Local sweets

Who wouldn't go crazy over sweets? Oh wait... We do have a travel companion who doesn't due to health reasons.

Anyway, here it is... Cheers to us and sweets!


Durian cendol @ Jonker 88. You could tell that there is less sugar (or the much loved gula Melaka/ brown sugar).


Eight treasures cendol @ Jonker 88. I have to say the syrup was way too sweet for my liking.


Baba Charlie nyonya cakes.


Homemade dodol and acar (pickle)


Look at the colourful kuehs (sweets). For a minute, I lost my breath and was swooning over every little piece.

After checking out the varieties, it was finally time to pick up a basket and tongs! Boy, did we go crazy with all sorts including Ayam masak merah, mango pickle and rendang too!

Baba Charlie has now become one of my must-go places in malacca. Go to for contact information- the blog has not been updated, however.



I forgot to mention the freshly wrapped nasi lemak, although I've obviously sidetracked.

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Location:Malacca

Chicken rice uniquely Malacca's

Most people do know about malacca and its chicken rice balls. Like any other, we stepped into one of the shops, Restaurant Hoe Kee, to satisfy our lunch needs.

The restaurant itself looked simple at the front but took form inside as another typical baba nyonya house decorated for the upcoming festive season.


With 6 on the table, we shared a whole chicken, an assam fish, 40 rice balls and some simple cabbage stirfry.











The meal left me a better memory of chicken rice balls as they were less compact. Being a lover of anything sour, the Assam was good and spicy. Would still prefer 'loose' or 'normal-looking' chicken rice anyway.


The rice balls cost 20 cents each. Can't fill you in with more prices as it was a treat from our very hospitable friends.

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Deep-fried goodness

Quick snack just before dinner. Wasn't exactly the best decision but I can't resist after not having oily crispy chicken for the longest time.


Shihlin Taiwanese snack stall in malacca. They do have franchises around Malaysia.


I presume they really are popular for their chicken.


And they were humongous! Ordered them spicy, and personally thought that the spices didn't quite help 'enhance' the flavour. Having said that, the chicken was deliciously crispy.

Ps I've been updating ever so often during this period due to the horrendous jam :(

The CNY binge shall begin

Our team meet again (although one mate short!)

A welcoming dinner cum supper was held at Kim Gary,Sunway. As usual, we tend to overestimate our appetite as we struggled to finish our orders. With 5 mates, we ordered



A twin sauce based rice dish




French toast for a friend who is coping badly with a humongous ulcer




Shanghai pork rice




Hot and spicy 'typhoon' noodles with minced pork and vegetable wonton. Rather than minced pork, minced garlic appeared as the main ingredient. Absolutely disappointing.




Spanish fried rice, the star of the day. Absolutely worth the price, good value of money.

To end our night, we had their special mix fries instead of dessert. Just as much as we desired (this is truly the word I want to use) for a street burger, we were stuffed.

More food adventures coming up as we head down Malacca!

Pistachio Cookies

These were special cookies I baked for a special someone. Using only 4 ingredients, I hope they serve their intended purpose. I will only find out a few days later though. =(    

Recipe from Trissa (a cupcake or two) World's Best Pistachio Cookies
90 g + 100 g pistachios (raw, shelled)
100g almond meal
120g caster sugar
50g egg whites (1-2 eggs)
green food colouring (optional)

1. Lightly toast nuts, preheated 160C. Chop 90g finely (food processor makes the job done in 2 seconds) and 100g roughly.

I did not buy enough pistachios, and had about 60g roughly chopped. It worked well for me still.

2. In a bowl, mix well fine pistachios, almond meal, sugar and egg whites. Few drops of food colouring can be put in and mix until paste is formed. *I did not add in green colouring. Scoop and form little balls. If too sticky, add almond meal then roll them in the remaining roughly chopped pistachios.

3. Place on baking sheet, 2 cm apart and bake for 13 minutes in 190C. I learned my lesson and preferred  slightly flatter balls next time instead of perfect ones.

4. Dust with icing sugar when cool. I did not, however, because I thought they were sweet enough. As mentioned, I think they would be much better flatter (which I did with the second batch-but only photos were taken on the first batch).

Anyway, they are off with me on a jet plane in 12 hours time. =D

note: They are a bit heavier than usual cookies, due to the almond meal.

