Axian Dim Sum, Taipan

Decided to pop by to Axian's a few weekends ago, as we were on our way to Taipan area. Since Axian is such a famous food presenter, his restaurant should serve ok food, right?

Parking was quite a breeze, the restaurant is located at the quiet end of Taipan. We were quickly ushered to our seats...

There were only a few special items to be ordered, the rest were served direct from trays/ steam trolleys.

We had quite a number of dim sums, think it's best for me to summarised per below....

The Good

Of that many dim sums I had here, sad to say, there were only a couple which I find were nice..

Bacon and mince pork roll

Smoky flavoured bacon were rolled and filled with juicy mince pork, pan fried with sweet sauce. The combination was wonderful and complementing, we all enjoyed this.

The lau sar bun..

A rather common dim sum dish now, Axian's version was rather decent. The filling was runny, yet thick- went well with the light, spongy bun. My mum did complain that it was too rich for her liking.

Steamed pork balls in chinese herbs..

I didn't take individual shots of this dim sum as my parents were hungry and I didn't want them to wait. But I think you could guess which one's the pork balls. The mince pork was very fresh and sweet, Axian boast of using high quality, organic pork which presumably gives a more intense flavour to the dish. The bitterish herbs went well to balance with the pork, I really enjoyed this dish.

The average Joes

Following the same picture above, the bean curd roll- it was good, but I find the thai sauce did overpower the light aroma of this dim sum.

The fried carrot cake was quite nice, the charred sides added bits of crunchiness to the soft carrot cake.

The deep fried yam puff..

One of my must order. Axian's version was decent- the yam wrap was quite thin, the filling was generous and not too salty.

The deep fried prawn roll

Just a tad too oily for me. Else, it's quite a tasty treat as the prawns were springy.

The century egg and shredded pork porridge

Well, I didn't try this, my dad had did. I asked how was it and his only reply was "Ok". So I categorise this as average :p

Steamed char siew buns

The filling was nice (skewing towards the sweet side), but sparse. The buns were soft, but just too thick.

The Bad

Chee Cheong Fun

Was served cold. The Chee Cheong Fun was thick.

Stuffed bitter gourd..

Just tasted artificial to me. Weird. Over fried? Too dry? Maybe.

Both the steamed pork ribs and steamed chicken feet (in my earlier picture) tasted bad to me too. The pork ribs were chewy and bland while the chicken feet, again tasted artificial to me. Ugh.

Will I be back? No unless I really had to.

Axian Dim Sum (Taipan Branch) is located at 32 Jalan USJ 9/5n, UEP Subang Jaya, Selangor.

Fei Fei Crab, Kepong

We were told that Fei Fei's attraction was the super cheap crabs served there.

Wondering how cheap was cheap, we decided to pop over recently. It's not too packed, since it's a weekday. We sat down and were given some confusing looking menu- which looks like advertisement write ups, some pictorial menu etc. Since the crabs were the star here, we decided to ordered 3 types to try. Unbeknown to us, there's actually 2 types of crabs, one is a fixed plate of RM18 crabs (we cant choose the amount of crabs we want) and the second type would be the RM50/kilo crabs. Since we were here because of cheap crabs, we decided to order the former.

Dishes were served relatively fast..
We were recommended the 2 flavoured mantis prawns..

The yellowish sauce was called the italian sauce mantis prawns. Not well received, most of my friends comments were that it tasted funny. To me, it tasted somewhat like junk food- twisties/ chacos cheese flavoured mantis prawns. The other flavour, mantis prawns ala thai was more common, but not a fantastic version. Glad that we could at least taste the mantis prawns flesh, it was not overfried crunchy batter.

New to the menu, was the Coconut curry shark meat..

Some of my friends were keen to try this since they have never tasted shark meat before. I've been avoiding shark meat for years, I used to eat it quite frequently during my schooling days (part of catered food menu), and now that I know that the meat has high mercury level, I avoid eating it. My friends really enjoyed it though, I must say, the curry gravy was nice, rich yet not cloying. Goes well with rice.

The Four Heavenly Kings was well executed though..

The vegetables was fresh, sweet and crisp, the sambal had the right level of spiciness and the anchovies added that little crunch for an excellent overall texture.

