Merchant's Lane

Somewhere in  Chinatown Kuala Lumpur, we found the little green teal door which leads upstairs to one of the hippest cafe in town. If you blinked, you would have missed the teal green door. It is sandwiched between shops. My sis and I ventured upstairs and found the quaint little cafe which serves a little of western and Asian fusion dishes.

At first glance, one would think this hipster's cafe is in Cambodia. There is a tree with sprawling roots in the middle of the cafe. I love it. (I wished there is a tree in the middle of my house!)

As we were still full from breakfast, we decided to just order drinks and nibbles. Then I spotted the words, Pandan and Kaya in the same sentence ...oh my Lord... this is a must order!

The "Better than Sex" pandan crepe with kaya toast ice cream was delicious and we enjoyed Pipit's Nest which is the plate of fried onions rings, chicken tenders and brinjal with cheese and mayo sauce.

Merchant Lane can be found at

Merchant's Lane 美真林

No, 150 Jalan Petaling, 59000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Karipap Ayam

One of the great things about living in Malaysia is that you have an abundant choices for meals, there are delicious foods and snacks from the day and night markets, malls, restaurants and street food stalls. And if that wasn't enough, sometimes, the vendors even come to you.

In the morning, you may hear echoes of vendor selling Roti, newspapers even gas cylinder as they go through your back street. In the afternoons, you may hear a lady shouting out "Karipap...... karipap" as she cycles through your street. Best to have your coin purse handy and with you at all times as you would have to bolt out the door and chase her down the street to get to the yummy snacks. This is pretty normal for most suburbs. 

Life in Malaysia can be harsh and hard. These sellers sell their wares for a pittance price, so if you do come across them, don't complain about the price or try to get them cheaper. Support them and be happy and be thankful that you can have their delicious snacks, handmade with love from someone's home. 

Today I live in a land far away, and so I have make these things in my own kitchen. I am lucky that I have resources from the Internet for recipes that I could recreate my fond memories of yummy snacks in Malaysia. My mother is a great cook, she would make all the delicious Nyonya kuihs for us. I love her steamed yam cake, chiffon cake, and bubur cha cha. There's always something on the table for us. And when she wasn't feeling up to it, we would buy ready made food and snacks. Oh God, now I have Hainanese chicken rice on my mind and I should be writing up this blogpost. 

Here's the link to where I found this easy to follow instructions with photos. I am a visual learner, so I found this was pretty easy to follow. Spiral Curry Puffs

Water dough outer, center is oil dough

Chicken Curry

Folding Wontons

Easter Sunday 31 March 2013, the day I decided to conquer my fear of folding wontons.

There is a story to this fear. As I recalled, the last time I folded one, was in my teen years in my Mum's kitchen and I had failed miserably with all contents falling out from a torn wrapper. I was devastated. For me, it was a validation that I am more like a Malay than a Chinese person! This does not helped me at all, with my not liking to eat pork already and Mum always teasing me that I am not Chinese.

Obviously, I am not Malay, I just prefer to eat spicy Malaysian dishes more, to the mild boring plain old Chinese meals. Given a choice of Laksa or Sweet and sour pork, I would grabbed the Laksa. And this is why I never learnt to cook proper Chinese meals and hence why I failed to fold a wonton! What Chinese child does not know how to fold a wonton?? It is a disgrace, at least in my eyes!!! Hahhahahahaha, needless to say I have never tried again till this day.

So why? Why put myself in this situation again? To face yet another failure? Was I up to this challenge? No, I was scared shitless...BUT I was BORED!!

So here goes nothing. I didn't really have much to lose.

[And so I laughed at you, "you stupid little tiny wrappers! I am not scared of you.. I shall succeed and if not, Meh!!! There's Tassie.... he'll like the mince meat for dinner.. (the furkid in the house)"]

Crazy much? Absolutely.. This is what happens, when I get stuck in the that same level in Candy Crush... Argh!!

For my wonton fillings, I used these below.

Ingredients

Chicken Mince
Chives
Chopped scallions
Salt and Pepper
I teaspoon Minced garlic
1 TBspoon Soy sauce
I packet wonton wrappers
Water for sealing the wrappers

Method: I followed a youtube video. I found this instruction to be the easiest to understand.

You can deep fry these for an afternoon snack, or served as an appetiser with hot chilli oil sauce or you can add these wontons to soups or noodles. So many great things to use it with. I am so glad that I attempted this again, many years later.

So there... in my mouth, yo!

The Vic Hotel, Wagga

This is not a paid advertorial, the blogger dined at The Victoria Hotel at her bosses's expense...hehehe;)

So this week, we finally had our Xmas party lunch. It kinda became our "Xmas/Easter" breakup lunch get together. Our Xmas party got "postponed" because of work commitments and deadline last year.

For this function, the Bandi guys travelled up to Wagga and we chose The Victoria Hotel because it is affordable, value for money, has the room for us and is pretty consistent with its menu and service. We've been there before several times and loved it. You can't fault the steak here.

I didn't feel like a big lunch this time as I am still on my so called diet which is going pretty well, except for days when I craved carbs and then I hate myself when I feel bloated! Hahahaha. I need to lose some inches before Bangkok so that I don't get squashed in the cattle class on my flight. Argh!! Hate economy.. when am I going to ever travel J class???

So I ordered the Thai Beef Salad, it was a good portion, well balanced, lots of different types of greens in the salad. It does have an interesting dressing though! I do not believed that, this is Thai Salad as the dressing was all wrong, it was too sweet, someone had gone berko with the "kicap manis" ( dark sweet soy sauce) and there was no spice at all. It was not tangy nor spicy. A total let down. I think that if one wants to do an Asian dish, you should at least do it right. Don't bastardised a dish and called it what it is. The presentation was good, plate was neat and tidy. Being from a hospitality background, I look at the plating for marks and thumbprints, smears or drip of sauces. Nothing I hate more, than a dirty plate.

Here are what my workmates ordered. As you can see, beautiful plating, right? No one was allowed to start eating till I had taken a snapshot. You can't take me anywhere. As you can see, nothing wrong with the typical western pub meals. You can't do wrong in this category. The service was excellent, we didn't have to wait long for our meal. The plates were also cleared as soon as lunch was finished, the friendly waitress cleared as many glasses and plates as fast as she could.

Salt and Pepper Calamari

Chicken Parmagiana

Chicken Schnitzel

Steak Sandwich

Rump Steak with mushroom sauce

Beer Battered Chips

Lemon Tart

I was too full to have desserts. I took a photo of the Lemon tart because I thought that it look lovely. The chocolate cake that my other colleague had looked dry. I commented to my friend that it should be rich and moist, not dry and hard... served with lots of cream and icecream. The sticky date pudding looked so good. I really wished that I was not on a diet! Sigh! Must be strong and think of Thailand holidays!

And that concludes my "Chreaster" lunch and this old gal had to have a lie down in the arvo after two ciders.

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Victoria Hotel
55 Baylis St Wagga Wagga
Telephone (02) 6921 5233
http://www.vichotelwagga.com.au/



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