A New Home for Cumi & Ciki!

Monkeys have moved to another forest!

http://ccfoodtravel.com/

xoxo, cumi&ciki ;)

Winner for NAME THE PERSON & TATTOO is..
BABE IN THE CITY KL!

CONGRATS BABE!

Contest

QUESTION: 1. WHO'S TATTOO IS 'ALILFATMONKEY' LOOKING AT , and
2.WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Be the first person to answer the following question correctly on both Cumi & Ciki and alilfatmonkey's blog to win yourself a fabulous prize. Remember, you need to answer on both blogsites, correctly to be eligible. Trust me, you'll want this prize!

Click here to go to Alilfatmonkey's Blog to log in your answers after you're done here.

Terms & Conditions:
1. Luscious and 'Ahpa' (i.e: Lyrical Lemongrass & Fatboybakes) are NOT allowed to participate. Not because we hate cha, but because .. We are family (sister sledge!)...
Rules are rules.. (blame lilfatmonkey.. not me.. :P mwhahaahaha)
2. Bonus points for anyone who can guess what the prizes are too.
3. Comments will not be published until this weekend when the winner is announce. So get cracking now!
4. Have a good weekend now.

Good Luck and Happy Friday!

Enlisting the help of Netizens... in particular 1Malaysians

What fruit/plant/veg are the following?
We found these specimens at Tanah Rimba and Bukit Tinggi Market. Your help in identifying them will bring good karma to you for enlightening many other netizens.

Specimen A - Fruit. Looks like a yellow brinjal/persimmon. Tastes similar to a mildly sweet persimmon. Texture; smooth creamy/ over ripe persimmon. Size; a little bigger than a large orange.

Specimen B - Fruit. Probably non edible. Initially thought it was a poorly grown apple.

Specimen C - Fruit. Edible unknown. Should have taken home a sample.

Specimen D - Fruit. Again, i should have plucked one home to dissect!

This one is self explanatory... Binjai(Mangifera caesia). Saw this at a PLUS Highway stop. Initially thought it was another name for the ciku fruit but apparently its different fruit altogether. A sweet sour white flesh mango which is indigenous to Borneo according to Wiki and another blog. Size; a really large ciku! I didn't think about buying some for tasting until while typing this post.
There is also the wild mango variety called quinine which looks very similar to your supermarket mangoes, usually green and emits extra pungent mango scent when ripe. Usually very sweet and fibrous. I have a picture of it from a village orchard but can't seem to locate it for this post.

Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant, One Bangsar

Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant at One Bangsar - we love this place since it moved to the upstairs of the same building, along the One Bangsar row of bungalow restaurants. Downstairs is now Saigon, the club. Thank goodness the noise of the bar does not filter upstairs and you can hardly hear the ruckus going on below,as you eat. Anyway, the convenience of balcony dining is also an option now, since the place has relocated, and this is a real big plus. The manager is so nice that he does not mind if you dine inside, then outside, then inside... extremely charming service! One word of caution, if you fear mosquitoes, like moi, kindly dine inside.. that way you won't be a meal for those little bloodsuckers!

I love the Banh Beo as it is beautifully served on a tray, as individual dishes of steamed rice flour dough with tiny dried shrimp, spices and pork crackling (but in our case, fried breadcrumbs as this place is halal), served with a sweetened nuoc mam sauce. The fish sauce with the searing, hot chili is what gives it that tongue-numbing kick. Fantastic!

I told you it looked pretty!

Here we are on the balcony! My dining companions are great fun.. we can talk all night and still not run out of things to talk about. It's a real gift this talking non-stop business. It truly is:P

Tongue numbing BURN! You see the harmless looking skewers of prawn? At first we thought they were a push-over to eat. "Vietnamese food where got hot one.. ?" Exclaimed M at the start of the night. Boy was she wrong. The prawn is coated in this super-duper, rocket hot chili spices that will have your lips looking like Sophie Monk's trout pout in no time;) See how pouty we look?! Excellent food I must say. It felt light especially because of the greens they use in Vietnamese, and spicy enough to 'cut the grease' so.. yea, you end up not feeling much of your dinner at all.