And the wait was over..our first set of crabs

Crabs in Honey Lemon sauce

The crabs were so tiny!!! Now I know why it's RM18 per plate- the shells were no larger than my palm..sigh..The flavour was decent though, it was sweetish and crunchy- the accompanying sauce was sourish, I guess that's the lemon. Quite nice, but with such tiny crabs, its hard to enjoy.

The next one was also a house specialty, Crabs in Sweet Corn and Buttermilk sauce..

Think you can guess the size of these small crabs by comparing the size of the corns bits with it. The sauce was delicious though, thick, rich cheesy taste, with hints of sweetness from the corn. Mop it up with deep fried man tau (they were extremely generous with the sauce, unlike Wong Poh), excellent stuff. The crabs? Well, again, too small to comment.

Taking a break from the crabs, the long ribs was served..

This was similar to char siew, just that it's served in the form of long ribs. The fatty layers were springy, the meat tender, coated with slightly sticky sauce, it was paired well with their homemade chili. Pretty tasty.

The last order of crabs arrived- Crabs in Kam Heong Buttermilk..

Yes, Fei Fei certainly has some interesting sauces to cook their crabs in. Looks like curry crabs, but it was distinctly creamy buttermilk cooked in spices. I thought the sauce was excellent with mantou but somewhat masks the sweetness of the crabs. Mixed reviews on this, it was my least favourite but MC thought this was the best amongst the 3 flavours.

Overall, I cant complain about the flavours of the dishes here, it's all decent. But guess the smallish crabs was not worth it though. Total bill was RM182 for 7 pax.

Restoran Fei Fei Crab is located at No 7-A Jalan Desa 2/7, Desa Aman Puri, Kepong, 52100 KL.

Chinese Food, Harbin

Recently, I've received an email from a reader, requesting for me to share some of the food I've tried in Harbin as he is planning to visit Harbin early next year. Since I did write about the Russian foodI've tried there, I guess it's only fair to share on some of the local food I've had too..

We managed to try a range of Chinese food in Harbin even though we were there in the middle of a very frosty winter.

Lao Chang Chun Bing (Laochang Spring Pancake)
This was our first meal in Harbin. We were freezing and was travelling out for the night Ice Sculpture Exhibition and our driver insisted that we must have a hearty meal, else we wont be able to withstand the night temperature outdoors (it was reaching -35 by night). We didn't know where to go and he dropped us at a large shopping arcade. Looked around and saw this place was packed- a good indication of decent food..

As the name suggest, the main meal here was the spring cake. Well, to me, it was somewhat like a cross between popiah skin and roti canai..

We'll just need to order the spring cake, get some dishes as our wrap's filling and wahlah, absolutely tasty meal. We were given a bowl of congee like stuff made of beans- which was absolutely bland. Locals seems to like it though. Just like popiah, we spreaded some bean sauce and onions before topping it with the dishes we like.

Clockwise frm top left- Smoked pork, scrambled eggs, stir fried pork strips with dried chili, stir fried potato strips.

We ordered a number of dishes as our spring cake 'filling'. The smoked pork was served warm and it was very tender. The pork had a light smokey flavour, luckily it was not salty at all. Nice. The scrambled eggs was normal to me, but Alfred said that we should be glad they served us real eggs. Apparently, some restaurants serves 'fake eggs'- don't ask me what it's made of. The stir fried potato strips were refreshing- it was slightly crunchy, unlike the potatoes I've taste. Great as a base compared to the ubiquitous sengkuang (jicama) in Msia. My fave was the pork strips with dried chili. The pork was extremely fragrant from the spices and the dried chili was deep fried to crunchy bits. So very good!

We snacked on stir fried small ribs with salt and pepper..

Good stuff to go with the local Harbin Beer. The beer? Quite light and crisp flavour. Excellent to warm up the body on a cold winter night I guess :p

Dong Fang Jiao Zhi Wang (Eastern Dumpling King)

The bad breakfast served in our hotel led us to venture out for our breakfast..

No, we're not having noodles/ congee/ rice- we decided to have plates and plates of dumplings. Boiled, steamed, pan fried ones- dumplings filled with mince pork, with mince pork&cabbage, preserve cabbage with shrimps, mutton etc. Don't think I've ever eaten so many dumplings at one go. Quite decent dumplings, the skin was smooth (though a tad thick) and the filling was freshly wrapped upon ordering . The dipping sauce of vinegar and hot sauce complemented the dumplings well.

