what.i.eight

Mar 20, 2009

similar.but.not.the.same


up 'till now, i've been staying in malaysia for 1.5 years alread
y.
how is it so far? well, so far so good.. surprisingly i really like it
here.
hmm.. maybe not the same answer if you ask me a year before (yeah)

that reminds me on my farewell party in july 2007. rather than celebrate it in a very ''indonesian'' kind of place, i chose a place that serves malaysian cuisine (hmm..) weird choice, knowing that i will have to live with that kind of food for the next few years.

i've heard nasi lemak before, but back then in katjapiring, that was the first time i-eight malaysian food. although now i know, it was similar but not the same. anything is always better in their original place.


as you can see, katjapiring is the name of the place.
it is a restaurant at parisj van java mall or
pvj in short, bandung. we-eight dinner in a big group, maybe around 8-10 person, so we can order many things.

although they specialized in malaysian dishes, they also served nasi langgi garingan simpang lima, it is an indonesian dish.. we also ordered belacan chicken. some of my friends chose nasi lemak, which is the signature of malaysian dishes.


i also found out, talking about malaysian cuisine is always talking about 3 culture, the malay, chinese, and indian. char kway teow is one of the popular noodle dish in malaysia, and also singapore. but the one that we ordered here called fried char kway teow gurney drive. my malaysian friend told me that gurney drive is a famous place in penang state, north side of malaysia. i've been to penang but unfortunately i haven't tried the original fried kway teow in gurney drive.



while for indian food, roti canai is one of the popular dish. you can eat it with chicken or lamb curry or dal curry (vegetable curry). but nowadays, they also make roti milo (with milo powder springkled on top of it), roti kopi (coffee), onion, cheese or anything that you want. what we ordered here is roti canai with curry chicken.


Mar 16, 2009

eat.all.u.can.sushi.part.two


while writting post no.8, i remember my first all-u-can-eat-sushi eating experience. it was in 2007 at suki sushi, cathay cineleisure mall, singapore. just next to the cinema where u can get their all-u-can-eat promo for SGD25.00. surprisingly, i found their dishes was not bad at all, big portion, quite fresh and also tasted good.


i-eight double salmon maki, mini california maki, tako and salmon sashimi, unagi maki, chuka chinmi and kisame itako. all in a huge portion, plenty amount of rice also making you feeling full in a short of time, so be careful not to order more than you can eat. but one thing i remember the most was the butter yaki hotate. very creamy, juicy and super delicious (hmm..). i guess i just came on the right time, right day.. complete satisfaction.



*never eat more than you can lift*
-miss piggy (american puppet character) 1990s-


Mar 13, 2009

papaya.soup



have you ever tried noodle-papaya soup?
i have.

how's the taste?
undescribable
(hmm...)


not much defferent with ordinary noodle soup, but with extra papaya cubes in it. i don't mind actually and i want to try it again next time, but i can say that this is not one of my favourite food.

may 2008, this is at xin wang hongkong cafe, singapore, inside anchorpoint shopping mall, which is located exactly opposite ikea building at alexander road.

i forgot the price for this one, but i remember i wrote it down. i'll tell you later when i find my notes.

why i choose this item?
let's say i do have a similarity with andrew zimmern, a tendency to try a weirdo kind of food (if in some cases, you still can say it as a food).

i remember there's one time, me and my younger brother want to buy an ice cream.
from all the flavour they offer us, he choose ogura flavour (red bead) and i choose wasabi flavour (hooo..).

in the end, he managed to finish his ice cream, but me? after struggling for almost twenty minute
s, i finally gave up (booo). i do like sushi, wasabi, anything, just name it.. but for wasabi ice cream? 'guess i just have to practise much much more on this one.



back to the restaurant. the noodle-papaya soup
was my order, but my friends picked something else, dimsum.

dimsum is like japanese sushi, with lots of variety and options. we didn't order all kind of dimsum, only a portion of siu mai, har gau (shrimp dumpling), and gyoza (japanese dumpling).


the dimsum was okay for me, not the best dimsum i've ever had, but okay.


Mar 12, 2009

authentic.sundanese.cuisine


i realize after reading back all the post, that i haven't mentioned anything about the best place to eat in the whole wide world (for me at least.) let me introduce you the one and only, indonesia.



first city i would like to tell, well supposely bandung.. but not for now.
i will start with it's neighbour, garut. i went there in 2006 with my bestest friends and we-eight quite a lot. first place that we visited is an area named kampung sampireun.

like bandung, garut is a part of west java. the people in west java are mostly sundanese, so you can also find any sundanese food you want here.

eating sundanese food never be complete if you don't have these items, kerupuk emping (melinjo-nut crackers), sambal ulek (crushed chili paste), and jambal roti (salted dry fish). sweet-thick soya sauce also very important, along with lalab (raw vegetables).

about this lalab thing, there's a proverb i found in the web, it says sundanese people will never be starved even if they were left in a jungle as long as there are plants for them to eat.

this is only a joke, but it's true that the sundanese people have been used to this habit of eating plants, such as lalab, for generations until today. sunda is just a land of paradise for lalab lovers.

