I'm still here

Yes it's been over a month since my last post. It's not that I haven't been going to places to eat, nor does it mean that I haven't been knitting/crocheting... I just haven't had the appropriate time to blog about them! Internet's been a bit iffy at home and I try not to blog too much in the office!

On the knitting front, I am currently knitting the Mistaken Pumpkin - with the Mistaken shawl pattern by Kourtney Robinson and two skeins of Pumpkin Latte superwash merino wool in fingering weight by The Plucky Knitter. Quite a bit of modifications to the pattern, which calls for 12mm needles vs the 4.5mm that I am using. Had to double the number of repeats on the main pattern and I am now on the edging, while I will most likely double as well, depending on how much yarn I have left.

I have been busy crocheting bags with the intention of selling them in church some time in future. I initially targeted the SFX Family Day in mid July but because I didnt have time to make as many as I wanted, I've decided to sell it some other time - maybe Christmas. No specific pattern was followed, mostly I came up with them myself.

Recently completed FOs also include my Black Purl top, a crocheted top from one of my Japanese pattern books and Lorna Laces Swirl DK in Black Purl. Really love it - finished it in about a week - so enthusiastic I was about it!

Food-wise, I need to start uploading all my photos!! Eep....

Cooking lesson with Master Chef Tan

As part of cousin Adeline's 16th birthday celebrations, a cooking lesson with our master chef in the family, Uncle Tan was arranged. I believe all should realise now that this family's lives all revolve around food!

Uncle Tan makes one of the best mein fun kuey or pan mee. Essentially homemade wheat flour noodles in a rich anchovy broth. Instead of using the pasta maker to make noodles as is more commonly done in the shops, one tears thin strips of the dough by hand and drops them into the broth. Essential condiments are the deep fried anchovies, potato leaves and crispy fried onions. Optional condiments are fishballs, meatballs, pre-cooked boneless chicken pieces, clams, prawns etc.

Instructions for making the dough:
Put 1 tsp of salt, 3 tbsp of olive oil, 2 cups of water, 2 tbsp of cornflour and a packet of wheatflour into a deep dish.



Handknead until smooth and all the floury paste no longer sticks to your palms, adding water gradually. This is the tricky part because there is no exact measurement - it's all by the feel of the dough.
The broth is made with dried anchovies and chicken bones. The optional condiments listed above may be added before the dough is added to make the broth sweeter. The dough is torn and stretched as thin as possible. Too thick and it's not nice. Next add the potato leaves.

Once the broth boils up again and cooked for a few minutes, it's done.

To serve, fill up a bowl with a mixture of everything in the pot and add the fried anchovies and the deep fried onions. Another important item is the sambal belachan, a spicy chilli and fermented prawn paste combo that completes this dish. I will need to learn that recipe from my Auntie Mag next time.
Of course, since we are greedy, we also had other dishes along with the pan mee. From the front, chicken curry (with no coconut milk because some in the family can no longer have such luxuries in their diet), yong tau fu and beef rendang.


YUM!

Piggin' Out: Imbi Market

One fine Sunday morning, we were invited to breakfast at the busy Imbi Market by Uncle Lee. This is one of his breakfast haunts (although he has many food haunts) and he regularly packs the famous beef noodles for us.

Since my mom no longer eats beef (just because she doesn't want to), he ordered some other dishes.

Prawn mee

Mee jawa

Assam laksa

We found it really amusing that he ordered so much for her, considering the fact that my mom usually barely eats more than a quarter of a regular bowl of noodles. But anyway, we all got to try them!

Verdict: All three were good but somehow, cannot compare to what you'd get in Penang!

And now, the highlight of our trip: BEEF NOODLES!

The Imbi Market beef ball noodles were my mom's favourite when she was growing up in KL... so much so that she threw away her no-red-meat philosophy for a few seconds and ate some! (That's a very big deal because my mom has very strong willpower when it comes to food, unlike the rest of us!)

I like how this picture below came out. It looks like I stuck two pictures together! Anyway, beef balls on the left, brisket on the right.

