Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

Happy New Year!

The first day of my new year was spent in the kitchen cooking up a storm for a family meal. It was exhausting but great fun and heart whelming - this the most fuss I've made of Chinese New Year in about six years and it was nice to be with the family at a time like this.

Chinese New Year Menu

Spring Rolls with Sweet Chili and Worcestershire Dipping Sauces
Pan Fried Pork Dumplings with Ginger Dipping Sauce
Steamed Fish with Ginger, Garlic and Soy Sauce
Stuffed Peppers and Aubergine in Black Bean Sauce
Steamed Chicken with Chinese Sausage
Stir Fried Prawns with Gow Choy Fah (Flowering Garlic Chives)
Fried Cabbage with Tomatoes

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!! May the year of the Metal Tiger be auspicious and joyful.

There's Always Room for Mamak!

No trip home would be remotely complete without at least a plate of Maggi goreng. Curly wurly pre-boiled instant noodles fried with an assortment of shredded veg, tofu,egg and flavoured with that powdered magic that comes with the noodles in a little sachet - usually curry flavour. Drenched in limau kasturi. Just the way I love it.

To be honest, the brunch meeting with NH and WMF wasn't supposed to be about Maggi goreng. It was supposed to be about rotis from Nirwana but predictably tardy Justine was .. well, late. NH and WMF had already polished off their rotis by the time I arrived and Nirwana had switched over to their lunch menu - no rotis but everything else got la ... Hoping to track down a couple of rotis, we headed to Pelita up the road but no such luck. All the Mamak-isq places had stopped serving rotis for the daylight hours for that day. Not that I minded, I was quite happy with my noodles (they even topped it with shredded lettuce! :) Bangsar, eh?)

NH and WMF decided to share a cheese naan served with dhal, some sort of curry sauce and an ultra green mint sauce. I have no idea why naan is still served out of roti hours. Maybe because there's tandoori chicken on the menu? Naan and tandoori chicken seem to always go hand in hand. I wonder if this is always the case ... something to do with cooking naan bread in the tandoor, maybe?

A little poke around the cooked food counter and I returned armed with a deep fried chicken drumstick. I love the batter they use at these places - I think it's the fresh turmeric they add. The best deep fried chicken used to be from a run down stall by an outdoor parking lot on Jalan Perak in downtown KL. It's gone now - it made way for some building or other. I still miss that chicken. More often than not the pieces of chicken came fresh out of the hot oil. Crisp and juicy - utterly beautiful. My piece from Pelita was a little cold and the batter had gone a bit hard but will have to do for now.

I also chose a gigantic deep fried squid but unlike the chicken, the man didn't hand it to me straight away. He shoo-ed me away and told me he'll deliver it to my table. Ten minutes later and I was beginning t wonder where my squid had gone off to when it finally arrived - utterly transformed. It had obviously been sent back to the kitchen where it was re-battered and re-fried with curry leaves and shallots. Oh, it was so much better than I had dared hoped. Yes, the squid was slightly rubbery but the batter was so good that we promptly forgot about the rubbery-ness. It was hot,crunchy and fragrant - very nicely done.

A few days later and it was a breakfast date with VO and TL at Devi's Corner. I'm not quite sure I like this "new" location at the corner of Jalan Telawi 2 and Jalan Telawi 4. It's a little claustrophobic and I'm never quite comfortable when I'm there. VO ordered a roti pisang - normal roti stuffed with sliced/mashed (?) banana and served as usual with dhal and some sort of curry.

I had a hankering for roti stuffed with aloo marsala but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called so I ended with with rawa thosai. This was definitely not what I wanted but it was good and I love coconut chutney but I was still wanted my roti stuffed with potatoes!

By a simple process of elimination, we finally worked out what I was looking for - marsala thosai! I got more of my favourite coconut chutney, a spiced version, dhal and a curry of sorts. Happiness!

Nasi Kandar Pelita
2 Jalan Telawi 5, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

Devi's Corner
14 Jalan Telawi 4, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

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!

