies and peanuts and fish cracker. Alternatively, one could substitute the chicken wing and sardine with a bigger fish like the deep fried stuffed cincaru or hard tail mackerel for RM9.00. Personally, I would like to have bigger piece of chicken to fill my tank while still maintaining the price at RM7.50. What are people looking for now is something which tasty, economical and yet able to fill them up.

This stuffed hard tail mackerel in its raw form.  The stuffing consists various type of herbs and spices, and the predominant taste that one will get to experience from this fish is the sourness of tamarind, the fragrant of Kaffir lime leafs and the heat from the chilli paste. This stuffed hard tail mackerel is sold at RM3.80 per fish.

Combo D: Fish Fillet Noodles in clear soup

This set is for the noodle freaks and light tasting food fans, and it is only  RM9.00 for a bowl of noodle topped with generous amounts of deep fried dory fish fillet and chicken meat balls, accompanied with thong shui and dessert. One could choose from your noodle of choice from instant noodles to rice vermicelli(bee hoon), glass noodles(tang hoon) to plain old rice porridge. The soup is clear and sweet with a noticebale taste  of sesame seed oil as a condiment.  When requesting for the rice porridge version, do expect a more hard hitting sweet taste of ‘tung choy’ (type of Chinese preserved vegetable with sweet and salty taste) in soup. This because by substituting the noodle with cooked rice, the light clear soup would have its taste overwhelmed by the rice, thus the usage of ‘tung choy’ is call for. If you are a person who can’t taste anything lite, it is would not be a good choice to choose combo D.

Other than the combo meals that are mentioned here, one could also try out their lite snacks and other a-lar-carte dishes.

Average rating for this place:

3.1/5 for value (slightly above averagely priced for combo meals as comapred to economy rice, but with fresh juice and dessert it should break-even nicely)
3.7/5 for taste & texture (taste of home cook meals, but there is still room to excel)
3.8/5 for service
3.9/5 for cleanliness
3/5 for atmosphere (not much of decoration. evening got lots of mosquito due to the neighbours plants but they are looking into environmental friendly ways to get rid of this minor problem)

Location:

Add : 58 Jalan Chow Thye, 10250 Penang. (Next to Isaribi Tei and near by Jemputree)

Tel : 013-433 7878 (Mr. Tan), 016-433 7130 (Ms. Ivy)

Business Hours : Daily 9:00am-9:00pm from Monday to Sunday. Saturday 12:00pm-9:00pm.

Popularity: 18% [?]

After picking up Gill from her friends’ at the foot hill of Penang Hill, she was nagging me to go to Paya Terubong to try out the extra long crullers that we read in the bloggs. Thus, with all that ‘cute faces’ showing how could I not go, especially when we seldom come along to Air Itam area without any intentions or business. Actually, I used to live near by the Air Itam area, just a stones’ throw from  here in Jalan Padang Tembak.  Those days coming to Air Itam was easy and fast with my motorbike, now it seems to take ages especially with all the inconsiderate drivers who park as they please and choke up the road. Driving through this area is at time frustrating!

A cruller in western context  is a fried pastry made of dough which may resemble  the shape of a doughnut or twister sticks with some cake characteristics. Crullers are often topped with powdered sugar or icing, but now-a-days with more sinful ingredients. Traditional crullers were being made and sold at Dunkin’ Donuts, not until 2003 when they decided to stop these delicacies due to the labour-intensive nature of the process.

In this part of the globe, crullers are almost the same as those found on the western hemisphere except that they are coated nor topped with any other ingredients.  Chinese crullers or commonly known as ‘you tiao’ are sticks of dough deep fried till goldenly crisp, with the inners of the ‘you tiao’ should still retaining some softness. Last Sunday, after reviewing the Ivy’s Kitchen and after picking Gill up at her friends’, we went to this road side stall along the main road of Paya Terubong in search of the not-so-well-known ‘Te Chang You Tiao’ or extra long crullers.

The ‘Te Chang You Tiao’ stall is manned by Mr. Tan junior and his pretty efficient workers. Over here one could get a glimpse of how the traditional Chinese crullers are made. It all starts with a batch of dough which is then separated into smaller batches or blocks. Then the dough is left to sit or rise before they are prep for the fryer.  What is so special of the crullers stall is that they produce extra long golden crisp cruller sticks which are around 14 to 15 inch. The normal Chinese crullers in town are half the length of Tan’s crullers.

Other than producing traditional Chinese cruller sticks with the dough, they also churn our butterfly crullers or ‘hua chi’. In some places, this butterfly crullers are also known as horse feet or ‘mah kiauk’ in Cantonese. The dough is cut to shorter lengths and coated with sugar paste and knot together at the centre which after frying would look like a butter fly. At this stall the butter fly crullers are not only coated with sugar paste, they are also given an extra fragrant and taste of black and white sesame seeds. Even the knotting also differs from others, with it placed at the top rather at the centre.

The butterfly crullers or what Tan calls is, twins crullers, were not exceptionally sweet and were fluffily soft. With the sesame seeds, it had that nutty fragrant which was quite attractive in my point of view.

