Back from pilgrimage..

Well, not really pilgrimage, but my annual trip to food and shopping paradise :)

It was also Dragon girl's second trip to Bangkok- her first trip being mostly for massage, sightseeing and relaxation; hence, this time around, the trip would be on shopping and loads of food.

Food was planned along with shopping location, to make things easier for us ladies :p

There were some repeats on our eats such as the grilled fish and som tum place at Chatujak market.

Most unfortunately, the grilled fish was no longer that nice; it was only luke warm when served..

Luckily the som tum place was still nice, though the serving's a tad smaller..

Other repeats include the juicy, tender samurai pork burger at McD's..

And we tried their newly launched chocolate pie..

The filling was more like chocolate custard; it was not too sweet, pretty ok.

Was looking for Amaltery ice cream at Siam Paragon, but it was no longer in operation, so we went back to our usual mango dessert place- Mango Tango..

Had the usual...

Glad to say that the mango ice cream has improved (compared to last year), the new addition of glutinous rice was decent too. The mangoes were ultra sweet and dripping with loads of juices. Yummy!

The second dessert was yummy too.. The crunchy corn flakes gave a nice crunch to the texture; the bottom was filled with mango chunks, mango ice cream and mango puree..

What else did we ate during our time in Bangkok?

Well, guess that will be in the next few posts....

Lan Je, Kota Damansara

Finally, I got to try the famous steamed fish that I read in masak-masak's blog recently :)

Since weekdays are usualy very packed, we went on a weekend instead. Still pretty crowded but the wait for food were not that long..

I've been there twice, and had tried the 3 flavours available..

Steamed black tilapia with bean paste sauce..

Steamed black tilapia with bean paste and chilli (spicy) - larger tilapia, serve size for 2

And lastly, steamed black tilapia with bean paste and extra chilli (extra spicy)

So which flavour was my favourite?

In that 2 visits, I like the spiciest version the best; the plentiful bird eye's chilli added some kick to the fish, also added aroma to the base sauce (ie, the liquid base). When I had all 3 fish together, the norm bean paste paled in comparison to it's hotter counterparts. The fish served here are fresh, hence you dont need to worry about the muddy taste that tilipia has. Almost undetected :)

I've tried 2 sizes of the fish, the fish serve for 1 person was smoother in texture, but not as sweet and flavourful compared to the flesh of the larger fish (serve size for 2 person). Oh, they did over steamed one of the fish that I had though. Wasted :(

Definitely one of the place I'll pop by often for my meals, since it's also rather near my house :). Price of fish depends on it's weight, but small size fish for one person costs about RM16-17.

Lan Je Steamed Fish is located at F-50G & 51G, Jalan Teknologi 3/9, Bistari "DE" Kota, Kota Damansara, PJU 5, Petaling Jaya.

Quick dinner party? Try Thai..

Got a short notice to whip up a few dishes for dinner party?

That's not a problem for me anymore as long as I got my stock of thai curry paste, a quick way to a simple but presentable dinner :)

Whenever I'm over to Bangkok for holidays, one of the sure purchase in my list is the whole range of thai curry paste I could get my hands on. And when stocks depletes, no fear, my friends would help me get those yummy paste :p

The weekend dinner we had recently consists of..

Green Curry chicken..

Easy to prepare dish. Stir fry the green curry paste with garlic and shallots. Add in the coconut milk/ yoghurt, kaffir lime leaves, some lemongrass, simmer until the chicken had fully absorbed the flavours. Add in the eggplants and long beans last, bring to boil and serve hot.

The Yellow curry

You can cook it with chicken, potatoes and peanuts. Since I have already prepared green chicken curry, I decided to do a seafood yellow curry instead. Stir fry the shelled prawns and mussels with garlic, shallots, red chilli and yellow curry paste. Add in coconut milk/ fresh milk, boil and stir in pineapple cubes (I used canned ones for sweeter flavour) before serving.

The Red curry duck..

Stir fry garlic, shallots, red chilli and red curry until aromatic. Add in yoghurt/ coconut milk. Once the curry is boiling, add in chopped roasted duck, sliced red capsicums, tomatoes and lychee.

I prepared some vermicelli to eat with the red curry too..

Goes very well with the curry, we all enjoyed it.

For the greens, we had Thai apple salad..

Sliced green apples (I used granny smiths) to thin strips. Keep it chilled in fridge. Heat up some oil and saute garlic, dried shrimps and shallots until crisp and golden brown. Set aside. For the dressing, mix fish sauce, lime juice and honey to desired taste. Toss the green apple with the dressing, top with the dried shrimps, garlic, shallot bits.

We had Tom Ka soup too (chicken and mixed mushrooms) which I've forgotten to take a picture of :p

My friends enjoyed this quick to prepare meal, which I am very glad of.

