Evolving popiah?

I guess I've not taken popiah (spring rolls) for a while now, so to my surprise, it has evolved to a new range of popiah when I was not even noticing..

When I was at Sun Yin Loong recently, I saw someone ordering a plate of 'sushi'. But sushi at a kopitiam just dont seem to fit well- I looked around and noted that there's a stall selling popiah with a twist..literally twisted and rolled with seaweed.

Curiosity got the best of me, I ordered a portion.

Outer layer was crisp seaweed, the second layer was popiah skin and the filling was mostly raw vegetables ( a mix of turnips, carrots, bean sprouts and cucumber), the center was filled with mayo, chicken floss and some fried crunchy bits of flavoured flour.

The taste? Funnily enough, this combo works- tasted like sushi (those crabstick mayo flavour), without the rice and wasabi. The only hint that it was ever a popiah was the skin.

I was told that some pasar malams are also selling this 'popiah' as hand roll versions, sans popiah skin and includes other combo of vegetables like cabbage and sweet corn bits.

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.

Jonker's other trail, Melaka, Part 1

When one is in Melaka, it's inevitable that you'll end up at Jonker's Street one way or another.

But I was bored of the usual Jonker fare. No more chicken rice. No more long queue for sticky cendol. And brief check in magazines and googling, we got some new places to try, all within or near Jonker, you can easily walk over to..

We popped by Lorong Hang Jebat, just off Jonker, to try some mee sua soup...

We ordered a large bowl of mee sua soup (RM9) to share, since we already had lunch..

The mee sua was smooth and slippery, the soup was light and had the pork sweetness infused into the soup. Main ingredients for this mee sua was pork- we got sliced pork, minced pork, pork liver and intestines. It was pretty satisfying to me, but for those who liks strong flavoured food, you may find this rather bland.

Men being men, how can they be satisfied with just mee sua although they had lunch already right?

Andrew and jeremy insisted we should have some oyster omelette and special pork ribs for snacking..yeah yeah..

We got the oyster omelette and we were like..what the??

No bumpy surface to indicate any presence of oysters. I took a bite and could not detect any oysters. Heck, I think I bit into some egg shells.. :(. After wondering much on the oysters, we realised those crackly bits in the omelette were oysters. It's just so tiny that we didnt realised it's oysters...How tiny? Many the picture can give an indication..

After the disappointing oyster omelette, we got out special pork ribs..

Hey, but this looks like hainanese pork chop! Albeit a huge plate of it. The pork was ok, quite tender and crunchy. The thick sauce was quite tasty though, nicer than Yut Kee's. What I enjoyed most in this dish was the potatoes. Absolutely yummy, the texture was powdery soft.

Jeremy got a call from his mum, a request to buy back some nyonya chang.

My mum wants some nyonya chang..bak chang right? he said.

But why you wanna get bak chang in Melaka when there's nyonya chang?

Aint it the same?

Only then I realised most of them have not tried a nyonya chang before.

Lucky us, just a few shops away, there's a tiny shop selling nyonya dumplings..

They were making it fresh, so we tried the nyonya chang (RM3.80)..

Andrew, whose grandma is a nyonya and makes good nyonya chang, said this was acceptable. I have been eating homemade nyonya chang since I was a kid as my aunt's a nyonya thought this was just ok. Not as nice as homemade ones, this was filled with lots of ingredients- generous amount of diced pork, mushrooms and winter melon, but I find the filling slightly pasty/ powdery and sweet. Overall still acceptable if you do crave for nyonya chang and there's no nyonya relatives preparing it for you :p

A pleasant suprise came in the form of durian cendol..

The cendol shaved ice was topped with lots of durian paste/ sauce, enveloping the whole dessert with it's heady aroma. No complaints here, the sweetness was just perfect, the fibrous durian bits was delicious. Much nicer compared to Jonker 88 and Tan Kim Hock's durian cendol.

