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.
I went back to Malaysia for a short holiday earlier this year. My sister and I visited Little Penang Cafe at KLCC for lunch one day. We went there early to avoid the long queue. This cafe gets very busy at lunchtime as it is frequented by KLCC office staff and visitors alike.
I ordered my favourite flat noodles, char kway teow. This was my first time visiting Little Penang Cafe and I am already thinking that this could be my favourite cafe in KL. They do street style hawker foods and it tasted as good as it gets for a cafe outside of the Penang Island itself.
This is called ABC or ais kacang. It is a basically shaved ice with fruits and syrup, topped with peanuts and drenched in sweet condensed milk. Similar to a Korean bingsoo, of Japanese Kakigori.
This dish is called Ju Huu char. It has shredded cuttlefish, cooked with julienne of vegetables like carrots, jicama (sengkuang), shittake mushrooms and onions and chives. Basically, you would put a small amount on the lettuce leaf provided, add a little chilli and wrap it up to eat. This is Nyonya Malaysian version of lettuce wraps.
Lastly is deep fried Lor Bak. It is traditionally mince pork meat marinated with chinese five spice, wrapped in beancurd sheet and then deep fried like spring rolls. It is normally a finger food or snacks. We ordered the chicken meat variant.
More info
Address: Suria Klcc, Suria KLCC, Jalan Ampang, 50088 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The last time I was in Penang, Malaysia, was in 2012 and friends and I visited the Fruit and Spice in Balik Pulau for it's famous Assam Laksa. The owner is Eric Kee and he also has an antique shop within his premises. There were so many items that I would like to own, sadly, my wallet could only afford me, a few bowls of laksa and perhaps some pie tees. These are old Peranakan food favourites, you may know them as Nyonya cuisine.
It's been too long and I am yearning for my friends and Malaysian food again. Foods are best shared with friends and family, and I am missing them a great deal.
Here are some info of the shop:
Fruit and Sprice
Eric Kee
www.fruitnspice.com
202B, Jalan Sungai Pinang
11010 Balik Pulau, Penang.
Email: info@fruitnspice.com
Photo credit : Lin Milne
Photo credit : Lin Tan
Need to start planning for my next getaway to this great island I call home. Home is where the heart is. Or in my case where the tummy is...
Taro puffs is one of my favourite thing to eat at Yum Cha. Even though I am not a fan of the pork, I will make an exception for these puffs. And that is saying a lot, when I don't even make exception for sui mais. ( another steamed dumpling, like wontons that has pork). I would eat chicken or seafood dumplings and avoid the pork items whenever I go yumcha.
I have always been fascinated by the outer layer of these taro puffs. I would scratched my head in wonderment, "how do they make the puffs to look like honeycomb pastries?" It is so intricate! Like lace. What kind of sorcery is this? How do I do this magic?? I want this power!! :)
Then I discovered a recipe on YouTube, hahahahhah and low and behold, today I am trying that recipe. So here goes nothing. Please go to her blog for recipe ingredients. I have doubled the ingredients to make mine, because I am greedy :)
First, I made the charsiu meat fillings for the dumplings.
Then I steamed one whole taro and smashed it and mixed it with the wheat starch mixes and butter.
And then I pounded on it, like my life depended on it! And finally, fast forward a few steps ...you don't need me to show you a photo of me deep frying these, .....tada..... a deep fried Taro Puff!
Chinese New Year is coming. Every year I try to make at least one Chinese New Year cookies, last year, it was peanut cookies, so yum..... the year before it was pineapple jam tarts. My household loves this jam tarts. So I try to make an effort to make this. You would think that, one would find it easier as time goes by with the jam making. But strangely for me, not so much.
This is my second batch of jam making this week. The one that I made last week was a tad watery, I think I shall have to use it for glazing or dessert flavourings or saucing. It was just not fibrous enough, to hold the shape of a round ball to put on top of my open faced tart.
I wanted it to be drier than the first batch. No tears this time, just a lot of determination. I must be getting old because I forgot to strain it last week. It works so much better if one follows the recipe and don't just wing it! :) I blame getting old... Thank goodness, the pineapples are not too dear to buy this time of the year. I would have cried if it was. Besides, there more to CNY than pineapple jam tarts, right? Errr, NO! Not for all the Ang Pows in the world :)
Ingredients
3 - 4 Pineapples
2 cups of sugar ( you can add more but I don't like it too sweet.)
