"The Chi Kut Teh here is good and spicy"
Serdang is a small town but it has quite a few good Chinese restaurants. The food is generally inexpensive and delicious as well. Yap Yin according to my friend (who happens to be a distant relative of the owners) sells really good Sang Yu ( Haruan). Once served, you will observe that the fish flesh has been expertly 'half filleted' out for easy consumption. The way they cut it is really nice as they slice it according to the texture of the flesh. You have to see this for yourself. Its quite fascinating actually. The Sang Yu was steamed with lots of good soya sauce. The flesh is really sweet and succulent
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"Nothing like wantan noodles in the morning"
At Berjaya you can get Wonton, Curry Mee and Mee Soup deliciously prepared and affordable. Everytime I am there, there's always people. It's good. It's been around for more than twenty years, shifted a couple of times but the last few years, Berjaya Restaurant parked itself at Jalan Telawi. They also sell nasi padang.
What's so good about Berjaya? Many many many things. To start with, you have to try the Beef Dendeng. This is a magical dish made out of sliced beef, chili, garlic and onions. The ingredients are simple but the secret is in the way it is fried at Berjaya. The beef is tender and spicy at the same time. Just the right amount of garlic and onions.
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"I want extra siham puh-leeze..."
Chinese food have been known to be one of the best cuisines in the world. So today, we are is taking you to Tony's. Tony's have been widely renowned for his Char Koay Teow for years! His standards have been said to be at par or even better than some Char Koay Teow joints in town which makes this one of my favourite places. The chef is a Chinese Muslim (or so rumour has it...) so even my Muslim friends can try a proper Char Koay Teow, original Chinese style!
You have to try the Koay Teow Kerang (Cockles). Although the taste is sometimes not very consistent, most of the time Tony's managed to fry the koay teow just nice. The koay teow is not too soggy and the mix of soya sauce, garlic and other ingredients are perfectly balanced. For the cockles, its not too overcooked and not too raw. If its too overcooked, it gets rubbery. If its too raw, you get to visit your favourite toilet more than once that night. Tony also throws other ingredients such as pieces of chicken, fishcakes and prawns in the char koay teow so you get an interesting variety of taste with every bite.
You should also try their mee hoon soup which comes with generous helpings of fishballs. Not their main dish but still delicious if you want something lighter than Char Koay Teow. Feeling full after the Char Koay Teow? Not us. We scouted around and found an excellent companion that goes well with our meal. Tauhu Bakar and Sotong Kangkung! Available at a stall nearb Tony's.
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"People can form mobs to get a table here"
The original pioneers of the Fatty Crab is no other than Uncle Fatty and his wife Madam Ang. The name Fatty came about because Uncle Fatty was at a loss at what to name his shop, so his friends suggested Fatty. Fatty Crab has been around since 1972 so that's 40 odd years of crab cooking tradition. Though seventy plus years old Madam Ang comes religiously to supervise the family business, it is unfortunate that Uncle Fatty passed away before his business became prosperous. Now, it's still a family business where the children give up their careers for the family business. The cooks are all within the family. They keep that chilli crab recipe close to their chests indeed. Only way to get the recipe is marry in.
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"The cod fillet is superb"
Toh Yuen is still a popular spot for weekend dim sum. Their dim sum buffets are also famous. They have about forty different dim sum selections on top of their vast selection of Chinese cuisines ranging from appetizers to live seafood. It's divided into several categories from the Steam Basket, Out Of The Wok, Savouries, Sweet Sensations to Pan-fried Favourites.
For appetizers, we tried their Norwegian salmon roll. It's deep fried salmon fillet in taro paste. The paste is crunchy on the outside but on the inside, the paste beautifully protects the fragile salmon from being overcooked thus retaining its juices. For dim sum, we tried several varieties. Here are some of our favourites. The Baked Pineapple Buns is sweet but very nice. Not only is the filling deliciously sweet, but I also like the way they prepare the buns in this one. Not too flaky, not too hard, it melts in your mouth. We also had the usual Siu Mai (chicken dumpling) and Har Kau (steamed prawn dumpling) which came in the typical steam bamboo case.
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"You can also eat some teatime snacks here"
Too much cholesterol is not good for you, right? After countless reviews, we've decided to go healthy just this once and go green with tea. Yup! It's tea time fellas. If you didn't know that tea drinking is actually some kind of art (there are protocols when drinking tea, y'know) and that there's a very big difference between fully fermented tea and semi fermented then perhaps we can enlighten you a little here. We'll even tell you how to 'feed the teapot'. The other thing is when you make tea the old way, the act of making the tea itself helps you relax. Something that all of need once in a while.
