Malaysia Eats

I thought I should finally sort out my photos tonight, starting with those of Istanbul taken all those months ago back in April. But ... there's always a but ... bloody Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Live Photo Gallery keep crashing my computer so I've given up. I'm too tired to faff around trying to troubleshoot something I haven't a clue about. So I've turned my attention to some of the stuff that never made it to my posts about my last trip home. Just a few photos from various meals. Oh hush my grumbling tummy .........! Enjoy :)

Marco Polo Restaurant
1st Floor, Wisma Lim Foo Yong, Jalan Raja Chulan, 50200 Kuala Lumpur

This used to be one of the places to hold a Chinese wedding banquet when I was a kid. I haven't been back in years. The dim sum is decent - think a step up from your local coffee shop on a Sunday morning and not quite as fancy as the Chinese restaurant at your favourite downtown 5* hotel.

Steamed black pepper chicken balls

Lor mai kai (steamed sticky glutinous rice with chicken, mushrooms and various other bits)

Din Tai Fung
Lot LG-207, Lower Ground Floor, The Gardens, Mid Valley City

Famous for their xiao long bau (Shanghainese soup dumplings) and very popular with my family. The food is pretty good and seems pretty consistent from the two occasions that I've been here. The one thing that grates on me is their insistence of the waiting staff to only speak Mandarin to their customers. Correct me if I'm wrong but Cantonese is the accepted Chinese dialect spoken in KL, so why insist on Mandarin? The waitress is only giving herself more work since she'll have to repeat everything she just said to me in English anyway. Yes, I sound like a spoilt brat and I refuse to apologise for it ..... making me sound even more brattish :)

Xiao long bau ... yum yum yum! Good splurt of hot broth but eat too many and you'll start to notice how fatty each little dumpling is.

Thin slithers of ginger in black vinegar, the traditional accompaniment to xiao long bau.

Deep fried beans with mince. I always thought of this as a Sichuanese dish but apparently it's Shanghainese too.

Braised seaweed topped tofu with Chinese mushrooms

Beard Papa
Lot LG007, Lower Ground Floor, Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur

I haven't had a Beard Papa custard puff in years and it seems like my mum had never had one ever so I bought us one to share. It's still good. And I still not a huge fan of choux pastry.

Ampang Yong Tau Foo (shop next to Foong Foong)
Jalan Besar Ampang, 68000 Ampang

Foong Foong is the family stall of choice when we want Ampang yong tau foo (like so many other families I suspect) but mum broke some rather sad news when I insisted we cross town in mid day traffic to eat here ... Foong Foong is closed. Seriously? Surely not ... it's been there since.... well, since I remember eating yong tau foo. We went anyway and sure enough the shutters were down and the gates firmly padlocked. I hope we went on a day they decided to close for the day or I shall be very upset. So we went to the stall next door. Usually sad and so in need of custom, they were doing a good trade with Foong Foong closed (I don't even know its name ... dearie me). To be fair the yong tau foo tastes (dare I say it .... ) almost the same as Foong Foong but years ago they cocked out and started selling other dishes to entice customers. Imagine ... assam fish with yong tau foo ... impossible!

Our miserly looking 15 piece yong tau foo plate for 4 people ... it just can't compare to my dad's order of 40 pieces for 4 people when I last ate at Foong Foong's in January 2009. This order was definitely enough considering our 4 this time included my 90 year old grandmother who now eats like a bird.


Deep fried sui kow (like wontons but better!)


This is really what I come for ... the soup sui kow. This has got to be one of my all time favourite foods.

Restoran SS2 Murni
Jalan SS2/75, Petaling Jaya

Murni has got to be one of the coolest mamaks around. Run by a Chinese owner (*eyebrow raised .... "really?"), it's frequented by a truely muhibah crowd ... we sat next to a large Indian family finishing their dinner, a Malay couple eating roti and sipping teh ais whilst talking quietly to each other, a young Chinese couple sharing an extra large juice and a maggie goreng as they busily texted friends and practically ignoring each other, a large group of friends who were very possibly in college together. And there was me and my sister busy stuffing our faces, nudging each other and cackling out loud as we watched out our neighbours. I've been coming here for years and it's still as busy as it was when I was in college. The food is insane ... the menu combination is like no other mamak - there's your traditional rotis and rotis with a new twist - roti hawaii, roti seafood, roti salad. There's also the steak and chips, loh shu fun, spaghetti marinara. Brilliant!

