Seafood @ JB part 2 + Meldrum Walk near City Square

Continuing from our previous JB food trip, we went back to JB again on Friday because I had to replenish my contact lens supply.

The place is called Hiang Kee restoran, it kind of looks like our coffee shops selling tze char. The place is at Taman Sri Tebrau and is very near the checkpoint, only about 5 - 10 minuted by cab from City Square. The cab there cost us RM8 withou meter and RM5.40 with meter for the trip back. We wanted to walk out and take a bus back to City Square like how we usually do but we forgot to save our change for the bus ride.

Ordered salted egg crab this time round. Really love crab but always don't know how to eat. Hahaha. The only part that I don't have trouble eating is the pincer. But K was nice enough to peel off the shell for me so that it's easier for me to eat. <3 ^^

 Ordered cereal crayfish also. So meaty and so shiok. And the cereal was really nice too. Would have went really well with rice, but then we didn't order any rice cos we didn't want to waste stomach space.

Ordered bean lala this time round. But I think I still prefer steam la la, too bad K doesn't eat. Why so picky about food one leh

But the la la this time round was so small, almost feel like I couldn't taste anything. In the end K finished most of the dish.

 The aunty also kept telling us to try their specialty 'gong mian', which is just fried bee hoon what. But it was still very good.

 And my absolute favourite of the day - cheese prawn. Each prawn was so well coated with cheese, and not in a sickening way. It was so good that I even ate the shell for some of them. I really love love LOVE this dish!! ^^

The meal came up to RM160.80 inclusive of 3 lime juices and 3 fried man tou. We changed our ringgit at a rate of 2.45 so the whole meal only cost $65.60 approximately. Damn cheap considering how much we ate, the two of us finished all those can you imagine. 

After our movie, we went to try out the food at Meldrum Walk nearby City Square. Got to know about the place randomly while googling. Saw it from johorkaki's blog and decided to give it a try, venture out from our usual food haunts. Here are the coordinates.

It was surprisingly empty for a Friday night. Reading johorkaki's blog gave me the impression that it was going to be bustling with people, a bit like Bangkok's food streets. We went there around 8 but it was quite empty, some of the stalls were also closed. 

I underestimated the size of the food street. Hahaha. Thought it'll only be like one backlane of food, but it was actually a very very long street, separated into Chinese food, Malay food and Indian food. 

We went to the Chinese food section.

RM6 for a small size plate of orh jian. Don't really like raw food so ended up eating most of the egg only. 

RM4 for a plate of Wanton Mee. 

Stir-fried vege at RM7.

RM9 for one chicken wing and 2 huge ass chicken drumsticks.

Maybe because we were still quite full from lunch, but the food were not as good as I expected. The orh jian, the wanton mee and the vege were all mediocre and nothing memorable.

But the chicken was really ultimate shioks. It was very tender and juicy, with a hint of smoky taste at the same time.

Another must try is their soya milk, they put honey inside to sweeten the soya milk and it was damn refreshing and nice.

Can't wait to go back next week for more seafood + chicken drumsticks + soya milk.

Fu Le Fried Hokkien Mee @ Sunshine Plaza

 We always go to Sunshine Plaza for the dim sum, and very occasionally the thai food. But there's also the hokkien mee and the wanton mee stall that is always crowded as well.

And when there's a crowd, it means the food is good right? So k and I finally went to give the hokkien mee a try.

The place is called Fu Le Fried Hokkien Mee, we ordered the hokkien mee (needless to say) and wanted the prawn omelette as well (I love prawn omelettes I don't know why), but they didn't have it anymore, which is really weird if you ask me, because they obviously have prawns, and egg, it's used in the hokkien mee, so why not prawn omelette leh?

Anyway, the hokkien mee reminds me of the ones sold in my secondary school, my favourite to date. I like mine watery and moist, and these were exactly like that, but they were a bit too sweet as well leh, would have been much better if they toned it down.

Victor's Kitchen @ Sunshine Plaza, Part 2

K and I dropped by Victor' Kitchen for dinner again the other day, and managed to order some things that we didn't order the first round.

