"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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"Get yourself a Land Rover"
Bloomin' Onions! Today, we're tuckering in an Aussie joint in BB Park called The Outback Steakhouse (OBS). Despite its Aussie name, OBS actually started in Florida on an inspiration from the movie Crocodile Dundee. Nevertheless, the menu is full of Strine (Australian Language) expressions such as tucker which means food. Starting from Aussie-Tizers to bonzer salads and down to land rovers (which are all categories of dishes here), some of the them are rather a 'bewdie'.... let's see which one ...
Whatever it is, the Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie is something shrimp fans would love. Grilled with OBS's very own seasoning, this one oozes with taste and has won oohhhh and ahhs all round the table. It is served with remoulade sauce but I think it was the seasoning and freshness that made this dish disappear within three minutes of it hitting the table.
Salad fans... you'll love this too. A hit with us was the Queensland Salad where you get seasoned chicken salad served on a bed of fresh greens with Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese, beef bacon, chopped eggs, tomato and toasted almonds. If you're a shrimp person, their Brisbane Shrimp Salad is actually a Ceasar Salad with Grilled Shrimps on top.
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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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"Buns here are kneaded by hand"
You wanna know what's nice? It's spreading some butter and cream cheese over a freshly baked french loaf right out of a small bakery on the outskirts of Paris. It's even better when you are sitting outside under the 'air conditioned' sunny Parisian sun and sipping a cup of cafe au lait. I thought that nothing can beat French bakeries. That's until I tried Ismalia Roti Bengali. Let me tell you more.
Ismailia Bakery is a very famous roti joint in Penang. They supply to most of the roti hawkers in Penang. These are people on bicycles with cabinets attached to the back. The mamak roti sighting is one that you rarely see in KL anymore. Ismailia Bakery was established in 1928. They've been here all this while starting from a humble wooden building which was renovated into the brick building it now sports in the mid sixties.
Roti Bengali is an old style roti about three inches wide and six inches long with a dome at the exposed top. I don't know why it's called Roti Bengali as the proprietor is neither a Bengali or from Punjab but whatever it is, this roti can rival any french bread anytime. It has a leathery but soft outer crust but once the bread is sliced, you can smell the engaging aroma of freshly baked flour. It's white heart is soft, moist and fresh. Really delicious! I guess that all those years of experience really shows.
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"Get your mee rebus fix here"
"Dulu di Jln Railway.. sekarang dah pindah dah" says Mohammad Abd. Hamid, the proprietor of Al-Syed. Apparently Al Syed was his dad who started the business back in 1967. This Penang Mee has been traded for more than twenty years, passed on from father to son and their specialty is mee rebus and rojak penang. Penang Mee Rebus is one of the best in the country and normally outside of Penang, very rare to find one that has that original mamak touch. But I must say that Al-Syed is the closest that you'll get in KL... and it's good.
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"Try out the weekly Sunday brunch "
Firstly, Japanese cuisines need not be very expensive if you know which dishes to select. Two, if you are going with some friends or on a date and you are worried about the budget, it helps to call the restaurant manager in advance and ask them whether can you get a decent dinner with the price you have allocated. You can surprisingly get a decent and enjoyable meal. Three, if you don't know what to order, tell the restaurant manager some of your preferences and ask them for some recommendations.
Kampachi Japanese Restaurant is arguably the most established Japanese Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. All the essential qualities of Japanese cuisine are reflected in its preparation: the use of absolutely fresh ingredients, the artful presentation, and the perfection of technique by a skilled chef. First up is Edamame or Steamed Soya Bean. You open up the pod, take the beans out by chopsticks, dip them in some soya sauce and in you go. Nice....
Next up, came the Shake Sashimi or Sliced Raw Salmon. This is raw Norwegian salmon. A visit to a Japanese restaurant is not complete without some raw fish. Dip some salmon in soya sauce mixed with wasabi and its delicious. A good Japanese restaurant can be benchmarked by how fresh its Sashimi is prepared. This one has a very fresh taste. Kampachi's sashimi came with sea kelp and oba leafs. Sea kelp is a type of seaweed. The oba leaf tasted a bit minty. However, when I tried the combination of sea kelp, oba leaf and salmon, it tasted delicious.