I cinnamon stick
Method
Remove pineapple skins,
Cut into pieces
Process in a blender, I use chop instead of grind for coarser result
Put mash pineapple thru strainer
Collect the juice, you may need it for your Rum or if jam gets too dry.
Heat up pan or wok
Put strained pineapple pulp into pan and leave alone to cook till soft
Add two cups of sugar, mix and leave alone
Check on cooking to ensure it is caramelising nicely and not burnt. Stir it as needed.
When it nice and thick and golden hue, turn heat off
Leave to cool.
Once cooled, put in a sterile jar and keep in refridgerator till you are ready to use it.
You can use it for toast. This jam is so yummy, you shouldn't restrict yourself to just having it on the New Year. As for my other batch... hmmmm I can still use it for icecreams, cakes, or meat glazing on the BBQ. Meanwhile, ahem... need to find some use for juice, Where's that rum??
See how much juice you collect, if you strain it? If you don't strain, that works too but it takes longer for the jam to reduce the liquid and I am sure, no one wants to spend hours on it. Not when there's rum to be drunk !!!
I saw a Char Siu Bao post on friend's time on Facebook, couple days ago and it got stuck in my head for a while. Then I saw this recipe online and thought, "oh what the heck! let's do this." It's not like I can go Yum Cha and ask for chicken bao. They will laugh their head off at me.
You would normally get this steamed or baked in pork, not chicken at Yum Chas. I don't like or eat pork, not really. I do like crispy bacon and smoked ham, only because they have been smoked, and they don't taste like pork and I don't see that shiny bouncy gel like fat shimmering at me. Argh!
So without further ado, the recipes are on the link above. I love Christine's website, she has a lot of easy Chinese recipes if you are a fan of Chinese food. For myself, I prefer Malay food, the spicier, the better.
Here are some of my photos of the making of the bao in my kitchen. Easy, right? Those of you who don't want to spend hours in the kitchen, can follow me.
Buy your ready made char siu from a Chinese grocer or shop; your choice of pork or chicken etc
Buy a bottle of charsiu sauce and sautee the veges with diced chicken and sauce.
The dough on the other hand, no easy way out, you can't buy it, you have to follow the recipe to make your own. It's not hard. And it taste delicious!
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.
I have so many favourites when it comes to Chinese New Year snacks. I love these especially,
Kuih Kapit ( Love Letters)
Kuih Loyang
Peanut cookies
Pineapple jam tarts
Just to name a few here, what are yours?
I have never made peanut cookies before so Charmaine gave me, her recipe from her blog. I want to share a couple of easy recipes with you here. I also found another recipe from Susan of http://www.chocolatesuze.com. You will need to click on the link to get to their blog.
With both recipes to study from, I still manage to forget the grinding of castor sugar...LOL. Next year, will use icing sugar. Never mind, my personal stash, it's alright, still yummy though!
Will be stuffing my face with this while I watch my korean dramas ;)
This post is mainly going to be a food porn as I don't really know much about or have much experience in yumcha. I met up with Shierly and Dex and his lovely wife Ella for lunch during my Sydney weekend getaway. Shierly suggested we do yumcha at East Ocean Restaurant in Chinatown Sydney.
It was so nice to finally meet up with my fellow foodies, it's like catching up with your long lost friends; even though we tweet each other and have our daily banter on Twitter ;)
Let's start with these pics, I was looking at these while I was waiting for them, wow, these are massive.. scary huh?
It was a fantastic spread and Ella did well in ordering. I love it the fried squid and siew mai and prawns dumpling. I didn't know how to eat the chicken feet so I left that alone. I was going "oooh and ahhh" to all the little dishes layout in front of me...yes I only get let off the island once a year ... Just kidding!
You need friends to go yumcha with, and friends I do have but we don't have any place in Wagga Wagga that does yumcha or Dim Sum despite the amount of Chinese Restaurants in town...LAME!!! Sigh! Wished they get on the bandwagon and start doing Yumcha.. it's not just for the Asians, you know! This place was jammed packed with tourist, foreigners and Asians alike.
Friendly Reminder: No part of the content (digital photographs, recipes, articles, etc.) or this blog may be reproduced without my prior written permission.
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