The iced dessert to take the pain away - the Banh Flan.

The Banh flan(caramel flan) is a french dessert that made its way into vietnamese cuizine, via the french colonization of Vietnam. Just the thing to bring down the temperature in our mouths and help us recover from the killer spicy meal. This was on the house, so 'Thank you Mr. Manager'. We found this caramel flan flavoured with something that tasted like coffee and a little too egg-y. It was just so-so for us.

We also had the homemade vietnamese yogurt. This is my favourite dessert here.. much better than banh flan. It was more tart and had a thinner texture than your normal yogurt. Superbly smooth and creamy.

Finally, something to munch on whilst you chat and drink your vietnamese tea/coffee. Our friend M, was eating this like it was a main course. Says M... , "It's so nice hor... you can just eat it all in one go and not feel it!" Lucky thing it's ginger, and it's good for you! I am not so sure about the sugar coating though... can't be all that healthy consuming that much sugar huh?

Anyway, a great night out with my girl friends.. thank you for making it such a fun night out.. and thank you for the Vietnamese treat - great choice!

Add:
Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant (1st Floor)
One Bangsar,
Bangsar
(Non-pork)

Dragon-i , The Curve - Hairy Crab Promotion

sticky and icky.. I wonder if I am a hairy female or hairy male..
(if I am female.. someone please kindly pass me the razor) .

Oh! I am MALE.. and I am told.. i do not ooze ROE..

When one is called for a review on the Hairy Crab, specially flown weekly from the famous Tai Lake in China, one normally does not say no;) The latest promotion at Dragon-i, that is highly seasonal and is subject to availability, is the Hairy Crab set menu that costs RM 128.00/person (min 3 pax) with six dishes – Steamed shanghainese hairy crab, steamed shanghainese crab roe dumpling (xiao long bao a.k.a. XLB) , double-boiled chicken soup with fish maw & bamboo pith, sauteed fresh vegetable with crab roe, chinese fried rice, and for dessert, sesame dumpling in ginger soup.

Hairy Crabs (a.k.a. Dazha crab or Chinese mitten crab) are so named because their front claws have a thick mass of hair. While the crabs are considered the main delicacy of a meal, they usually do not appear in a traditional Chinese meal until the very end, after all the other dishes have been served.

Everyone tends to have his or her own style in tackling the crab to get to the meat. Most tend to eat the legs first because the flesh is pushed out of the shell and placed back in the shell again, intact. This makes eating the legs the easiest of tasks. After that, everyone rips into the shell bits, and eats pretty much everything else. The orange part is the roe and considered the best part. Crabs are considered to be yin (cold foods), so to balance it you eat them by dipping into vinegar with ginger and if you have Chinese wine to go with it, even better.

If you ask me, the set price of RM128 is a real steal because the taste is just out of this world. After fighting with the shell to get to the delicate pieces of meat and juicy roe, you want the taste to be worth all the effort. Although pricey, it truly is a Shanghainese dish that everyone needs to try at least once. The male roe is actually, ahem, sperm and is thick and gooey in consistency and heavy with feeling! We sampled the female hairy crab with the vegetables - sweet and succulent but less thick in texture. This was delicious too. The other dish I thoroughly enjoyed was the XLB. The less gamy taste (as it was not beef nor pork but rather crab meat) and the sweetness of the crab meat was uniquely pleasurable! Words cannot describe it - you best check it out for yourselves!

Kampung Boy and City Girl I have known for close to two years now, but hardly get the chance to meet up. I LOVE this couple, they are so cute! It was great seeing the dynamic blogging duo again, after so long.

I was also happy to meet Shell Food Station in person finally!.. and a new friend, Squall. I nearly fainted when Cheesie of Cheeserland and KY of KYSpeaks walked into the room. Being a real kipas (fan) of both blogs, it was really fun to chat and meet up with them in real life. They are both extremely friendly and down to earth people. So now I have more friends. Yay!