But then there's the standard few that we just cannot miss!

 Their pai kwat fun i.e. pork ribs rice. I feel like the one my mommy makes is much nicer, but K said he liked this. :\

Their har kaw was okay, but Royal China has much better ones leh.

Our first visit can be found here.

Seafood @ JB

We finally went to JB for a much anticipated seafood dinner today. NUS gave us a nice boxing day present by returning our results, and surprisingly I did quite well, even passed GIS which I thought I'll surely fail.

Any excuse is a good excuse when it comes to food right. ^^

Tutti Frutti before our movie. I really like frozen yoghurt! But why are they so expensive! *must take the chance to nom nom nom them since they're so cheap in JB*

So after our movie (Les Miserables sucked btw), we finally made our way to our usual JB seafood haunt.

There's not much service to speak of here, and the place is definitely low on atmosphere, but they have one of the best value for money and oh-so-delicious seafood that I have tried.

K is on my back again. Forever asking me to eat vegetables. So we ordered the garlic sprouts thing. I don't usually like this dish, feel like they're very hard to chew, but this one tasted quite alright I guess.

Prawn omelette! I really like prawn omelettes I don't know why. Yes I know they're just prawns fried with egg, but somehow they taste really nice leh!

But I would have preferred if they used bigger crunchier prawns instead. The prawns here were so small I couldn't really taste it.

Bottom line: stick with the seafood and you'll never go wrong.

 Butter crayfish! Om nom nom nom. The crispy butter melts in your mouth! So nice! :D

Cheese crab! They gave us two crabs this time round so it was more expensive. But it was a really big dish and so quite worth the money la. The cheese crab here is fantastic, especially for someone who cannot take chili like me.

Sour plum juice. For my poor throat battling K's bacteria.

And some more pictures from our previous seafood visits

Din Tai Fung @ Wisma Atria

We went to town on Christmas for dinner, and settled for Din Tai Fung before our movie because Din Tai Fung just cannot go wrong right.

 Christmas tree outside ION.

Whenever we go to Din Tai Fung, our staple would be their dumpings in spicy oil (superrrrr good), the xiao long bao, and their pork chop fried rice.

But K wanted to 'be more adventurous', so we decided to try something new as well.

The prawn pancake thing at $9, tasted so similar to fishcake. If not for the visible prawn slices, I would have doubted if it really contained prawns.

The vegetable and minced pork bun ($1.30). K insisted on ordering this because the vege makes it healthy. But turned out it was more like a vege bun and totally tasteless. Lucky we only ordered one. I made K finished everything hehehe ^^

The minced pork bun (without veges!!!!) at $1.30 as well. This one tasted much better, but not very different from the kopitiam pao leh I feel. The skin tasted a bit different though, like more handmade, reminds me of the paos that my mommy makes.

Ending my post with a random picture of Orchard Road. They cordoned off a section of Scotts Road and had like performances there. Feels quite cool to walk in the middle of the road, but it was oh-so-crowded. *shudders*

Lesson of the day: don't be adventurous with food. Hahaha.

Food Review: Victor's Kitchen @ Sunshine Plaza

Finally had a chance to try out the famous Victor's Kitchen that is raved by so many of my friends. I have been wanting to try out their dim sum for a really long time now, but their closing time of 8pm makes things really difficult.

The shop has a very simple old coffee shop style kind of layout. A very small dining place with fuss-free wooden tables and plastic red chairs.

Because the tables and chairs are so closely clustered together, it makes it quite a challenge to maneuver your way between the tables when getting the order papers and making payment. My back was practically touching the back of the girl sitting behind me as well.

You have to collect two different order papers from the counter yourself, one is for the drinks and one is for the dim sum.

The famous carrot cake with XO sauce. But I find this dish so-so only. It was palatable, not nothing to scream in joy about. In fact, it was a tad plainer than the carrot cakes that I'm used to because it didn't come with a generous stuffing of the chinese sausage and other 'liao' that you expect. I very much prefer the Mongkok Dim Sum version to this.