The noodles were served separately, with the option of horfun, meehoon or mee.

I chose horfun, my favourite.

Shen took the mee, since she apparently abhors rice noodles for some reason.

The shopowner gladly posed for me.

After the feasting, I had great fun taking pictures of some of the other stalls. We also bought our weekly chicken, fish and vegetables at the market. A bit pricier than the Old Klang Road market but much cheaper than The Village Grocer, of course!

I was so excited about seeing this apam stall and planned to come back after taking all the pictures to buy some for myself. When I got back to the stall, they had just sold the last piece! I guess that means I have to go back again for more nom!

I'm not that big a fan of apam balik, on the other hand. But hey it looked really good!

Piggin' Out: Monte's @ BSC - revisited

Another lovely meal at Monte's, located in Bangsar Shopping Centre...

* read about my previous post on Monte's here*

Pumpkin soup: creamy and always consistent in taste

Warm buns with butter


Garlic toast: a classic...



Another classic: the escargot...

Deep fried oysters were good too...

I had the grilled snapper fillet with garlic butter sauce, something that as a kid, I used to order every time I came to Monte's. Still good!

Rommel stuck to his usual ribeye steak, good as always.

And my sister ordered another familiar dish - peppermint lamb.

We polished the night off sharing dessert:

Definitely one of our favourite restaurants in KL - for its good food, convenient location and value-for-money portions.

March 2010 birthdays

The night after our Restoran Homey feast, we had a triple birthday celebration party at our home with the god-siblings.

We had many options on how to feed a whole bunch of adults - cooking (but who was going to do it? I was lazy and Shen was busy that day), buying from food court (but we always buy from the food court and I'm really bored of it), ordering from roomservice.com (but we couldn't decide what to order)......

So, after our Homey feast, we decided that it was probably the yummiest option. Plus, we didn't mind eating it two days in a row.

The tables were set....
.... and the candles were lit....

....the birthday song was sung...

Happy Birthday, Sandra, Kok Beng and Stella!

And finally, a model in the making - Isabelle...

Piggin' Out: Restoran Homey - revisited

I've been happily playing with my new camera and new lens... Here's pictures from a recent meal at Restoran Homey, Kuchai. (for my previous posts and restaurant contact details, click here and here)

Indonesian mud crabs steamed with egg - perfect to start the meal with. My dad usually calls up before we leave the house to preorder this, and it arrives at our table just moments after we sit down. (We've timed it all to perfection by now, given the number of times we come here)

Next up is the mantis prawn stir-fried kung po style, served in a deep fried yam basket. Fantastic..

My mom always remembers to order the Hokkien-fried meehoon, amazingly stir-fried in loads of lard.

That day, we brought our own fish there... Deep fried to perfection, of course.

And to end the meal - the chilli crabs - same Indonesian mud crabs, cooked in a different style and served with deep fried mantou buns.

Definitely my family's favourite place to eat. My brother's booked it as his first meal when he comes home for Easter next week.

Piggin' Out: Penang CKT and Assam Laksa

My report on my Penang trip is out, with this pic on the front page!

This is my favourite Assam Laksa in Penang - at the Air Itam market. I blogged about it in Aug08 and Apr09... after my foodie trips up to the food capital of Malaysia.

I then found out from my limo auntie (who always chauffeurs my mom around when she goes to Penang for meetings) that she thinks the best Assam Laksa in Penang is in fact the one on Penang road facing the police station. Later my uncle who lived in Penang for a couple of years in the early nineties, agreed and said the Penang road one is the best.

Penang is also famous for its Char Kuey Teow, perhaps none more famous than the Lorong Selamat one. I initially wanted to try the Ah Leng CKT which is somewhere near Padang Brown as it has mantis prawns and duck eggs (oooh premium CKT!) but when we got to the stall, it was CLOSED! Can you imagine my dismay?

*Note to self: Ah Leng CKT is closed on Thursdays

So luckily Lorong Selamat was not too far away and we headed there instead. So much hype, so much expectations... and sadly, the Lorong Selamat CKT fell short of expectations.