TGIF! (Thank God its Friday)

It's that time of the week again! And it was only recently, I commented about wanting to try Margaret River's red. =) Anyway, about the Saints' 2006 limited release- I actually could not find any other review on them. I cannot be objective (entirely) because I am now working under alcohol influence (not just a little). =D With a slight tinge of blackberries (if i'm not mistaken), this is a much better Margaret River red I have tried since my very first one.

Multiple posts in a day mainly because I've flying on a jetplane tomorrow and will be MIA for a couple of days (if not weeks)- yes, I've explained my actions.

Choco Banana Cookies

First attempt of chocolate banana cookies without having rolled oats in them. These were not as yummy as those with rolled oats (as I'd like to think) but they remind me lots of my childhood memories-little snacks I get from school. I've cut the recipe into half due to 'limited' resources and tweaked little things here and there.

Recipe (full portion)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (used dairy free spread instead)
1 cup of sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 cup mashed bananas (definitely used more than recommended)
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
1 1/2 mixed spice
1 cup nuts or chocolate chips (I used whatever I have left-possibly less than half a cup)

*Full portion recipe was given. Again, I halved the recipe.

1. Preheat 350F (180C). Cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Add egg and continue to beat.
2. Mash banana with baking soda. Sit for 2 minutes
3. Mix banana into butter. Flour, salt, and spices sifted into mixture.
4. Fold nuts or chocolate chips and bake for 11-13 minutes.

The mixture looked a bit runny due to the 'extra' bananas. Had to use up the bananas some how or another.

I didn't like it because it didn't taste like crispy crunchy cookies. Having said that, I loved it because it had that 'memory' attached to it, although the ones I used to have were deep fried instead. They were extremely addictive, however. Who can possibly say no to the combination of banana and chocolate chips!?!

They stayed moist till the next day. Confession ( you possibly realise I have heaps of confession), my measurements while baking weren't exactly accurate although I've provided the actual measurement from the recipe. The texture might end up different if you were being truly precise. Yours truly, on the other hand, was racing against time but still wanted to bake. =D

Psst... They were gone the next day!

K3K (Kwai Sam Kee) Benta Kaya

K3K origin from Benta, Kuala Lipis, Pahang, it has 50 years of history. My mom is from kuala lipis, and we didn't know this kopitiam until I saw their branch at SS15! K3K PJ is not only serving their heirloom cultured kaya and toast bread, aromatic coffee and tea, it is also serving numerous delicacies.









Kaya Char Kuih (RM3.50). The char Kuih is crispy, and dip with yummy kaya. Next, is the 2 in 1 toast bread (RM3.00). It is toast bread with kaya and peanut butter.





Main course - Cordon Blue with Potato Boat (RM15.80).








It is chicken breast wrapped with ham and cheese, yumm yumm!

Lastly the drink - Cham with traditional milk 'C'





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Location:SS15, PJ

Sweet little ones- no!

But just as lovely!

Received this for Christmas from Jin. What else would I expect from a chocolate lover =D Confession though, when she told me I'll be receiving pressies from Margaret River, it wasn't the chocolates that came across my mind! Yes I know for a fact too that its way past Christmas now and its almost Easter (well, 2 months away). I took my time to enjoy these little bits and gave myself heaps of excuses.

So yes, these beautiful dark babies are Tanzanian 75% Cocoa Solids. 

I wish the photo did more justice to the babies. Apparently, they are available in the factory for free! Well, not to take home of course, but to have a munchful as they welcome you at the doors. Definitely hit me as a good dark chocolate as they melted in my mouth bit by bit one lovely night. Amazingly good as portion control, when I thought otherwise.

Will soon heat some milk and make myself a hot chocolate but it would definitely have to wait for now. Been wishing I have those perfectly sparkling glasses in my kitchen. I might also use these babies for a recipe I've been wanting to experiment- the chocolate lace crisps.

note (and hints*): I need our true Perth member to do a better review of their other varieties, unless she's presenting me with more =D

Margaret River Chocolate Factory
Cnr Harman's Mill Road and Harman's South Road
Metricup WA 6280
http://www.chocolatefactory.com.au/

Item #1

Received a pressie from Japan, to begin the collection. Randomly had this thought to start a pretty collection. =)

Thermos from Sendai. *reminds me of my very first Christmas thermos from Starbucks with the colours

Pretty as it can be, it proudly sits on the top shelf.