Pin Pin Hiong is located at the T junction between Lorong Hang Jebat and Jalan Tukang Besi, 75200 Melaka. Just next to the famed Orang Utan mural.

East & West Rendezvous (durian cendol and nyonya chang) is located at 60, Lorong Hang Jebat, 75200 Melaka.

Sun Yin Loong, Kota Damansara

How was your sunday?

Mine was relaxing, started off with late breakfast at Sun Yin Loong with Jane.

And why there?

Jane wanted something close to home (town), and Sun Yin Loong has the ipoh white coffee which was very similar to those she can get back in Ipoh.

I ordered a cuppa for myself..

It was thick and aromatic, every sip was delicious. No wonder Jane's dad approves the coffee here.

The half boiled egg on toast..

Loved how it glistened under the sun light. Too bad the yolk was hidden, would have looked perfect if the yolk peeked out a little :p.

Add dash of pepper, drizzle some soy sauce and break the yolk...

Served on buttered, thick toast (hainanese bread)- the broken yolk was absorbed into the toast almost immediately. Yummy.

I had the pork noodles..

Supposedly from a famous stall in Ipoh Road..guess it didnt live up to the fame? It was very average. The sauce was too sweet, think they overloaded on the MSG.

Jane's char kuay teow fared better..

As per most kopitiam, you need to wait rather long for the CKT.. coz it's usually a popular order. Though the order was quite long, Jane got her's in ok time. Quite a lot of ingredients and had some wok hei. Jane was happy with it, said that it's not too salty and the noodles were thinner and smoother. (she guessed it might be from ipoh too :p)

Sun Yin Loong is located at 2A-1 & 2-1 (GF), Jalan PJU 5/7, PJU 5, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya.

Restaurant Hung Kee, KL

Went down to KL with Abner for brunch and erm, then later for lunch? One of those pigging out days again..

He wanted me to try a famous wantan mee at Loke Yew and soon I find myself at Hung Kee.

Hey I've been here years back!

Abner's face fell, I felt so bad actually.

But I've only been here once and was actually told that it's good for char siew rice, not the wantan noodles. Never tried the wantan noodles before, I quickly added

Ah, my redemption :p

Since I was 'misled' years back that Hung Kee was famed for char siew rice; I definitely had to try the wantan noodles.

The wantan noodles looks yummy

It's really springy, definitely had the QQ texture that is so very important in wantan noodles. The sauce base was very old school, but done wonderfully. The char siew was good, it's the more solid meat type, not the melt-in-mouth char siews.

What's amazing for me was the wantan serving that came with my noodles..

The norm serving would be 3 pieces of wantans? They gave me 6 juicy, well marinated pork wantan. Delicious. :)

Abner had roast pork wantan noodles..

Same yummy noodles, but the roast pork was not very impressive. Oh, and he got less wantans...3 wantans if you have wantan noodles with roast pork :p

Restaurant Hung Kee is located at 28-5, 28-6, Jalan Loke Yew, Pudu, Kuala Lumpur.

Whitley Road Big Prawn Mee, Lorong Telok, Singapore

So dinner time was nearing and we were all really hungry from the extremely bad lunch...

Before I could even explore any where nearby for yummies, ES gathered all of us and more or less commanded..

We are having prawn mee...

Everyone was excited, and we were soon walking to this makan place (yeah, it's rather near our hotel) that purportedly serves good prawn mee..

It was already packed when we reached; luckily we managed to get seats. I looked around this small eatery and noted that it had a Makansutra stamp of approval already. So, this meal would definitely be better than lunch....

Whitley Road Prawn Mee had an interesting array of prawn mee choices...

You can have prawn mee served with small/ medium/ large prawns or have it with ribs and prawns or have it with some pork/ pig parts (liver, pig's tail).

Mine was pork ribs prawn mee..

The soup was sweet, from hours of boiling prawn shells and pork bones. To add some spice to it, we didnt get the usual sambal; we were given chilli powder to heat things up. Well, it did give us spicier noodles, but I'm still a sambal-in-my-prawn-mee fan. The prawns were very fresh; the meat was springy and sweet. The pork ribs were tender, but most of the porky sweetness were gone...think it went all into the soup boiling process.