After that wonderful experience, came the Chawan Mushi or steamed egg custard. Its ingredients consist of egg, ginko, chicken, mushroom and prawns. The whole concoction is steamed in the bowl and served hot. I like this one but egg custard tends to make you full. So I suggest that you go easy on this one.
Everyone can relate to sushi. The Japanese make rolls cooked glutinous rice. This rice is wrapped in seaweed leaves and served cold, and just like a sandwich it has cold cuts and a spreads with it. However, the cold cuts are not sausage or meat but seafood or fish, and the spread is not mayonnaise but wasabi. I had Soft Kani Maki Sushi or Sushi Rice with Deep Fried Soft Shelled Crab.
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"Terrific eggplant, chunky and full flavoured"
I'm going straight to the point! I love the homemade dishes at Saffron. Let me tell you more. Tucked away on a quiet spot in Sri Hartamas, Saffron have been in business for about eight years. What's so special about Saffron is that they've got their mom cooking and supervising in the kitchen which is why the taste is so homemade. Having some Punjabi influences in the recipes, you can bet Saffron are different from the more commercial North Indian restaurants.
When you're here, there's absolutely three dishes you need to try... the Bathura Bread, Maharaja Baingen and Bhoona Gosht. I am not speaking Punjabi here but let me translate nevertheless. Now, the Bathura Bread is made of flour and normally fried instead of pan heated like Thosai. Saffron's Bathura was surprisingly moist and not oily which makes it a joy to munch with some of their fine curries.
The Maharaja Baingen (RM5.80) sounds worthy of its name. It's eggplant prepared with some garam masala and this dish sends the tastebuds grappling for more! Saffron's expertise was very apparent in this one. You see eggplants are not easy to cook… but the 'mom' has expertly guided the garam masala to seep deep into the vegetable whilst managing to get the eggplant slightly mushy and chunky at the same time... delectable!
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"They add mee rebus gravy to the noodles"
Everybody knows that the best mamak mee rebus and mee goreng is in Penang. The question is where in Penang can you find it? Let me tell you about a hawker stall just off Jalan Burmah in Penang. They've been there for more than ten years and their mee rebus and mee goreng is to die for!
This hawker stall is called Mee Sultan 'Pasembur Special' as displayed in front of the stall and located just off Jalan Burmah (at Jalan Swatow if I'm not mistaken) along with all the other hawker stalls serving killer popiah, wan tan mee and others. Let me tell you about the mee rebus.
I like the gravy. It's made of prawn stock. The secret to this really good Penang Mee rebus stock is that prawns are added together with the skin. The mixture is then blended to give it a smoother texture. Together with lentils, chillies, potatoes and other secret ingredients, this fiery red gravy can be graded as class A1. Mee Sultan comes with the usual tauhu, sliced boiled potatoes, delicious slices of beef and squid. These ingredients make the mee even more delicious especially the sliced beef. It's slow cooked in beef stock and it's very soft.
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"The tomyam was a bit sweet and thick"
The first thing that I noticed is that the restaurant is surrounded by roadside stalls but De Chiengmai itself is anything but a stall. It's rather a beautiful restaurant in the middle of nowhere. De Chiengmai is a family owned business of Malaysian and Thai origins. They started out as a small restaurant and then expanded as they got really popular.
The restaurant is air-conditioned and there is an ample touch of Thai in their decor. The internal roof is beautifully decorated with Siamese umbrellas. Packed full after 7pm daily, waiting time can be up to 20 minutes for a table. So, how about the food, I hear you ask? Well, my friend and I sat down at one of the tables and ordered tomyam campur, ayam pandan, kailan ikan masin and a fruit juice to wash them all down. When our food was served, I was pleased that our tom yam campur came in a charcoal heated tin dish. This ensures our tom yam is kept warm longer which makes it that bit more delicious.
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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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