Station One Cafe

Dinner at Station One cafe. I ordered Baba Rendang Chicken Rice(RM13.90++)




It is basically baba rendang chicken, rice and prawn paste, otak-otak and egg. The taste is normal, nothing special; the paste is not as hot as I thought.

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Location:SS15, Petaling Jaya

Loving some bits of summer- Stone fruits!

Guess who's here again! Well, I have not formally introduced them but they are Sabrina and Jetster. I honestly have no idea which one is which. They needed a cool place to hang out for a couple of hours- so here they are with Aunt Mich (they have absolutely no right to call me that). Apparently they are stressed and overweight.

Bought some peaches not too long ago- and honestly I do love this part of summer (a lot!) So with every random bits here and there in the kitchen, I made a peach salad. Base recipe taken from the coles website, I have tweaked it so much (no longer a tweak!) only 2 main ingredients stayed.

Toasting flaked almonds for the extra crunch!

Cos lettuce as the base, I added 4 beans mix for the extra body with some grated lime zest and juice for the acidic component. Major confession- I love the acidic component in all my food. The original recipe called for lemon juice. Tip (as all major chefs suggest)- roll your lemon/lime before cutting them to release the juice.

After tossing the base, top the salad with freshly sliced peaches (all I used was one medium sized peach) and then, the toasted flaked almonds. Walnuts are always another good substitute =)

Honestly, canned 4 beans mix doesn't seem to integrate well in this salad. Other than that, it is definitely one refreshing salad.

the weekly indulgence

Searched through my photo collections and found this shot- however, I am currently drinking it while typing this post. I possibly have drank this countless times (a weekly calorie intake and I do not remember when it started), I can't be bothered to snap every single bottle I drink.

'Discovered' Pirramimma's wines late last year, it must have been just my bad. I have always been a fan of D'arenberg and stayed loyal. However, Pirramimma was rated a 5-star winery by James Halliday in the Australian Wine Companion 2011. Alike many other McLaren Vale wines, we could taste the chocolate in it. I do love the fruitiness in this bottle. So I have just read, this collection is bottled late Oct 2010 and is ready to enjoy or kept to develop for another few years.

I have officially added Pirramimma on my list of McLaren Vale's wineries, but my personal favourite of theirs is the Petit Verdot. Enough said, that quote has just told you how much I enjoy their wines.

Fung Lye Restaurant, a Taiwanese cuisine

It is a public holiday here in Malaysia. A typical Malaysian will sleep in late and eventually our breakfast turns out to be late lunch for many (obviously we had overslept, why did I post up my first post the day earlier at 5.30am?).

Stumbled across a Taiwanese restaurant called Fong Lye, seen this restaurant in the Gardens before and heard that food was good. So we walked in...

Whatever you see on the menu just looks good (do not look at the price), it took us quite awhile to decide and finally place our orders.



BBQ pork set meal (RM19.80) - It did not really turn out to be what I see on the menu, the sliced pork was much smaller, half of the box was filled with Kim chi (which I am not a fan of it), certainly I did not see any veg on my rice. This set comes with condiments of small portion of mix veg, toufu, and a piece of fried fruit roll, they wrap it with nang ka and carrots :-( It comes with a bowl of lotus root soup too. Taste was ok but did not meet my expectation.



Herb soup with Taiwan burger set (RM16.80) - Lisa was 'conned' into ordering this largely due the bowl of herb soup, it is called 四神湯 in Chinese. She expected it to be something like pepper soup 豬肚湯, but... the soup turns out to be plain and salty filled with loads of pork intestines 豬腸 and that makes us lose our appetite as we are not fans of intestines. Taiwan pork burger is actually steamed dumpling sandwich between are some braised 3 layer pork (fatty pork), salted veg and loads of cane sugar in it.



For drinks we just opt for a bottle of Spritzer mineral water (RM3.30). Just wanted to comment that the cups used were kinda cute.

Total bill came up to be RM46.30 with RM6.40 going to service charge and govn. tax. The taxes was compulsory in most of the eateries in Malaysia. That is sad...

Rating out of 5 star max.
(personal preference, may differ from others. Use this guide at own caused.)
Food: 2.5 stars
Services: 3 stars
Ambience: 3 stars
Value for money: 2 stars
Overall: 2.5 stars

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Fong Lye Restaurant
LG 1.43A, Lower Ground 1
Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall
Bandar Sunway
46150 Petaling Jaya
Selangor.