ES decided to have pork ribs noodles..

Not surprising since he's the porkman..haha. Served in the same soup base as prawn mee, his bowl was filled with quite a lot of pork ribs. Oh, he was really fast with the noodles, I took this picture after he started on his noodles. He looked really satisfied when he was done with his noodles. Not a single drop of soup left in his bowl..

Overall, pretty good prawn mee at Whitley's. Nonetheless, call me biase, but I still prefer Malaysia's version of prawn mee :p

Whitley Road Big Prawn Mee is located at 18 Lorong Telok (off North Canal Road). Tel: 65336578. Closed on sunday & public hols.

Hawker stalls, Cecil Street, Singapore

I was off to Singapore for work immediately after Lang Tengah..
Guess I was re-energised and burn out almost immediately :(. No fun at all.

As we were in the middle of the cement jungle, we just ate at the nearest food place we saw...

So at the junction of Cecil Street and Boon Tat street , there were some hawker stalls and it was really packed! We figured food should be ok; well, at least it was crowded.

I ordered stir fried hor fun

This must be the oiliest hor fun I have ever eaten! The hor fun was thick and chewy, the ingredients for the stir fry was crab sticks, bean sprouts and eggs. Tasted like plastic. phleh. It's so oily that I could not finish it :(

Boss has bee hoon...She thought it was stir fried bee hoon, but it turned out to be bee hoon in some tomato sauce base thick soup. It was rather sweet, but she said it was still better than mine :(. Then she sighs and said she missed Malaysia's food..hehe

Diha decided to have bakso (beef noodles soup)

I tried the soup, it was ok. She was not very happy with it as she said the materials were not fresh and the beef balls were not very nice. She didnt finish her bowl of noodles too.

ES had fried rice which I didnt get to take a picture of. Though he finished the rice in 5 minutes, he said it was bad.

Overall, lunch was bad for few of us, while the remaining was just average.

Food was ordered from Dudu cafe and Ain's Kitchen, located at the cross junction of Cecil Street and Boon Tat Street.

Kompleks Gerai Makanan Batu Lancang, Penang

Ryan was our guide for this trip, we'll get to taste different types of Penang food as it's more of a nostalgic trip for him..

We popped by Kompleks Gerai Makanan Batu Lancang, a place that brings back fond memories for Ryan as his grandma used to bring him here when he was a kid.. There were so many stalls, I didnt even know where to start, so we just followed Ryan's lead..

We went straight to his 'god mother's' mee goreng stall..

It's quite tasty; the noodles are not too soggy, chunks of potatoes and fried dough (balls?) were generously fried with the noodles. But I still stand firm to my fave mee goreng stall at bangkok road..hehe

Ryan got us some Chinese Pasembur (the only chinese pasembur in that food court, located next to Shariff Nasi Kandar)..I find this delicious as the ingredients gels very well together. Liked how the freshly sliced vegetables soaked in the sweet spicy sauce; the very light, crispy crackers giving the pasembur some crunch; the random taufoo pieces that complements the rest of the ingredients.

Ryan's first dose of prawn paste chee cheong fun..It's either you love it or hate it. I liked it. Lily dont. She finds the prawn paste pungent and only took one piece...hehe

Kompleks Gerai Makanan Batu Lancang is located next to Pasar & Balai Batu Lancang (Wet Market), Jalan Lintang, Batu Lancang, Penang.

Char Kuey Teow and Belacan Fried Chicken@Kedai makan dan minum Bee Hooi, Penang

Heard of CKT fried with duck eggs? I've heard of it a couple of years back when I was in Penang, but somehow, I've never got to try it..

I've actually forgotten about it this time round until Francis got some recommendations from a penangite on this good CKT at Kimberley road. There's something special with the CKT there, he said. When we walked pass the stall, i noticed the snowy white eggs there..