The juices are also another reason to drop by Murni. We both got the medium watermelon juice special. Fresh watermelon juice blended with lots of ice, topped with lychee, chopped watermelon and nata de coco. So damn good on a muggy evening.


Candice had a hankering for fried chicken so we got fried chicken. The waiter gave us a choice which was - batter or not batter? Errr .... no batter please. Batterless fried chicken .. almost pointless. It was quite nice though. A whole chicken leg marinated in soy and served with chili sauce.


My must have dish when I'm back in KL - Maggie goreng. Probably not as good as other mamak stalls but it'll do.


Roti Jepun - we're still not entirely sure what was in this but we think it was egg, cheese and condensed milk (or the Malaysian version of dairy free condensed milk anyway). Not sure how this is in anyway Japanese and it wasn't particularly great.


Roti Hawaii - a new twist on the traditional murtabak. Filled with mince beef, sliced frankfurters, tinned pineapple and cheese. Topped with a generous squeeze of the mayonnaise bottle. Served with a blob of red sauce (chili or ketchup?), dhal and curry. What a combination. I oddly liked this. Give me frankfurters and ketchup and I can be very forgiving.

Penang Teochew Cendul
Lebuh Keng Kwee, Off Penang Road, Penang

Part of our search for good Penang char kway teow included a cendul stop (see post here). There was apparently a very good stall that we just had to try. Personally I wasn't too bothered to get to this stall. It was a horridly hot day, I was stuffed from too much lunch and it was too comfortable in the air conditioned car to tempt me out. But hey I was on holiday and it would be mighty unsociable to continue snoozing in the car, which would get baking hot the moment the engine was stopped. So we trudged along Penang Road, not quite sure where we were going until we found it. A dingy little stall down a side street with a crowd of people holding plastic bowls. The sign proudly proclaimed it as the famous Penang Road Teochew cendol. So how is Teochew cendol different from ... let's say the Indian guy who sells it? No idea. This stall does however add red beans to their concoctions. Ergh! Hate red beans.

I just had to be difficult - my special order of no red beans. Good cendol? It was ok cendol.Less sweet than many other I have tried. My mother who has a particularly sweet tooth would have complained they were too light on the gula melaka. Ahhh each to his own I suppose :)

Lemon Tart - An Obsession

Taking a little breather from my holiday blogs, I just remembered a little obsession I had before I went home for Christmas - tarte au citron. It was one of those niggling food longings that I couldn't shake off.

There was the the lemon tart I got as part of a late night discount goodie bag when I was in Marylebone one evening. Despite the huge crack down the middle, it was a delicious tart with a full bodied tang. The other items in the box were a chocolate eclair and a slice of tiramisu. Neither as good as the tart.

There was also the tarte au citron from St Germain with its caramelised top and side of crème fraîche that I had previously blogged about here.

The offering from Paul's was probably the best looking of the lot. Neat with an alluringly yellow filling and such a pretty glaze but alas, not the best tasting. The lemon flavour was somewhat lacking and the pastry wasn't quite up to scratch.

I stopped by Patisserie Valerie one day and was met with a somewhat lackluster looking tarte au citron. I nearly walked away but I was in serious need of a lemon tart fix. It was gorgeous! Where it lacked in appearance it compensated in taste. The pastry crumbled just right with the barest hint of butter, the filling was sharp but not cringingly so. It was, without a doubt, the best of the lot.

My quest to find a good lemon tart had become a bit of a running joke with some of my colleagues. One day I found this sitting on my desk - fully packaged and minus the huge bite into it, of course. Oh, it was disgusting! Hard, sugary and full of that artificial lemon flavour. Sigh .. that was a cruel, cruel joke!

Uncle Lim's Chicken Curry Puffs

For all my excitement of the chicken curry puffs that I brought home from Uncle Lim's Kitchen yesterday, they totally slipt from my mind and were left sitting a little forlorn in the greasy paper bag they came in. Imagine my delight when I spotted them this morning - no boring toast for me this morning!

