Happy Chinese New Year

HarKau SiewMai wish all readers Gong Xi Fa Cai,



May the year of Tiger bring luck, fortune, wealth, health and happiness to you and your family.

Happy Chinese New Year

~~~Say No to TIGER skin and TIGER meat~~~

CNY lucky food

Ever heard of people complaining that they gain weight a lot during Chinese New Year?

Well, why not? the whole 15 days is full of eat and eat and eat....drink, drink and drink....

Remember traditionally people used to cook for whole day just for the reunion dinner? Nowadays most people no longer do that and simply have a good 8 course meal in restaurant or go for steamboat. Well, for me, my mom will still cook the traditional Teochew and mixed Hokkien food to usher Chinese New Year. Anyway, let us see what do certain food mean in Chinese New Year whether it was serve as food or an offering to the goddess.

Mandarin Oranges = Gold (Kam)
Nian Gou/Sticky Cake = Growing perfectly (Poo Poo Kau Shen)
Pineapple = Inviting good fortune (Ong Lai Ong Lai)
Apple = Harmony and Safe (Peng Peng Ann Ann)

Fish = Plentiful of wealth (Nian Nian You Tu)
Prawn = Happiness (hee hee haa haa)
Steamboat / Dumpling / Rice Flour ball = Tuan Yuan

Osyter = Good things (Ho Sie)
Fatt Choi = Good Wealth
Low Sang / Yee Sang - Life of fullness
Yam Basket = Abundance / Plentiful fortune
Fish Maw / Pig Stomach = Place to keep money
Abalone = Luxury
Choi Sam = Wealth
Poon Choi / Fortune Pot = Choices, Abundance, Wealth

Strawberry Field @ PJ uptown

This is another long overdue posting...

During Christmas eve last year, I decided to have a simple dinner together with Nick, George, Yap, CL and YT. As we are all auditing at different area I decided to gather at the middle point which would be around PJ town. Bored about Jaya 1 and SS2, I decided to try out some new food in PJ uptown...

I search online and saw some recommendation for a cafe name Strawberry Field, located in PJ uptown just a step walk from Menara MPPJ...

YT and CL order the Christmas set which come with a spagetti, brownies, soup and drinks. As both of them arrive early, they have almost finish their meal when I am there together with George. Before I even have my seat, YT shake his hand indicating the food wasn't up to his expectation.

The spagetti is not good at all. No taste of cheese at all and it seem like a fried noodle in 'tai chow' stall...The brownies is actually chocolate moist cake topped with ice- cream and chocolate

I settle down and decided to have meal here while deciding where to go for second round later. I order grilled fish with lemon sauce while fook weng order his seafood platter. Again the food was so so only. The lemon sauce seem to be done in Chinese style. The seafood platter is just like sotong goreng and udang goreng at nasi kandar stall...

Ken Yap arrive later and order his steak. He say is quite tender but the sauce do not have the 'kick' to make the steak taste good....

Nick arrive the last and after we warn him about the quality of western food, he decided to go for asian food. He order tom yam fried noodles and it was proven that asian food taste much much better here.....The tom yam paste is really a kick off....Spicy, Sour, Salty....just nice for the fried noodles.

Quality and taste wise it was not good and not up to my expectation but for the ambience and price I would say it was reasonable. Just have a look at my honey lemon....They chunck the whole lemon in it and not nicely sliced it.....Sweat!!!

Shanghai 10 @ Genting

Everytime I go to Genting, I found our the food there tasteless and not worth the money. Thus I always opt for fastfood there.

This time around, I saw a new restaurant in the middle of Genting Times Square name Shanghai 10. Thus we try it out.

Lets make it quick and as summarize as possible

Fried bean curb skin...Normal taste...How good if there is sweet sauce to accompany this starter

Xiao Long Pau....Taste wise is just mediocre but the thin layer of skin is strong enough to ensure the soup is not leak out. Well, you know there is a lot of dissapointment when eat Xiao Long Pau at outside stall....But I still think Dragon-i Xiao Long Pau is the best...


3 type of La Mien (crab roe, duck, and normal)



Come with side dish of braised peanut, jellyfish and cucumber

Snow Jelly Drink


Avocado paste dim sum - Sweet in the inside bland on the outside


Sugarcane drink - Sweet and refreshing but too pricy for the small portion


Mango Sago Lo Lo - As cold as Genting....hehe

Restaurant Clan

Everytime I pass by Sri Petaling, my friend will tell me that Sri Petaling is famous for dim sum. When I ask him what is nice, he will just keep silent. After some research in few famous food blog, I decided to drop by at Restaurant Clan with 'Piggy J' and 'Cili Padi' after our tiring trip to Genting. Actually Piggy J wanted dim sum since he missed dim sum in Genting

Restaurant Clan is famous for some reason. One of it is due to its Kai Wo Pau (Chicken Nest Bun). No all dim sum place in KL or PJ serve this in their menu and thus it was a must to order food here.