OK Porridge - Imbi, Kuala Lumpur

Smack in the middle of downtown KL, there's Imbi - undeveloped and more than a little seedy. Beneath the shabby exterior lies a wealth of good Chinese food and none more so than the little gem that is OK Porridge. If you're prepared to trot straight from your car to the restaurant and ignore the parade of ladies of the evening who use the premises as their meeting point before their business day begins, you're in for a treat.

Their house specialty is porridge - good, old fashioned rice stodge cooked to order in a claypot with the seafood of your choice. On this visit we had two pots - the fish was subtle with a pleasing clean palate and the prawn had bolder, sweeter flavours from the cooked crustacean shells and heads. Garnished with ubiquitous spring onion and coriander for hints of freshness and for bite, yau char kway.

Another must is the silky smooth Ipoh poached chicken. Deliciously succulent meat served on the bone and topped with soy sauce, a splash of oil, cucumber pieces and topped with sliced spring onion and coriander. This would be perfect with garlic rice but steaming hot rice gruel would have to do.

Ultra thin and crispy choy boh (small pieces of preserved turnip) omelette - the perfect accompaniment to porridge.

There seems to be a craze at the moment for anything cooked with salted egg yolk. On my last visit I had never heard of it but it was love at first taste when I had it cooked with crab. It was to die for - literally if you have a wee bit too much. Those yolks can induce a heart attack quicker than you can say "haam daan wong"(salted egg yolk)!Dad looked a little guilty when asked what our obligatory vegetable was ... aubergine with salted egg yolk. Deep fried thin slices of aubergine in a salted egg yoke batter and tossed with dried chilies and curry leaves.No wonder he looked guilty ... this dish was beyond sinful. Crisp and aromatic, vegetables are never this good.

On a previous visit we had kam heong lala (clams). Whilst kam heong is not my choice style for cooking seafood, this was a sight better than the dish we had at Robson Heights. The integrity of the clams (tiny, yes) were, at least, preserved and not overwhelmed by the sauce. On this occassion we also had an extra dish of sotong assam (no photos, I'm afraid). Nice tender squid with a slight crunch cooked in a lovely spicy assam sauce - beautiful with a nice big bowl of rice, which we didn't have so we resorted to dipping our chewy fried bread sticks into the sauce instead.

OK Porridge serves some very good food but visit on at your risk. * Entertainment is also provided - see the latest trends in tight, see through and gaudy designs brought to you courtesy of Sungai Wang.

I Want Crabs! - Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant, Kuala Lumpur

I wanted crabs, I got crabs - some hefty babies drenched in a thick, sticky marmite sauce and some other suckers enveloped in artery clogging salty egg yokes. I was in high heaven - this was seriously good food.

Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant does some very nice food. The fried noodles are tasty - think it's the extra dose of lard that they use (surely it's near impossible to get food tasting good without a healthy dose of saturated animal fat? Roast spuds in goose fat, toasted crumpets dripping with butter, Hokkien mee with it's little pieces of deep fried pork lard ... ) and most of its seafood dishes are pretty darn good - like those scrumptious fresh water prawns with glass noodles. Heads heavy with roe cooked in a delicious broth flavoured with garlic, ginger, chili and the all important rice wine. However, there were some downsides to their food like the waste of time (and tummy space) lemon chicken and disappointing kam heong clams. Not that the clam dish tasted bad - more like the clams were so tiny, every other ingredient overpowered it.

* I had incredibly sticky fingers from probing every yummy crevice of the crabs, so not many photos.

The Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant
10B, Jalan Permai, Off Jalan Syed Putra, 50460 Kuala Lumpur

Dim Sum - The Ming Room, Bangsar

I haven't had much luck with my recent dim sum visits in London - Chuen Cheng Ku was atrocious and the usually fail safe Royal China was having a bad day (I refuse to even consider the possibility that Royal China is not as good as it once was). Dim sum in KL is usually a whole lot more fun - not awe inspiring stuff but good, cheap and cheerful. And I get to share it with some of the best dining companions - my dad and sister. Blessed with hearty appetites and greediness to match, we do tend to eat very well together.

Ming Room at BSC (that's Bangsar Shopping Centre to the non-KLite) has been around for quite some time, part of a new wave of Chinese restaurants with modern decor and a traditional meets modern style of cooking. Think Baked Foie Gras with Stuffed Sea Clams or Pan Seared Foie Gras with Garlic Rice ... you get the gist. I've been to Ming Room several times and I don't recall the being particularly great or all that bad either. It's one of those places where the memories of the food just sort of disappears into oblivion. Definitely OK for a dim sum then.