I would love to say I was totally organised and laid my treasure trove on a warmed baking tray, which then went into a heated oven for precisely 7 and a half minutes but I can't. I popped my curry puff (the other belonged to Stuart who would probably consume it at some other point) on top of the toaster (ohhh how I miss the toaster ovens that we get in Malaysia!) and pressed the little lever down. I turned the curry puff over when I smelt a little burning (evidence on the two little burn marks as seen in the photos) and toasted the other side. All done in about 2 minutes and no baking trays to clean :D

Emm... I smell chicken and potato curry. And this was before I even cut the pastry in half. With a pastry more puff than crisp (although tradition dictates otherwise) these beauties were large - they would have made the currypuffs from a roadside stall in Southeast Asia look puny. Taste wise it was pretty good - spices coming through well. A nice ratio of chicken to potato but as usual the glut in me always bemoans the meagre amount of filling in curry puffs :)

£1 per chicken curry puff from Uncle Lim's Kitchen

Princi - Soho, London

It's been one very long week. And I'm just glad it's the weekend. Really glad, actually :)

There were a few good meals and a few bad ones this week. One of the highlights was the discovery of Princi, an Italian bakery on Wardour Street, which I read about at World Foodie Guide. I don't usually venture into Soho for food - mainly because there's just too much choice and my mind goes numb with having to make decisions. The few times I have eaten eaten in Soho have been pretty bad experiences. Example - Meze on Wardour Street. I went there a few years ago and experienced some terrible service. When I had the audacity to send back a dish where the bacon was still raw (not pink, raw!), I was treated with contempt by the staff who very nicely made sure the bacon was burnt when they brought the dish back. Ahh yes, it wasn't even replaced.

I know there are some really good places to eat in Soho and I think I'm going on a mission to find out for myself. First stop, Princi. I was really impressed when we arrived. The floor to ceiling glass exterior showcased the stone and granite interior - very chic, very modern. But the real beauties lay on the long counters. Trays upon trays and bountiful baskets of pastries, breads, salads and further along, the hot food counter. Ooo where to start? What to order? To eat in or to take out? I had originally planned to grab lunch from Pinci one day, so this trip was really to see what they had on offer. And the worst decision of the evening was to buy a few pastries and move on somewhere else for dinner. As we were still clueless on where to head to, with so many restaurants with queues during the dinner peak, we walked into Amalfi. Such a bad, bad move. The meal was atrocious. Unsatisfied and disgruntled (the meal wasn't cheap!) we headed back to Princi for dessert.

At 7PM, Princi was bustling with some who come in for dinner, some who had stopped by for an after work drink. At 9PM, it was even more crowded - mainly with those who were having leisurely drinks, a bit of a chinwag and were none too keen on vacating their seats. Tactics came into play here. One person keeps a lookout (preferably from one of the 'perching' granite tables, no seats just standing - just in case a seat does not avail itself) and another goes to the food. When a table does become available, well... you know what to do.. grab it! Yes, a little extreme but I guess I can't help it. Years of training in hot, crowded coffeeshops in Malaysia will teach anyone to bag a table.

First up, a savoury order of rustici (£1.20 for 3). Little puff pastry bites filled with either spinach and cheese or ham and cheese. They were both dissapointing but the spinach ones did fare slightly better than the ham bites, which were overly salty and not much else. They had been lying around for some time and had gone cold.

The passion fruit cheesecake (£3.50) on the other hand was really quite divine. The fragrance and the tartness of the passion fruit filled the mouth with every bite. The cheese filling was light as air (I had actually forgotten it was supposed to be a cheesecake - there I kept thinking it was a passion fruit mousse!).

We had originally bought the pear and chocolate tart (£3.00) to go earlier in the evening. It did go and it come back again :) The pear still had a bite to it and the chocolate it was set in reminded me of a brownie, a slightly nutty brownie - made with ground hazelnut. The nuttiness was only ever so slight. It was a good tart but definitely took second place to the passion fruit cheesecake.

I also bought myself a pain au chocolat for breakfast the next day, which I heated up on to of the toaster at work. Ohh sooo good! Crisp and flaky with oozy chocolate. Emm!

Verdict?
Will I be going back? Hell ya! Haha... I'm already planning what I'll be ordering and a slice of courgette pizza will probably be one of the items. It did look awfully good!

Princi
135 Wardour Street, London, W1F 0UT