I read something funny in the menu- Hand Pulled chicken.

Curious and wondered how it would be, we ordered a portion. Here's the dish...

And you know why it's called Hand Pulled Chicken? Literally, the chef used his bare had to break the chicken parts, instead of using a cleaver to chop the chicken to smaller pieces. Hahahaha. Taste wise, well, it's a cold dish- feels like eating smoked, salted chicken that was just removed from the fridge.

Xiang Chun Xiao Yuan

We decided to get the driver, a local of Harbin, to recommend us our last meal in Harbin before we left. He asked if we have any preference- we just wanted dishes, at a reasonable price.

He led us to a restaurant tucked at a more quiet end of the town, but when we entered, it was extremely noisy and crowded. We seemed to be the only foreigners, the locals very boisterous and yakking away in their dialect which I could not understand. We were led near the kitchen to order and we led upstairs for our meal. One stark contrast I noted here was that the waiters were wearing the communist uniform. Alfred explained that these were government owned restaurants- hence it'll be cheaper, but yes, you will see them in such uniforms.

When we got our first dish, we knew immediately we have over ordered. The portions here were humongous!

Our chicken stir fried with wood ear fungus. Although the ingredients were chopped into an unrefined portion, the flavour was still good. I really liked their fresh wood ear fungus, every bite had a little spring and gave great texture to the dish. The sauce was a tad salty though.

The Mah Lat Beef..

It looks like a portion for 10 pax. Crazy. And the amount of peppers in this dish? Irrational. Too spicy (even for a winter day), too numbing, we could only finish a quarter of this portion.

Their Savoury Homemade Taufoo was excellent though..

The steamed Taufoo was served in a cute bucket and you can mix your own condiments into the taufoo. Smooth and utterly belly warming dish.

Our Omelette seems to have more vegetables than eggs..

Yes, by now, I realise that eggs are quite scarce (and expensive) in China :p. Wonderful dish, the vegetables were fresh and sweet, again, I really like their wood ear fungus :).

One of the more common sweet dish here- Stir fried dates with yam, apple and sweet potato slices. Though it looks like a cooled dish, it actually retained very high temperature. I burnt my tongue eating this. The sugar coating had hardened and crystallised, hence we get a nice crunch while biting into the hot warm centre of the fruits. Delicious!

And while we're eating, the waiters were all gung ho and went up the stage to entertain us with their local songs and one even recited poem...

Lao Chang Chun Bing (Laochang Spring Pancake)
No.180, Zhong Yang Da Jie, Dao Li District, Harbin, China.

Dongfang Jiaozi Wang (Eastern Dumpling King)
No 39, Zhongyang Dajie, Harbin, China.

Xiang Chun Xiao Yuan

No 2, Da Shun Jie, Harbin, China.

Sun Yin Loong, Sunway Mas

In PJ, there's 2 Sun Yin Loong that's located within a rather close vicinity..one at Sunway Mas Commercial Centre, and the other at Kota Damansara. Both branches enjoys good business, it's always packed especially on weekends.

But both SYL sells different hawker fare, and the branch in Sunway Mas, even though is a smaller outlet, does draw it's crowd with some popular hawker grubs.

The most popular dish, I'd say, is the curry laksa.

Nearly every table has a bowl, you can see the patrons in deep concentration, slurping their noodles :p. I'm never a big fan of curry noodles/ curry laksa, but I must admit that the curry laksa here is pretty tasty. I'm not fond of thick, santan rich curry soup base, and this version is rather light, yet managed to retain the nice aroma of curry. Not the best, but decent ;)

The yam cake and pan fried carrot cake for in between nibbles. The yam cake was nice, it had huge chunks of yam in it, tasted good with the fried condiments. I didnt like the pan fried carrot cake though.

The pan mee...

Was just average. The noodles were rather thick and slightly chewy. Very generous with ingredients though. Not sure if the soup version would fare better, though I did hear from a friend that the soup version is good as they use good quality stock.

Sun Yin Loong is located at Jalan PJU 1/3G (corner shop), Sunway Mas Commercial Centre, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.