We started with their "free" starter. A real rip off. The starter was good - tiny pieces of deep fried tofu, peanuts and dried silver anchovies coated in a sweet chili sauce - but forget the free part. Chinese restaurants used to serve a plate of peanuts when I was a child, which I'm pretty sure was free. A few years later they started charging for the same plate of nuts and soon more enterprising restaurants began jazzing up their "free" plates and it became a hidden charge on the bill. You could of course say no, thanks, send the plate back and earn yourself a huff from the waitress. Most don't bother ... just eat it la!

No dim sum meal would be the same without an order of har kow and siu mai even if they aren't particular favourites. These were alright. Not much else to say about both these dishes.

One of my absolute favourites are steamed fishballs. I could happily just have fishballs and nothing else. Not those ultra bouncy kind that you buy from the supermarket, thank you very much. They have to be chewy rather than bouncy - I like to think it's because there's a higher ratio of fish in the recipe. The Ming Room fishballs hit the spot. I even requested a second portion. Ah happiness!

For a touch of luxury these seafood dumplings had a a few strands of sharks fin on them.

Lor mai kai with gloppy brown sauce. Sticky rice with chicken, pork and mushrooms - good. Pretty hard to get wrong.

Wu kok - deep fried yam dumplings stuffed with meat. Another favourite of mine but sadly not many places get it right. Very often the dumplings are served cold and clogged with oil. These were quite delicious. The yam was light with crisp edges. Delightful.

I don't recall eating these prawn and mango rolls but apparently I did since I have photos of them.

I have been dreaming of sui kow for a very long time now. My sui kow dreams usually evolve around the dumplings from Foong Foong's Ampang yong tau foo. Sadly there was no time for yong tau foo this time but Ming Room's sui kow managed to quell my cravings for them ... a little. Where the food in Foong Foong's is ultra cheap and cheerful, Ming Room is a touch more refined. The sui kow was really quite lovely and the soup it was served in was delicious. It was the sort of broth you can imagine 10 chickens being boiled for 20 hours to achieve.

Another favourite of mine is the cheong fun. At Ming Room the noodles was soft and silky, the meat lean. Very nice.

For it's non-halal status, I was a little surprised when the waitress shook her head when we asked for porridge (I refuse to use the word "congee" to refer to rice porridge ... it somehow gives me the creeps) with lean pork and century egg. Surely it is one of the cornerstones of dim sum? Alright, har kau and siu mai are the cornerstones. Cheong fun, char sui bau, pei dan sau yuk chuk are second tier stones if you must - in my book anyway. So we had porridge with shredded chicken and century egg instead. Nice, but not quite the same is it? I poked around the menu right at the end of the meal and found that they had porridge with dried oysters and lean pork, which I just had to have. Oh it was good, very good. Reminds me of the stuff my grandma used to make.

The food at Ming Room really wasn't too bad. There were some dishes they did well and was quite hard to fault, whilst others were a bit hit and miss. The service, however, was definitely a miss. We ordered some vegetables that never turned up, the waiting staff had the attention span of newts (if and when you could get them to understand you) and the the bill took about 10 minutes to arrive. Fancy restaurant The Ming Room would hope to be but it's really no further up the ladder than a glorified Tai Thong. It's not an insult - it's just not quite as refined as it would like to be. The saving grace, for me that is, was the bill. All that food for 4 (let's not count my nephew as a full eating person) and it only cost Rm150! It works out to be roughly about £7 a person. Bargain!

The Ming Room
3rd Floor, Bangsar Shopping Centre, Bukit Bandaraya, 59000 Kuala Lumpur

KL Cravings

I found my KL foodie wish list whilst clearing up my desk at work today. Surprisingly it only had 4 wishes on it.