Other that enjoying the traditional Chinese cruller straight up, in a bowl of piping hot porridge, or dunk in a cup of aromatic kopi ‘o’ (Hainanese coffee), now one could also savour the crullers with trendy fillings like kaya(coconut jam) and butter, honey and butter, peanut butter, pork floss and mayo, or tuna salad.

With the added kaya and butter, the taste experience of this traditional snack turn from fatty and savoury to sweet and rich.

The tuna salad filling with lots of chopped cabbage, carrot and onion gave the other wise plain cruller a refreshing feeling and some crunchy texture. With mayonnaise, who would not like this snack?!

Average Rating for this place:

* 4.2/5 for value (size 2 times longer then the ordinary yet is just RM1, very reasonable)
* 3.8/5 for taste & texture (texture something like ham cim peng, different from the normal)
* 3.8/5 for service (friendly service)
* 4.0/5 for cleanliness (it was fly season)
* 3.0/5 for atmosphere (road side mah!)

Te Chang You Tiao Wang Enterprise

1250-A, Jalan Paya Terubong, 11600 Penang, Malaysia.

+60 (16) 4337301

Daily from 1:00pm~8:30pm. Closed on Alternate Tuesdays.

View Ayer Itam Food in a larger map

Popularity: 11% [?]

When ever we go to KL, my sister & brother in-law which was the permanent KL citizen will surely bring us to makan. I actual fact they need us to help ‘hantam’ the left-overs and to have more people to sit in so that they can try more food!  They can’t handle the big feast by themselves…lol

Sai Kee, was one of the pioneer in KL Chinatown as they had occupied here more then 50 years, as my title says, 3 generations, from grand pa, father and follow by son. But i wonder how and why they choose to operate the stall at the back lane for half a century?!  Guess a name BACKLANE is not a ideal dining area right? Especially the old town house, you really can imagine how dirty, smelly, rats & roaches crawling here and there along the lane, and don’t mention about dining there!

Alright, i couldn’t believe my eyes when i heading to the stall. Guess what? 80% tables were patronized by the supporter! I was asking myself, are they really serving good food here, in  a DIRTY BACKLANE? Well, lets fine out!

Here is the Sai Kei stall along the back lane with shelter (owning), and they are the only stall in the quite lane.

They serve Old School Cantonese “Dai Chao”, and their dishes which is very homey, not commercialize at all. And i guess this is the most attraction from here.

Traditional Hand Made Fish Paste Soup with Vegetable Thong Ow

This is really homey! why do i say so? look at the photo. They serve the food without much caring on the presentation, and kinda like ah ma’s (grandma’s) cooking. See how rough the fish paste in chunk was.  The paste quit meaty, rough and firm, but kinda salty. Other then Thong Ow, the stall give you a choice for  daily fresh vegetable for your soup.

Rating: 3.5/5

Steam Pork with Salted Fish

Oh boy, another yummy and rice taker dishes. Rough julienne ginger and salted fish drenched on the dieing pork belly, tender and flavourful. It was very salty coz the salted fish was put in too much, but anyway it’s still passable.

Rating: 3.5/5

Roast Pork Stir Fry with Tofu

Next was the filling dish. Roast pork sautee with fermented bean paste and cook with big chunk of Chinese Tofu. This dish was full with “Wok Hei”! Delicious though.

Rating: 3.7/5

Black Bean Fish

After all, we only realized we over ordered too much of salty dishes for the night. Again, another salty dish full with black and yellow fermented beans. A Fresh fish doesn’t need to cook in heavy tasting sauce, a little wasted. The Fish was over fried and became dry, the sauce was overwhelm the fish. hence, salt ratio should be reduce!!!.

Rating: 3/5

Balacan (Shrimp paste) Brinjals

Another heavy tasting dish, long purple brinjals cut into thin slices and lightly deep fried, then stir fried with shrimp paste and big prawns. The brinjals fully absolved the balacan flavour and yet still maintaining the sweetness of itself. Creamy & smooth texture was nearly melted into my mouth. This was the highest vote among the dishes tonight. Yummy!

Lazy to copy the GPS cordinate…its actually noted on the name card above XD

Popularity: 8% [?]

Have you heard of fried porridge before? Fried the Porridge! How can the porridge be fried? How does it taste & looks like?

All the questions popping up in a sudden, after the mentioned of “fried porridge”!  Yea, its kind of weird without any logical sense right? Would you have the guts/urge to try this “weird” thing? Well, i am not kidding, the weird porridge it’s pretty delicious though. What i am going to introduce to you today is truly a good bowl of porridge that specially caters to those who have a fancy for heavy taste food.

Thanks to Criz for organizing this eating adventure for us and Steven Goh .

I think some of the local has heard of this “113 Fried Porridge” before. Through the years they have shifted to 2 different locations before setting foot at the current location in Tanjung Tokong just opposite of the Prima Tanjung shop houses. The first place they started business was on Burmah Road and then they moved to Batu Maung. At the current location, one can easily locate them by their signage that is of striking yellow orangey color, which stands out among the kopitiams.