Don't get me wrong. It was good, but not as good as to warrant RM7 per plate. And it was much better than its nearby competitor - Sisters' CKT on Jln Macalister. Not sure if I'll ever go back to that stall again though.

And so, I guess this means another trip to Penang is necessary - need to try out the Penang road Assam Laksa and the Ah Leng CKT!

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

... albeit a rather belated Chinese New Year wish!

This is my sister's first CNY celebration at home in five years... so I think my most frequent question to her all of last week was... "So does this feel like Chinese New Year yet?"

CNY is a special celebration time for Chinese families worldwide.

There's the must-have reunion dinners... This is actually taken on the second day of CNY when we went back to my aunt's home in Rawang one more time for another round of "feasting'. In accordance with tradition, we went back to my dad's hometown on the eve of CNY for the actual reunion dinner.

My aunt's cooking is something I really look forward to every CNY. We had my favourite chun kuen (similar to spring rolls but its meat rolled up in thin pork fat sheets and deep fried), another favourite qu tou tong (pig's stomach soup with pepper), siew yoke (roast pork) and steamed chicken.


There's the rounds of full course Chinese dinners (and lunches).

Here are my cousins Samantha, Vanessa and Melissa tossing the "lou sang" at our family reunion lunch (for my mom's side of the family). We ate at Ming Room, Bangsar Shopping Centre.


We also had one round with my dad's side of the family on the third night of CNY. Here's my dad, his youngest sister (I call her Mui Gu), her son, her husband and my dad's second sister (Chui Gu). We had a great feast in Gu Yue Tien, Chulan Square.


This picture is for my friend Suen who sadly couldn't make it for my CNY party this year. She loves this jelly cake, ordered from this lady we've affectionately called "The Jelly Auntie" who lives nearby. Suen can eat a whole cake by herself!


The second night of CNY happened to be Rommel's birthday so we took a break from all the Chinese dinners and celebrated at Sage. They took the liberty to specially prepare the truffle pasta for us although it wasn't in the menu. This was so good, we wanted to go back for lunch the next day to have it again.

More pictures are here.

Piggin' Out: Cilantro

I was supposed to blog about this ages ago. Once I found out Cilantro had reopened, I checked with the family for the next available dinner slot and booked a table straightaway. I got so excited, I blogged about it on the day we went to eat there in late December.

The main question most people would have in their minds would be - how different is Cilantro to Sage? At least that was on my mind when I got there.

First up = the truffle butter.

I can sing songs and write poems about this truffle butter. I read so much about it before, having never tried Cilantro before it closed for the renovations. It was a really glorifying experience to finally have tasted it.

We also got to taste the nori butter, a specialty that isn't made and therefore isn't served that often. Good, very good infact, but still couldn't beat the truffle butter. We were shy about asking for more truffle butter. In our next 2 trips to Cilantro, we literally gobbled it all up.

One point I would like to make though is that the bread at Sage is much much better than the one in Cilantro. We had Cilantro and Sage within the space of a few days so the memory was still very fresh in our minds. Maybe Cilantro should pinch over the person making the bread at Sage, just to complete the experience.

Starters (from bottom right, clockwise - that was the order we were told to eat it): Raw tuna with truffle shavings, uni or sea urchin pasta (absolutely heavenly), prawn with avruga caviar, raw oyster and umeshu.

Next was pan seared foie gras with braised quail. Yum... How can one say no to foie gras?

This was probably the highlight (apart from the truffle butter, of course) - lobster consomme. Really really good.
For the mains, my dad and I chose the grilled Japanese beef while Rommel and Patteh chose the lobster.


For dessert, passion fruit creme brulee with mango sorbet. I like...

That first meal there was really good, I must say. However, my third visit to Cilantro proved to be a slight disappointment because I didn't quite remember the food itself. Although, that could have been because I was with a whole bunch of girls and we talked non stop throughout the entire meal and so I didn't spend as much time savouring every bite.

In any case, I will definitely be going back there...