Koon Kee in Petaling Street, Chinatown - Wanton and Sui Kow
Foong Foong, Ampang - Yong Tau Foo
Yong Tau Foo Stall, Bangsar Lucky Garden Market - Chee Cheong Fun (with the little dried shrimp embedded in the noodles) with Soy Sauce, Oil, Sesame Seeds and Green Chilies
Jalan Imbi - Pork Ball Noodles

I only made it to 2 places when I was in KL. Poor showing for someone who was there for a month! I will be home again in May but until then, the sweet dreams continue ...

It's a Piggy New Year!

The unveiling of our dinner

It's well into the new year and I haven't posted anything in ages. Blame it on my month long sojourn in Malaysia, hectic schedule whilst I was out there or the impossible internet upload speeds I had to contend with ... but the main thing is, I'm back with ton of trigger happy holiday snaps and a whole load of foodie stories.

If Christmas is about quiet family time, New Year's Eve is all about the partying - head banging until the wee hours of the morning and getting so drunk you wake up with your head in a bucket. Alas, my NY's eves always tend to be a little tame (if you must ... bland probably sums it up a little better). Who wants to push and shove (and be pushed and be shoved) in an overpriced club? Or fork out for an expensive but mediocre meal? So this year it was off for a pigout on ... PIG (ok, forgive the pun .. it was just too tempting)! Kindly hosted by Ravenous Rabbit, we had a a whole pig .. not one of those wee lil piglets but a full grown momma fit to feed some seriously hungry people.

When the roast is roughly the same size as a 5 year old child

The hog may have been the star of the night but let's not forget the other bits and pieces we had with it. In my humble opinion, the pineapple sauce made by Ravenous Rabbit's mum was in a whole different league, topping even the pig. Forget apple sauce ... throw it out, it's so yesterday! Pineapple sauce should be the sauce for roast pork. Sweet with a nice tang - gorgeous!

Another of Auntie A's special roast pork sauce - creamy mushroom. Good old Campbell's anyone? With a whole lot more mushroom-iness! Mix the mushroom and pineapple sauces together and it was good enough to be eaten alone.

When there is pork, there should always be rice. Typically Asian. The fried rice was C and K's contribution to the pot luck, along with a pot of crispy fried shallots.

C brought buttered corn on the cob with soy sauce and black pepper - just the way the Japanese like it. Ok I'm not sure how the Japanese like their corn but this corn idea was something I picked off a Japanese menu and have made with tinned corn several times. Corn + butter = good, corn + butter + soy sauce = even yummier! I'm not sure where C picked up her corn but I quite like the different coloured kernels. It makes life that bit more interesting.

Spam and practically everything goes .... so no complains about the Spam and pasta dish that W brought. Alright, maybe there wasn't enough Spam ...

For even more pasta goodness there was a creamy tomato and bacon sauce. I love my red sauces and let's face it, anything with bacon, cream and booze in is good. But oh so very, very rich!

The salmon fishcakes were good - nice flavour but as with everything deep fried, it would have been better straight out of a smoking hot pan. The sambal worked with the fishy flavours.

For dessert there was TO-DIE-FOR caramelised apple crumble pie. The smell hit me even before we started eating and it nearly knocked me off the piggy course (to be fair I'm not a huge roast pork fan .. but hey, when it's in front of you it's just rude not to tuck in - just as long as there's no crackling in sight!!!). The taste of the pie was as good as the smell. Sweet caramelised apples and all that buttery crumble and pie crust. Oh sinful! But I was good .. I had a little piece and turned my attention back to the pig. The memory lingers on .. as does everything that is bad for us.

There was actually a whole ton more food - like my contribution, a orzo and tuna pasta salad. I thought it was pretty good but someone mentioned it tasted like uni food whilst helping themselves to another portion. I'm not sure if I should be offended .. There were cannellini beans in pesto and a most delightful buttery and creamy mash. Of course there was the almost compulsory green salad and after dinner jelly. Photos of all this seem to be missing from my camera. Instant deletions of terrible photographs or perhaps forgetfulness on my part. Who knows? What I do know is what a greedy bunch we are, with eating ambitions far larger than our bellies. And the greediest of the lot - C and I. Check out our doggie bag! Yes, that tower belonged to us both. We very possibly took a quarter of the pig back with us - but to be honest, I never solved the mystery of where it went after. I have a feeling it's hiding in C's freezer ...

Happy New Year!