Other then the unique porridge, they serve chinese dishes and a variety in their air-conditioned restaurant.

Small plate of homemade potatoes chip will be served before the order.

You may fine they have limited choices in the menu, as they just serve their specialties which is more then enough. It’s good to specialise in something and rather be a Jack of all trades, right?

Off the a alar carte menu, they also offer Lunch Sets for those who wants a trouble free and fast meal in the afternoon. And the Lunch Sets are quite reasonably priced at RM5.90. For the RM 5.90 you pay, you will be getting a plate of rice with one dish, fried egg, soup and a glass of tea. Can you believe it? In an air-conditioned restaurant! Where to get?

As we paid our virgin visit to this place, so we let the Host – Criz to make the orders and thus we end up savouring of some of their specialties.

We have total of 4 dishes, 1 porridge, 2 noodles….guess although the four(4) of us have double sized stomach the dishes served was more than what we can stomached….4 of us were filled till up to the brims! Thanks to the owner for arranging such a big feast for us…lol

Black Four Seasons Beans
Crunchy & young French beans are slightly deep fried into oil and then stir fry/sautéed with generous amount of garlic, chai por, dried shrimps and dark soy sauce. It was fragrantly salty with a hint of sweetness. This is indeed a good match for a bowl of white rice. Love it. Extra bowl of rice pls…

My Rating: 3.9/5

House Special – Yunnan Tofu
The homemade tofu deep fried to perfection. Once you bites on, it has some gluey feeling from the crispy outer layer and following by smooth and silky tofu. Guess it was coated by tapioca flour, to give the layer special & differently from others.
There are some dried shrimps and chopped wood fungus inside the tofu. The tofu mixture doesn’t have much taste by itself, so try to eat them with Thai chilli sauce.
Anyway, beware of your tongue will get burnt, when it was immediately from the kitchen. Piping Hot!

My Rating: 3.7/5

Wild Boar Curry
Fresh and lean wild boar meat were cut into slices and cook with onions & curry leafs with thick & fragrant curry sauce. I guess they were using milk instead of coconut milk, as it was not oily and too creamy. Although the curry was thick but it has sense of powdery still. Using curry powder? Still need some improvement, but it was a nice dish.
Criz said, the boar always is fresh as the owner hunts it every day! Who will be interested to join the hunting team? Anyone?

My Rating: 3.8/5

Oyster Omelette
Fresh Oyster fried together with eggs to perfectly golden. This is not a starchy type as usually found in penang. Pretty genuine as they serve purely eggs without flour.

My Rating: 3.6/5

Fried Porridge
The unique porridge was reached our table, and finally answered our curiosity.

What is Fried Porridge?

The below paragraph was exert from Criz post:
“Cooked porridge is stir fried in a wok with some herbs and spices, together with prawns, cuttlefish strips, dried shrimps and Chinese leek (koochai) & char siew. In fact, it looked just like dark soy sauce porridge but the taste is unique. “

The Porridge itself came with the mixture of some smooth (70%) and slightly rough (30%) texture, dried cuttlefish strips & shrimps brings up the fragrant of its own, Chinese leeks gave some refreshing green taste to the porridge. It was good I would say. Another way to descript the fried porridge, it would be something similar to dried cuttlefish porridge, just the different of extra ingredient, heavier taste (black sause), and method pf preparing.

My Rating: 3.9/5

Hor Fun with “sunny yolk”

Moonlight Hor Fun
It was an ordinary Stir fry hor fun with just added in a raw Egg Yolk. If you stir the raw yolk with the steaming hot hor fun together and eat it immediately, it shouldn’t taste raw. The fact to put in the raw yolk is to enhance the creaminess to the hor fun with special experience. Although I don’t really like to take raw yolk but the hor fun is still fine.

My Rating: 3.5/5

after mixing the Hor Fun & yolk

3 Taste Noodle
Yellow noodles stir fry with a unique sauce, bean sprout, prawn and garnish with lettuce & fried shallots. 3 taste in Chinese, means they have 3 different flavours has added in to the noodle. Although the flavour has became 3 into 1, but I still can roughly tell the mixing flavour of mee goreng & sambal. The taste is acceptable…hah.
It was a litter bit wet, a little too sweet to my liking, slightly adjust the sugar ratio would be perfect.

My Rating: 3.4/5

Dishes Rating:

* Black Four Seasons Beans: 3.9/5
* House Special – Yunnan Tofu: 3.7/5
* Wild Boar Curry: 3.8/5
* Oyster Omelette: 3.6/5
* Fried Porridge: 3.9/5
* Moonlight Hor Fun: 3.5/5
* 3 Taste Noodle: 3.4/5

Average Rating for this place:

* 3.9/5 for value
* 3.9/5 for taste & texture
* 3.7/5 for service
* 4.0/5 for cleanliness
* 3.5/5 for atmosphere

P/S: The quality may not be consistent during weekend & public holidays. I guess the young cooks still learning from the father (owner). The best is go in weekday. Young kids serve dishes and drinks, as this is the family business, so do watch out the kids with full hand of food.

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