'Yong Tofu'

'Yong Tofu' is a Cantonese phrase which literally means 'stuffed tofu' (soft bean-curd). In Malaysia, when we say "Let's have 'Yong Tofu'," it is not necessarily confined to eating only stuffed tofu. Practically all kinds of vegetables could be cooked with stuffing and still be considered as 'Yong Tofu'. Some of the popular combinations with stuffing are chilli, bitter-gourd, brinjal (or eggplants as the Italians call it), tofu, flat bean-curd, baby corn, siew bak choy etc.

So, what is this stuffing that I have been mentioning about all this while? It is actually fish paste (commonly used). However, I prefer a mixture of fish paste and minced pork, not just because I'm a pork lover but because the blended mixture strikes a balance in the texture and taste of the stuffing.

Lisa's mum prepares the stuffing just the way I like it! The mixture of both fish and pork with the right amount of simple seasoning makes a good stuffing/paste for 'Yong Tofu'. I often get take-away 'Yong Tofu' from Jerantut (i.e. Lisa's hometown). I wonder if Lisa's family likes stuffed chillies and flat bean-curd. Well, I got that combination tonight but it's enough to be my favourite.

Awesome stuffed red chilies with a little spice in it. Stuffed flat bean-curd fried till golden brown.

I could finish up a bowl of rice just with the two types of 'Yong Tofu' that I mentioned. For today's dinner, it was also accompanied by something which I had not eaten for a long time...

Stir-fried cucumber with garlic.

I remember my grandma used to prepare something similar for us when we were still schooling back in Ipoh. Recall anything Michele?

Arguably one of the best, if not the best scones in PJ

Scones are popular especially in United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia, New Zealand but also serves in many other countries. It's the basic component of English tea. We could easily find scones in most franchised coffee chains (Starbucks, Coffee bean etc) and some selected cafes, but good scones are hard to find.

I am about to introduce to you, one of the best, if not the best scones in PJ. It is sold in a cafe in Dream Center, Section 13. Dream Center is also known as DUMC (Damansara Utama Methodist Church), and yes, you heard me right. It is sold in a church but its cafe indeed serves the community around that area and is usually packed with office workers during lunch time.

I was told that there are a limited amount of scones sold daily, on a first come first serve basis. The scones offered were complimented by freshly whipped cream and strawberry. They prepared the scones with raw ingredients and not buying ready made ones off the shelf. At Dream Center Cafe, butter is not served alongside the scones, but trust me, even for a butter lover myself, it tasted just as good without it.

Scones baked to perfection.

Super-yummy ready-to-be-consumed scone!

Carrot cake - another notable dessert sold at Dream Center :)

Location:

Dream Center (Cafe)

Damansara Utama Methodist Church

2 Jalan 13/1, Seksyen 13

46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

A part of my childhood

Bottom left clockwise: The award winning lamb shank, grilled chicken with mushroom sauce, chicken parmigiana, grilled fish of the day, blueberry cheesecake, green tea cheesecake, banana split.

This is an extremely outdated post. A "staff function" I called it, which happened earlier this year back in Malaysia. I was going through my harddisc earlier today and obviously found these pictures. They were meant to be up here a.k.a the blog.

I used to enjoy having meals in Secret Recipe as a child. I remember enjoying their cakes, and in particular, their banana chocolate cake. This visit, however, was a very disappointing one. I am a lot older too!!! Take the grilled fish for instance, the plate presentation itself puts me off and it was a piece of pre-frozen dory fish (if my memory served me correctly). The green tea cheesecake was interesting and new on the menu at that point of time- it has a very distinct green tea taste to it which can get overpowering after a few bites. I was glad we had 5 of us to share the desserts. Need I say any more?

As I always say, it's the company that makes any night fantastic. This is no exception. Beeps- time to get ready for another staff function; drinks, nibbles and bowling.

Secret Recipe
LGF 88, Syuen Hotel
Jalan Sultan Abdul Jalil
30300 Ipoh, Perak

The best roasted pork in PJ Section 17

A special dedication to pork lovers! You can get the best roasted pork ('siew yok') at Hong Seng restaurant in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. Their roasted pork is very nice, especially the skin; it is sooo crispy! *ket-cha...ket-cha...*

During this visit, we ordered a mixed platter of roasted chicken, BBQ pork ('cha siew') and roasted pork for 4 people. The total bill was RM39, including rice and soup for each person!




A week ago, I passed by this restaurant and had to order the roasted pork rice to go, which was only RM5.


It's sinful to waste good food. Ask for more~!

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Little Nyonya dishes

A belated post of this gorgeous lunch in Malacca- nyonya dishes! No dish throughout the entire meal majorly disappoints, in fact a few of them impressed me.


Top hat (paiti?) This was different from any other ones I used to have because it was spicy. Perfect appetizer.


Popiah. This one has pork lard in it! Not for me, but I could think of so many other people who love the extra crunch.


Chilli fillet. Simply beautiful.



Babi ponteh. Apparently it's the only non spicy nyonya dish. According to our hospitable friends, we were lucky to get that dish as they tend to run out rather quickly.



Chicken with candlenut. Honestly I do not remember much of this dish.



Four angle bean. This, however, was a pretty normal dish for me.



Assam prawns. All I can remember os it's small serving size- sorry!

For the six of us, the meal cost us Rm112.90 inclusive of steam rice and two jugs of Chinese tea. Thought it was pretty good :)



Nancy's kitchen
7, Jalan Hang Lexia (third cross st)
Off Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock,
Malacca
06-2836099

Location:Malacca

Tang hoon / glass noodles

Black pepper claypot glass noodles with prawns. The flavours were extremely good in this particular dish.

We ordered another serve of plain glass noodles later but found that the flavours didn't work as well as the first, possibly due to the extra amount of noodles and yet the same amount of sauce.

We also did order a 'frog' dish which carried a strong aroma of Chinese wine and a sweet dish of pork spare ribs.

The restaurant (which really is a coffee shop) is located behind jusco in Ipoh, possibly the third or fourth street. The shop also has an 'economy rice' stall- which serves a wide variety of dishes to go with rice at a very reasonable price.

Will update exact location later after getting accurate details.

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Location:Ipoh

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!

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

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

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.

A cuppa coffee...

This is my first post and it will be a short one...

Where can you find a decent cup of coffee during midnight, where all the famous coffee shops are closed? What if you crave for coffee but don't have the right tools or ingredient to brew it at home?

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Head to one of the 24 hours McDonald chain stores. For just RM3.15 you can enjoy a 8oz Premium Roast Coffee. They use 100% Arabica beans to brew it, just make sure it's freshly brewed from the machine ;-)

Ops... Did I mention that drinks in McD is refillable? Argh... Had 2 cups at around 4am, do check what time I post this blog?