Thank you, Kong WK of PRKraft and Dragon-I for the invite. This was a great lunch and a fantastic weekend meet up with bloggers!

Address:
Dragon-i,
The Curve,
6 Jalan PJU 7/3,
Lot 136 & 137, 1F,
Mutiara Damansara,
PJ, Selangor
Tel: 03-7728 6888

(Non-Halal)

Forgive me if I act a little crabby.. I have just been turned inside out... and I AM afterall, a reconstructed crab!


read other reviews here, here .. and HERE!

Paypal Withdraws To Malaysian Bank Accounts!!

OMFG! I just found out today that paypal now withdraws to Malaysian Bank Accounts! This has got be so new that when I called up paypal, the female CON-sultant proceeded to give me the scripted reply of "paypal withdraw only to Malaysian Bank Debit Cards" until i mentioned to her about the newly publish webpages (see below). She immediately put me on hold, then returned soon after, apologizing for her mistake (apparently a very new initiative!) to confirm my claims.
Watch out netizens... A new world order of Malaysian online businesses will now sweep across the borderless internet world!

I wonder if Bank Negara had something to do with this?

Kolam 77, Restoran Sawadee 88, Chan Sow Lin.

Kolam 77, Off Chan Sow Lin, is spanking new.. When you see the sign however, you will get a rude shock. Don't let the dirty rubbish put you off.. if you stick to the 'off the beaten track' side road for just a little whilst more, you will be rewarded with great food! Kolam 77 is a Fish Farm.. where people go to fish, obviously. However, they also have a new Thai restaurant which serves really rather good food. So far we have not had that great experiences with Fish Farm Thai Food restaurants. The food just seems to have been sub-par and rather expensive.

Here we are Kolam 77, just 3 months old. Fishing area that is both shady and comfortable for the avid 'fisherman';)

This place even has a pool table.

See what I mean? The place is comfortable, tastefully designed and extremely airy even in the heat of day. Mr Lim the manager is an enthusiastic and friendly man. We had a great time chatting with him that day.

A map to help you find the location.

We were served the Pandan Chicken, piping hot. We found the portions a little too small. Taste wise just so-so.

Otak otak! This was a pleasant surprise. The otak-otak was oozing seafood freshness and sweetness.. not your conventional processed otak-otak, but rather one that was packed with seafood.

You will see chunks of fish, crab, prawn and squid falling out of the sweet centre as you break into it. If that does not get your saliva going, I don't know what will.

Fried Tong Fun (glass noodles) - more Chinese style than Thai style. I liked the fragrant stinky sotong/squid (the kind that is BBQ-ed to give it that fishy aroma) and the generous amount of seafood, yet again, in it. All I can keep thinking to myself is 'value for money'.

Steamed Sotong in chili hot, sweet and sour sauce. The mint leaves and basil made this dish phenomenally good. They left the roe of the sotong in the sotong (which resembles some goey, white semi-translucent matter) which is apparently the 'good stuff' in the sotong. I beg to differ. I did not find the roe appealing. Cumi liked it a lot... said it had the texture of collagen..

Paku Pakis- fried with loads of prawn and belacan. Nice but a little too oily for me.

When the cock grazed my leg, I jumped in surprise. Most ladies would;)

Finally, some nice refreshing and cooling Leong Fun jelly dessert, on the house. - why thank you Mr Lim, how kind! A fantastic lunch, inclusive of a large bottle of Heineken, for just under RM90. I would say that this place serves great Chinese Thai food. C&c would highly recommend it to anybody looking to blow their brains out over a spicy Thai meal!

Kolam 77,
Restoran Sawadee 88,
Jalan 5, Off Jalan Chan Sow Lin,
KL.
Contact No - Kindly refer to the map above.
(Non-Halal)

Saw VI (2009) - Movie

I don't care if people think that the whole SAW franchise thing is lame or that the movie is stupid. I love SAW! As far as I am concerned, the gore, the B-grade acting (and B grade actresses with big breasts e.g. Jigsaw's wife) , the insane flashbacks and twists in plots till I don't know which way is front or back, can just keep rocking my world .. bring it on!