Authentic HK milk tea. This was a really interesting drink because the tea is served chilled in a dish of ice, so you don't have to worry about your drink being diluted as the ice melts. I quite like it, it was sweet with a slightly bitter after taste. 

Golden egg yolk Lava Bun. This has got to be the highlight of the night. I have heard so much good things about this dish from friends that I was initially quite afraid that I might be disappointed. But it far exceeded my expectations. Seriously, it's totally worth it travelling down just for their golden egg yolk lava bun. The sweet and salty combination is by far the most perfect that I've tried. It even beats the one at Royal China or Bosses hands down.

We also ordered the prawn cheong fun. But this was really disappointing. The skin was too thick and floury, with two measly prawns per roll. We took out the prawns and left the skin untouched.

We also had their queen siew mai and fried prawn dumplings, because the steamed har gow wasn't available. Unfortunately we were too busy eating by then and didn't take photos for those. But the fried prawn dumpling is good.

We spent around $30 for about 6 - 7 dishes and two drinks. The price was okay because there wasn't GST or service charge. Some of the dishes were quite disappointing, but nonetheless, the golden egg yolk lava buns totally made up for it.

Definitely worth a try!

91 Bencoolen Street

#01-21 Sunshine Plaza

Tel: 9838 2851

Tue - Sun: 10:30 - 20:00

Food Review: 328 Katong Laksa (53 East Coast Road)

Had a craving for laksa (the last time I had a bowl of laksa was at least a year ago. OMG I know) so off I went all the way to the east for a bowl of the famous Katong Laksa.

Still remember how I used to go there with my classmates after school and crowd up the whole shop. The stretch there used to have a lot more of katong laksa shops, and they sold more stuff as well. I still remember one of the shops (I think it's the same one I went to today) had really good fried kway teow, but it's no longer there now. 

When you're there, you shouldn't be expecting any nice service, or ambience whatsoever, it's really just the laksa that keeps you coming back. There's no menu and whatever food the shop has is printed on the A4 papers pasted on the wall.

Laksa (and the hum) has a very acquired taste. It's either you love it, or you don't. I used to really hate it when I was young because it was too milky for my liking, but my taste seems to have changed as I aged.

The laksa is served with only a spoon and no chopsticks, but the bee hoon is cut up into short small pieces so that it's easier to scoop up as you eat. I wasn't very used to eating with only the spoon, but it was still manageable.

The gravy itself is really really rich and flavorful, probably why the katong laksa is so famous. You can smell the coconut milk before you even take a sip. There's also a generous serving of fishcakes and hum. But disappointingly, the hum was too raw for my liking, almost as if it hasn't been cooked. you can taste a very strong seafood after taste. I prefer my hum to be slightly cooked while retaining the juicy texture.

For someone who can't take spicy food like me, this is really the best laksa you can ask for. It's really tasty without being overly spicy.

Review: Thaipan (Mandarin Gardens Condominium)

Went to Thaipan quite a while back but didn't put up the review or the photos because they weren't very good. We were too hungry and too busy eating to bother about the camera. But I suddenly had a craving for Thaipan tonight, so just thought I would post this up.

I went to the one at Mandarin Gardens Condominium, I very much prefer this branch than the one at Changi Village even though they're supposed to be selling the same dishes. Maybe it's the memory and reminiscence, I went there for lunch and dinner very often when I was studying at VJC, or maybe the chef there can just cook better.

We didn't order a lot because I went with K and it was just the two of us. But it's sad that the prices keep increasing. :(

This is the famous Thaipan olive fried rice ($7), very nicely done and the rice was very fragrant.

The broccoli with fresh crab meat ($8). It was my first time trying the dish, and for someone who doesn't like her veges, this dish was quite impressive. The sauce was really really nice and you'll have this at home feel when the hot smooth sauce slides down your throat.

Butter squid ($10). This is a must order! I never fail to order this every single time I come to this restaurant. It;s just that good.

We also had the Yangzhou fried rice ($4.50) but it was nothing special. Seems like the standard dropped because this used to be what I always order when we call for take outs.