So the next time when you're in Thailand, dont forget to get yourself some curry paste ya? Might just solve your food problems for last minute dinner parties!

Kedai Makanan Pak Yoon, Salak South Baru

Miss those tai chow flavours you get in the 1970s- 1980s?

Gary brought me to Pak Yoon, which really reminds me of the dishes I had when I was a wee kid, going for tai chow in my hometown. With fond memories of good chinese stir fry dishes ala kampung style, we reached the humble eatery nearing 2 pm.

We were so worried that they have close for lunch, luckily, they were still taking in customers :)

Left the ordering to Gary, since he has been here before..

We got the old school sweet and sour ribs (pai guat wong)

Tender pork ribs, each piece was well marinated and coated with the tangy sauce. The batter was soft and soaked with sauce, unlike the 'newer versions' of pai guat wong which mostly has crunchy batter.

Candy only request was the Bittergourd with salted egg

This was absolutely delicious. The bittergourd was fresh and though after stir frying, it was still crisp and sweet (yes, you read right). The salted egg, both yolk and white, were still very moist and goes wonderfully with the gourd.

Some Yong Tau Foo

Less refined version, these YTF were huge. Make upon order, minimum 2 pieces per type. Served in thick sweet oyster sauce concoction, it was pretty delish too.

And finally, steamed fish

We had soong fish, fresh water fish. Gary requested for the fish belly portion, hence the meat was springy and smooth. Decent ginger garlic sauce, goes nicely with the fish.

Overall an enjoyable meal, would definitely pop by again for another meal :)

Kedai Makanan Pak Yoon is located at 7A, Jalan 1, Salak South Baru, KL. Across the highway from Plaza 63. Along the road very near the now demolished Besraya toll.

Engka Portobello, Changkat Bukit Bintang

It was Alicia's birthday and she requested to have dinner in KL. After giving her a few choices, she settled for a place that serves mushrooms and pork, both her favourite :p

Engka Portobello is still considered a new kid on the block, since it just opened about 3.5 months ago. The walls were adorned with posters of many types of mushrooms, giving us another topic to discuss on while waiting for our food.

Since we were the first customer, the service was excellent- the staff were attentive, but not overbearing.

Started off with some drinks

Alicia with her margarita(RM19)

She seemed to like it..

I had Vanilla rum and raisin shake(RM12).

Slightly too sweet and lacked rum taste. Plump raisins though.

We began our meal with Grilled Mushroom salad (RM10)

The type of mushrooms depends on the variety they had in the kitchen that day. Our platter was a mix of portobello, shimeji, enoki, button and oyster mushrooms. Each type of mushrooms were cooked with different spices which heightens it's flavours. We enjoyed the oyster and portobello mushroom most.

The grilled Portobello Mushrooms with pork belly and onions (RM15) sounds sexy, so we gave in to temptation..

Gosh, this was so delicious. The portobello was wonderfully succulent, bursting with woody flavour while the pork belly gave some saltiness to this else sweet dish.

The grilled pork bacon with onion rings and halumi cheese (RM13)

I find this dish very greasy. The halumi was slightly hard and dry, the onion ring's batter was so oily that I could not even detect the onion. Did not like this.

For mains, the birthday girl ordered a pork burger (RM35)

Steep price for a burger, but this was absolutely scrumptious. The thick pork pattie was moist, layered with ham, bacon, sliced portobello mushrooms, mayo cheddar cheese and sliced tomatoes; definitely able to fulfill anyone's craving for a yummilicious pork burger. It was delightful watching Alicia enjoying this so much.

Our surprise came in the form of the chips.. guess we didnt read the menu description properly..The chips were actually served on melted smoked cheese. So artery clogging but tasty indeed..

BL had the Grilled Pork Steak (RM33)

Came with a generous 2 slab pork steak, it was served on a bed of potatoes, bacon and warm apple. The pork steak was glazed with rum malt vinegar, but I could not really taste it. The steak was a tad over cooked though, but the rich sauce helped eased the slight dryness of the meat.

Mine was the charred pork steak (RM33)

The huge pork steak had a wonderful smokey flavour but again was slightly over cook. That aside, I love arranging each pork cut with a slice of portobello and smother it with the black pepper hickory sauce. Delicious.

We were so stuffed by the time we were done with mains, we wanted to skip desserts.

But Alicia wanted her BD cake and her BD wish, so we ordered her a tiramisu (RM15)

Hahaha and this was the longest tiramisu we have ever eaten! I liked the fact that this was freshly made, the cake base was still warm and moist with warm espresso. The novelty aside, it was an ok tiramisu for me as I didnt like the peanut butter slathered in the centre. Alicia enjoyed it tremendously.

The sweet manager of Engka Portobello, Sly, decided to treat us to an additional dessert..