Duck eggs! hah! That must be their specialty..

We ordered both CKT with duck eggs and with the conventional chicken eggs.

The CKT with duck eggs..Any difference looking at it? Yeah, we cant tell either..

Nonetheless, we attacked the CKT...Alas, I was sorely disappointed :-( (in fact, my kakis were all disappointed too). First, there was insufficient wok hei, the kuey teow was a tad on the wet side. Secondly, it was way too spicy. So spicy that I cant even taste the duck egg. And lastly, the duck egg had a rather pasty/ floury texture which was not nice at all.

What about the normal chicken CKT?

Tasted much better than the duck egg CKT, but it was just mediocre compared to other CKTs I had before..

I noticed lots of people having fried chicken, so WF and I went looking for it ;-)

Just a couple of stalls from the CKT stall, there was a stall selling belacan fried chicken..oooohhh, smells wonderful as the pungent belacan smell wafted through the air when I walked near it. The stall owner was busy frying and chopping chicken at the same time; we waited patiently for our turn. Am so glad we did! The chicken tasted really wonderful, very well marinated, the chicken was juicy and savoury; utterly lip smacking! The skin; crunchy from the deep frying, was laced with belacan , giving a lovely burst of pungent-ness (from the belacan) that I found extremely satisfying. We totally forgotten about the chili sauce at the side (looking so very abandon, poor thing) as the belacan flavour was nice enough on it's own.

You can get the CKTs and fried chicken (and other hawker food, which i didnt try) at Kedai Makan dan Minum Bee Hooi, Kimberley road, Penang. Very near Penang Road (where the famous cendol is), it's 2 roads away from Penang road (hope I recalled correctly!)

O&S Restaurant (hawker), Seapark

I think most of the folks staying in and around Seapark would know O&S.. heck, I even know some from Klang and Cheras who travel all the way here to makan..
The few of us think that O&S is the only place that serves decent hawker food in PJ. I mean, lets not compare to Penang.. But in PJ, susah betul nak cari hawker yang satisfying...(..do let me know if theres any other good hawker in PJ, thanks!)
Anyways, SL, P and I went over to O&S for brunch on a recent saturday. We were prepared to wait for a table as O&S is usually extremely pack and it's a norm to dap toi (share table) with other people. SL and I ordered our usual kuay teow th'ng while P ordered chee cheong fun and yong tau foo..
I always have a soft spot for the kuay teow th'ng here as its the yummiest I can find in PJ. I always wanted to try other stuff, but my craving for this is so strong, everytime I'll end up eating this :p. This ktt's kuay teow is very smooth, the soup is sweet and flavoursome.. filled with tender shredded chicken, fish cakes and fish balls, this is one satisfying bowl of yum :) (p/s- there's 2 stalls that serves kuay teow soup, I prefer this one.. the other stall serves with shelled prawns..)
Pariza went for the yong tau foo, which is self serve. You go and choose what you want, wait for them to cook it and bring over to your table. The YTF stall's biz is brisk coz loads of customer buy this as 'appetizer' while waiting for their 'mains' to come. The norm of YTF is served here, most of it tastes good...
The chee cheong fun is the Penang style ccf, with har gou (aka prawn paste) as the sauce base.The ccf is smooth, practically glides down the throat. So if you miss the PG version, am sure that O&S's ccf can satisfy that craving ;p
Other hawker fare they are famous for would be the assam laksa (I have a friend who claims that this is the best assam laksa after those in PG), curry mee, prawn mee and char koay teow (long wait though)..

What Julianne thinks?
Superb and gratifying

O&S Restaurant is located at Jalan 20/14, Paramount Garden (Seapark), 46300 Petaling Jaya. Corner shop opposite Caltex station. Drive from SS2 to Seapark, at KFC crossjunction, turn left. Drive straight till next traffic light. Turn right. You'll see O&S on the right. Opens for breakfast and lunch. At nite it's taichow (hokkien mee quite famous)