talking about vegie's, for appetizer i immediately ordered karedok. gosh, this is just the best salad for me. only a simple mix of traditional salad with peanut sauce. but you know what they said, you don't know what you are missing until it's gone and that is exactly what i felt these day. i miss indonesian, specially sundanese food, so much.

anyway, we also ordered nasi liwet, nasi tutug oncom, ikan bakar, sate, sayur asem, tempe and tahu goreng. i'm not sure how to explain these food, but let's try.

nasi liwet is a traditional steam rice dish with coconut gravy and vegetables. we ordered nasi liwet ikan asin (with salted dry fish). very tasty hmm...

while nasi tutug oncom, as the name itself nasi (rice) tutug (mix) oncom (similar like tempeh), so it's a grill rice-mix-with-oncom dish served with traditional fried chicken, fried tofu, sambal hijau (green chili paste), lalab, crackers, and also ikan asin (salted dry fish). see, sundanese food never complete without all these simple-but-very-impotant items.

ikan bakar is grill fish (we ordered gurame fish), sate is satay. you can ask for chicken, beef, or lamb satay. sayur asem is a sour tamarind soup, a popular vegetable soup in sundanese food, while tempe and tahu goreng is fried tempeh and fried tofu. overall, the food was excellent.

i told you before, we-eight quite a lot in garut ... so we have not done yet, next stop was a place called mulih ka desa (return back home to village).

here, we wanted to try a very traditional sundanese food and snacks. so we ordered singkong goreng (fried cassava), another tempe goreng (fried tempeh, we just LOVE tempeh), rujak buah (fruit rojak), and tutut bumbu kuning (snail in yellow gravy), with complementary kerupuk rangginang (traditional crackers), sambal terasi and sambal hijau (dry shrimp chilli paste and green chilli paste). for beverages, we choose tea in pot and two glass of cingcau hijau (jelly with syrup). all served in a very traditional way. but bottom line is, all these food are just amazing.

amazing food, amazing place, amazing friends... that's just about everything.



*one of the delights of life is eating with friends*
second to that is talking about eating.
and, for an unsurpassed double whammy,
there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.
-laurie colwin 'home cooking'-



Mar 9, 2009

late.nite.heavy.supper



have you heard about nasi lemak?


it's a famous dish from malaysia, similar like nasi uduk in indonesia.
normally nasi lemak (steamed coconut-milk-rice) ser
ved with sambal ikan bilis (anchovies in chilli paste) and boiled or omelet egg. you can also add chicken, or sambal sotong (squid in chili paste), or anything that you want. as long as you got the secret recipe, which is the nasi lemak itself.


last friday nite, we went to this nasi lemak place around seapark, petaling jaya. it's a ha
wker-style kind of place, but was so crowded. they also got nasi goreng kambing (lamb fried rice) and other menu, but the nasi lemak is their speciality.


i normally eat nasi lemak as a breakfast, so the idea to eat nasi lemak at nite was.. hmm different (for me). no complaint here though, just take note, it really is a big heavy supper. but it wasn't for the same reason i didn't eat that nite, not because a diet reason or anything (hmm..) i just have to order a take-out. so the next morning, i re-heated the nasi lemak and tried to serve it nicely. i took few snaps before i finally eight it.


the nasi lemak was suberb . . . very rich, you can taste the coconut milk flavour, along with this chocolate colour sauce also anchovies and fried groundnut they put in it. hmm . . . although i don't think it's a similar chili paste sauce you get from any other nasi lemak stall.



on the other hand my friend was right, the fried egg and the fried chicken is a bit oily. the chicken skin was okay, but the meat itself is rather tasteless or plain for me. but
for a portion of great RM4.50 nasi lemak ayam, i totally recommend it.

how
to get there? well.. i'll have to ask the person behind the wheel for that, will update later on.


mud.cake



i always wanted to eat a mud-cake.
sounds muddy, melting, just tempting.

and finally i eight (hoorai). this one is at coffee club, around orchad road area in october 2008.

my brother loves to hang out in a small downtown street side cafe. just to drink coffee, browsing the webworld or wasting time with friends. but for me, well i am not really a coffee person.

doesn't mean i dont like coffee, it's just tea suits me better tea is more personal and contemplating while coffee is more casual. that's why we have tea-ceremony rather than coffee-ceremony.. i think

so while my brother doing his thing, and the rest of the family were chatting and gossiping for sure, i, as usual, just busy picking what to order and eat.

i don't know if this is a real mud-cake, at least for me it is. it's a combination of cake, layers of ice creams, with chocolat
e syrup poured on top of it. really good, and the size is huge, but the best of all is, tasted just exactly like a mud-cake in my mind.