The churrous with warm chocolate dip

Served piping hot, the churrous was crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. The accompanying chocolate sauce was slightly bitter, which complemented the slightly sweetish churrous nicely.

Overall we had a great time there, would definitely pop by for another meal (I want to try the pork ribs). But would remind them not to over cook the pork steak :p. Sly showed us their lunch set too; there's 10 mains to choose from with soup and drinks. All for 19.50++. Good value indeed.

Engka Portobello is located at 32, Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang, 50200 Kuala Lumpur.

Fish & Noodle House, Damansara Kim

We started off looking for another noodle place, but ended up at Fish & Noodle as we saw the queue outside the shop..

Since we were both hungry and didnt want to look any longer, we decided to try Fish & Noodle House instead.

The restaurant's really small, think there were only about 15 small square tables.

As we were willing to share table with other customers, we got our seats fairly quick. No grouses on that part :)

The menu's not extensive, there were a few types of fish based noodles- served with fish head/ fish slices/ fish paste/ salmon and some fried rice.

I had the fish head noodles(RM7.90)..

The broth was almost milky white; it had a nice, light flavour of wine, slightly spicy from the ginger slices and an overall sweet taste. Didnt have the sour taste of the plums though. The salient ingredients were there- fish head, tomatoes and preserved vegetables. But I thought the fish head serving was pretty measly- I got 3 medium sized fish head chunks in my bowl which I feel was not sufficient for my big bowl of vermicelli. Left me a tad unsatisfied. 4 pieces would have been just right.

I'd say that the fish head noodles was tasty- but not those blow-your-socks-off good. So I did wonder what's the fuss about, and why there were so many articles written about this place.

Fish & Noodle House is located at 77, Jalan SS 20/11, Damansara Kim, 47400 Petaling Jaya. Opens 8am-4pm daily. Closed 1st & 3rd Mondays.

Choon Yien Chicken Rice, Seksyen 17, PJ

Choon Yien chicken rice is very popular amongst those working at/nearby Seksyen 17, so going over there on a weekday is not a very smart choice.

We popped by on a saturday; still crowded but very manageable.

Though we were there just before lunchtime, it was nearly full house..and there was only 1 miserable chicken hanging at the stall..

Oh no, no more!!!!

Nah, they freshly fry their chooks, so you wont see rows of fried chickens...they keep selling and frying, Gary explained..

Nonetheless, Gary ordered quickly...while we waited...

The famed chicken..

Cut in a rather huge chunks, I felt rather barbaric eating it.

And what so special about this chicken? Definitely the chicken skin.

The chicken was deep fried; the skin so thin and crisp that it's very similar to eating roasted duck skin. Fragrant and lovely to bite into. Sinful too :p. The chicken meat was dry at some parts though, but was ok eating it with the bed of beansprouts it's served on.

Some char siew...

If you like solid porky char siew, then you'll enjoy Choon Yien's version. The fatty parts were not those melt-in-mouth, but springy type. Enveloped with sweeter, non sticky char siew sauce, this was decent char siew.

Some sour spicy vegetables to balance the oiliness from the meat..

Just average, but good to whet the appetite and as an alternate between those meaty chomps.

Gary's complementary 'spare parts' from the owner..

I didn't try it, but Gary seems happy eating it..

Choon Yien chicken rice is located at Block C, Happy Mansion, Jalan 17/13, Petaling Jaya. Oh, do note that the owner is sometimes eccentric and arrogant. Some people may find it offensive. That aside, just enjoy the fried chicken rice.

Restoran Worldwide, Puchong

A quick dinner with my brother will never mean fast food or lousy food.

No matter how hard pressed we were for time; he always make sure I would at least get an above average dinner :) thanks bro *muaks*

And we were in such a predicament again last month, and my brother's immediate response to my growling stomach was a claypot chicken rice nearby..

Erm, the business is not that good, only a handful of customers....

It's still early, by 8pm, it's very pack..

We ordered the claypot chicken rice with waxed sausages and salted fish..

Smells great, I could not wait to dig in. The rice had the light smoky flavour; had a lot of sauce in it too- so it was slightly wet. Not for those who prefers drier claypot rice version.There were also generous amount of juicy, well marinated chicken and waxed sausages. The salted fish however, lacked the wonderful flavour and seemed to have disappeared (not even a teeny weeny bit!) after we mixed it in. And what's my favourite part of claypot rice? The burnt rice base- extremely crisp and fragrant which I enjoyed thoroughly.

Had some old cucumber soup

Though laden with old cucumber, pork ribs, chicken feet and red dates, it was just an average soup, too oily.

Restoran Worldwide is located along Jalan Puchong, facing the huge traffic junction. Across from the Kuan Yin temple and BHP Petrol Station. There's no number here, hope the picture of the place helps?:p