Purple Cane is situated in a square end of Petaling Street and it lies along Jalan Panggong. This square is like a little Chinese cultural enclave complete with a variety of tea houses/shops, a mini antique shop, eating places and there is even a library of sorts supported by the Kuan Yin foundation. It's an interesting piece of cultural ground in the heart of KL. Purple Cane is a teahouse. This is the place where tired souls befuddled by daily occurrences converge to forget the hassles of life. To get to Purple Cane, you need to walk up a flight of stairs from the entrance, before reaching the lift. Take the lift to the third floor and wallah take off your shoes at the entrance.
The teahouse is covered mainly with carpet except for one section, floored by wood planks for you to sit Nihon-jin style and enjoy your tea sitting on the floor. During the weekends this place full of students. If your idea is a quiet evening, then come during the weekdays. There are fans and air-conditioning to cool down the place too. Here, you can make your own tea with a burner to heat up the water. From what I know from the 'locals', the tea ceremony (act of drinking tea) originated from the tea houses in Taiwan and was brought here by Malaysian students who studied there. The ceremony is not too difficult to learn but it is quite detailed so that's another review.
Anyway there are lots of different sorts of teas, but mainly three categories of tea, fully fermented, semi-fermented and non-fermented. Tea of various varieties would require a different kind of teapot, different timing in brewing the tea and sometimes utensils as well. For example Jasmine is a flower scented tea (highly acidic folks, those who have gastric, try this tea with extreme prejudice and never on an empty stomach) it actually tastes better if its made using a porcelain cup, as the porcelain conducts heat away much faster than clay. A tip; you're not supposed to brew this tea too long because it will taste horribly bitter.
Then there is the common Pu'er tea which is a relatively inexpensive tea found in most Chinese coffee shops. This requires very hot temperature so you should use a clay teapot as this type of utensil retains heats longer. The higher quality Pu'er can fetch a very high price. Pu'er is a tea that gets better the more you age it and I've heard of some blocks of tea that go up as high as 10K.
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"Low on oil? Well this claypot dish will sort you out"
'Loh Shu Fun' directly translated actually means Rat's Noodles. It's probably named that way because the noodles are similar in shape and size to rat tails. Can't say that I've actually tried real rat tails but my tastebuds certainly loved this flour based tail looking one.
The 'Loh Shu Fun' hawker stall is called Seng Kee and is located along Jalan Sultan (which runs parallel to Petaling Street). They're many Chinese hawkers in this area. We had three main dishes which are the 'Loh Shu Fun' in a claypot, 'Fried Crispy Pork' and one of their signature dishes, Pork Intestines ( Sang Cheong in Cantonese ) fried with dried shrimps. We also had some vegetables to go it with that. All in all it’s quite filling and we had three strapping lads to eat all those we had some problems finishing it.
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"Immitated and franchised, YTFs are here to stay"
When you get to this Yong Tau Foo area, you may be rather overwhelmed because there are three restaurants, side by side, separated only by a small drain, offering a total of almost 150 tables, with a total seating capacity of nearly a 1000 people. They are al serving the very best of Ampang Yong Tau Foo. They are 'Ampang Homeland', 'Orchard View' and 'Fong Fong'. Whew, that was quite a mouthful! Now, it's therefore almost impossible for you not to get a seat in any of them, but then, which is the best of the three?
In the case of Ampang YTF, it's Fong Fong which is most packed and arguably the best. Orchard View is a close second, while Ampang Homeland is a distant third. I normally go to either Fong Fong or Orchard View, depending on the crowd. However, if you can's speak in Cantonese or Mandrin, then you'll have to settle for Ampang Homeland, because it's the only one that has a menu with colour photos, where you can point out the items that you want.
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"It gives a warm feeling in your belly"
In Cantonese "Low Yau Kee" means very good friends. According to one of the people I met, this particular hawker have been around for more than twenty years. Normally around dinner time you are either darn lucky or have to get pretty aggressive to get a place to sit down. Today, we were lucky to get seats.
After a few exchanges of Cantonese with the very lean looking cook we ordered two bowls of porridge and two portions of steamed chicken. We also ordered some iced chrysanthemum drinks which are healthier than the packet ones. After about 7 minutes our food arrived. The texture of the porridge is very fine without any trace of lumpiness. It has a sweetened taste to it and according to our guest Foodster, they probably put some chicken stock in the porridge.
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