Mar 8, 2009

eat.all.u.can.sushi


finally!


after sushi-fasting for almost three months... it's payback time (yeaay)
and guess what, today is a special day... and this is my #8 post (d
ouble yeaay)

i already aim this one sushi restaurant since i read ky's blog. the name is rakuzen, in chulan square, kuala lumpur. i heard they are actually the same as zanmai sushi, my favourite conveyor-belt sushi restaurant for now. luckily, rakuzen got sunday buffet lunch, only sunday and only lunch time, for RM55++ for adult and RM28++ for children (last time only 40something if i'm not mistaken... hmm)

it is actually very easy to reach there, well i got lost in the beginning because came out from the wrong pavillion mall exit door and got misdirection... shame on me, i know.


i booked one week ahead, minimum pax is 2 person and it's only from 12pm to 3pm. they will give you a list of menu, so you just have to order what you want. but be wise and don't be too overwhelmed, there's also charge for wastage food you left, RM10 for every 100gram.

as this was a breaking-fast moment for me, as a start i ordered (not too) many items. hot ocha for sure, then chuka wakame, chuka chinmi, chuka iidako, sashimi moriawase (assorted sashimi), and sushi moriawase (assorted sushi). there was also yanagawa nabe, udon, and miso soup.


the sashimi includes maguro, shiromi, sake, tako, and ika. the sushi includes maguro, shiromi, sake, unagi, nama hotate, ni hotate, ebi, tako, ika, ebikko, tamagoyaki, inari, and kaori-hana kani.

while waiting the food to come, i prepared the the wasabi and shoyu. it may sound weird, but i like to mix the wasabi into the shoyu with lots of chili powder and sweet sauce.

sweet sauce? yup, the black thick sweet taste soya sauce. not all sushi place got this one, so i am starting to consider bring myself one everytime i go (hmm...). beside sushi or sashimi, i also like to dip sweet ginger to this mix sauce (yummy and refresh-ing).


the second order was another spider roll, sake sashimi, chuka kurage, soft shell crab, yakitori, and finally after almost two hours eating, we finished up with macha ice cream (i managed to eat two... yaay).


final impression? well.. i actually hoping for more. to be honest, it wasn't as nice and most importantly as fresh as i imagine. but still okay laa.. at least much better than last time i eight buffet in one japanese restaurant at bandar utama. maybe i came on the wrong day or just not my luck. i still gonna come there again one day.


Mar 3, 2009

all.about.sushi.and.sashimi.part.two


this is part two.

part one is when eating sushi is like one in a million chances.

part two is... well

let say i met more people with the same addiction to sushi
and more opportunity to eat with less worries about my pocket conditio
n (sigh)

anyway, i got the chance to visit singapore again around december 2007.
so another sushi time (yaay). this time at
(not agaain..) sushitei at raffles city mall.






















drinks? hot ocha for sure..
then, trying to saved up some money, first item i ordered was a SGD7.00 chirashi don (rice in bowl with assorted sashimi slices). anything with rice will make my stomach full, prevented me to order any other items, although beside that i do like chirashi don, especially the pink -sweet taste thing they put in it.

another item was a-must-ordered tobikko, for a price of SGD2.80. i've told you before... i LOVE crunchy-munchy tobikko sushi.
after that i ordered chuka chinmi, also my favourite, SGD 4.00 and for dessert was a SGD 3.40 peach jelly (hmm.. yummy).



eating at sushitei, always a pleasure and no complaint... err well except for the price (sigh)




pancakes


early 2008

a friend asked
hey, have you heard about pancake?
sure, a cake in a pan...
no nooo...

found this new place, where you can eat pancakes

not only with syrup, jam, butter or ice cream
but also with sausage, ham, bacon, hash brown and ma
shed potato
and tastes as good as it looks,
oh.. is it a cake-bread kind of place?
hmm.. sort of
oh okay (not that interested)


until, few months after that, my two bestest friends came to visit. as we looovee to eat so we try that pancake-bread place. it turns out super great (yaay). the place's name is paddington pancakes, at the curve mall, damansara perdana.

this is my favourite mall in malaysia. here, is actually
5 (five) mall combined into one large area. there is the curve, tesco hypermarket, cinelleisure, ikano shopping mall, and the one and only, ikea. but the concept itself is an open air mall, similar like parisj van java or cihampelas walk in bandung. ooppss... wrong topic here, okay back to food.




so, as you can see from the name, their speciality is pancakes, of cours
e. but with many many many kind of pancakes, we even need more than half an hour just to pick and order what we want. all the things in the menu looks so tempting, but we got to choose...

in the end,
this is the first item which we order. with the price RM22.50 menu number 406, double gourmet cheese sausages, beef salami, hashbrown, and grilled mozarella complete with salad and cherry tomatoes. i don't know what they called for the sauce, but it makes the whole thing complete.






the second item called dollar pancakes. basically it contains a lot of mini pancakes, together with
strawberries, peaches (hmm... my favourite), apple cubes, and cashew nut.

don't
forget two scopes of ice creams, which you can choose chocolate, strawberry or vanilla flavour (we chosed chocolate and vanilla) and lastly strawberry syrup poured on top of it.

(yummy) it tasted as good as its looks.

yes, that is my first experience at paddington pancakes, on may 2008. then early this year, feb 2009, i got another visitor (hmm.. lucky me..) and another chance to eat here.

but for this time, i completely forgot to write down the dishes name, so can only show you the pic. if i'm not mistaken, first picture was somekind of a chessy-pancake-pizza, second one was pancake with hash brown, beef bacon and ham. third one was lasagna with spinach-pancake roll.



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