Kai Wo Pau is actually Pau filled with Lo Mai Kai (Chicken Glutinous Rice). Just imagine an hot Lo Mai Kai been inside the fluffy Pau pastry. The glutinous rice is very soft and aromatic. A good aroma of 'hua tiau' wine can be smell as soon as the waiter serve the Kai Wo Pau onto our table. The filling include chicken, button mushroom, glutionous rice, char siew and most importantly the salted egg york. So sinful but very very delicious. The fluffy bun absorb the gravy from all the ingredient....Thumb up...


We also order other dim sum such as Chee Chong Fun, Harkau, Siewmai, Lalamai, beancurb skin roll and peithanmai (century egg dimsum). The Chee Chong Fun with char siew turn up to be thick and warm. I will prefer it to be serve hot. Same goes to Harkau as the skin have harden and do not taste as nice as it suppose to be. Other dim sum is 'so so' and nothing to shout about.

Conclusion, I would prefer if all the dim sum been served hot as it would taste nicer. The price is average but there is much room for improvement in term of the dim sum. Service is good but not so friendly as they seem as if they wanted to chase away the customer after eating to let other customer to occupied the table.

One advice for people who wanted to go there....Please go early as there is limited parking and the table is usually full during weekend.

Ma Lat Lou Kitchen - Episode 2

Being a bachelor, I am use to live in a lonely world. Sometime I get lazy to even go out to 'ta pao' for lunch.

Well, is lunch time and there is nothing much available. I prefer not to cook Maggi Mee either thus I explore what I have in the freezer and try to cook whatever I have.

Well, I have some leftover mince meat, vegetable, lotsa sausages, egg and some prawn....Quite a good ingredient for fried mee or mee hoon. I explore the dry kitchen to see any mee hoon available in the cabinet. Yes....there is...

Guys, this is my ma lat lou way of cooking fried mee hoon.


Ingredient:

Mince Pork
2 sausages
2 eggs
Some green vege
mee hoon
garlic
prawn
some salt and pepper
soy sauce
corn flour


Steps:

1. Soak the mee hoon and vege in some plain water
2. De-freeze the sausage and prawn
3. Marinate the mince pork with soy sauce, pepper and corn flour
4. Heat the wok and fry the egg. Then fry the sliced sausages


5. Take both egg and sausages out and fry the mince pork with garlic for 2 minutes


6. Put in the prawn and put some water to boil it
7. Add in the mee hoon and put some salt and pepper for flavoring. You may add thick soy sauce to blacken it
8. Here come the difficult part...Fry the mee hoon with big fire....haha..

9. Add in the fry egg and sliced sausages....
10. Enjoy....

oh...dun forget to switch on the filter fan to suck out all the smoke....else u have difficulty cleaning up your kitchen....wahahaha

Monte's Restaurant & Wine Bar @ Klang

Few days back, my department have a farewell party for one of the longest surviving colleague that manage to sail through the high and low of my department. Well, to survive in our department is not an easy task but on the same time quite fun to have crazy colleague in difficult time. Conclusion, all of us manage to sail through the worst time of all.


To send off this cute little gal who is flying off to US very soon, we decided to go to Monte’s after some push by one of my colleague.


Monte’s originated from Bangsar and has one branch in Klang. Not much people know about this branch. My colleague told me that they serve same menu but with different price…Hope she didn’t conned me on that information…I try to Google© the restaurant name but 99% of it was related to Bangsar Shopping Complex. I bet the Klang branch wasn’t that famous after all.


Well, we order quite a lot of food. Let have the list rolled:


Mushroom Soup
It was very yummy and creamy. Just perfect with the toasted French loaf.


2 sets of Pumpkin Soup (come with my lunch set)

The texture of the soup was quite well done but I regretted that the chef have over salted the soup


Simply Grilled Fish
The name simply grilled is quite funny as most of us is trying to make fun of the name and guessing how badly would the grilled fish came out. Thank god it come out ‘simple and nice’. The chips was big, and the dory fish was fresh and cook to perfection. I love the salad too...


4 sets of garlic butter grilled fish
I have to say that the garlic butter grilled fish came out the same as my simply grilled fish except it was topped with garlic butter sauce. I could smell the sauce from a far but my colleague commented that the taste is as par as Manhattans Fish Market.


Prawn and Fish Combo
Another staff, a prawn lover chooses the Prawn and Fish Combo. The fish was tender and juicy but the prawn was just OK. Nothing to shout about.


Grilled lamb
I believe it was so so since my food taster didn't say anything after her meal. But she was quite satisfied after all

Grilled chicken..
Erm...I believe it was tasty...Well, why not you try it out?

2 set of Mixed Grill
The portion of mixed grill was quite small compare to other restaurant but it was just good for one person. Serve with grill lamb, chicken, sausages, egg and side dish of chip and boiled vegetable

Mixed Nachos
Look delicious but I didn't try it as I was quite full...


Total burn for the session is RM255.30. Considering meal for 9 persons, I would say it was worth every single cent we spent. The pricing is reasonable and serving portion is also quite generous. Ambiance was OK but I believe the one in Bangsar Shopping Complex could offer a better atmosphere.