the "indie rock" effect...

There's an old maxim out there that goes something like this - whenever someone asks you for your favourite places to eat, you never state your absolute favourite. The idea here is that you don't want the place to lose whatever nuances it may have due to increased popularity (haha!). Kinda like how, when an indie band goes mainstream, it either loses all /loses some aspect of it's old self that makes the experience different all together. Less "WOW" if you know what i mean.

So, instead of asking you what is your all time favourite place to eat, i shall ask "What is your all time, favourite dish" i.e. if you were on death row, and they offer you a last meal, what would that meal be?!

Please leave a comment. Then I will tell you mine... in a later post.

We love the road-side !

Oh shucks! Our favourite Supper place on Jalan Pudu (no name shop) was still shut, when we got there at 8.30pm... Oh well, what to do... those 'thicker than the size of my palm' yong tau foo (with solid pork filling rather than fish) for only 80 cents, and the ' heap as high as you like' fried noodles for RM2.00 will just have to wait... We could see people already sitting at the empty tables waiting for the "fei-lo" to open.

We, on the other hand were too hungry to wait, so we went next door to the noodle stall.


This small family business run by the sisters, is another of our favourite, late night supper places to eat at.


You will notice that their fish ball is not shiny with "boric acid" but rather has that irregular shape, matt finishing and reduced bounciness you get in a HEARTY home-made, un-boric acidified BALL ! heehee... very, authentically unadulterated... We love the "kon-low" fishball noodle here.


The large bowl goes at RM4.50.. wow!


The small bowl goes for RM3.50.

With no MSG, this place is a healthier, not to mention cheaper alternative to many coffee shops that are so heavy handed with the preservative/taste enhancers, these days.

If you can stomach the road-side eating conditions, you will be a happy camper indeed :P

Oh yay! The other chicken rice cum no name stall is opening up. We originally intended to eat here.. No matter, nothing says we cannot have another Wallop session again hor..

We pay for the fish ball noodles and quicken our pace to the next door shop.. we don't want all the other hungry patrons to 'whack' all the good stuff before we get there, wat... right? ;P

oui, oui.. c'est moi..

Come and have home cooked meals!! Says the ad.

Char Choy and Pork rice (RM5.80), Kampong nasi lemak with chicken rendang and sambal prawns (RM5.80), Mother's special curry laksa (RM4.80), Yee Tao Mai (fish head noodles RM7.80), fried chicken wings, pan mee (RM4.80), hakka mee(RM4.80) etc..etc..

The list is endless, and the place is furnished like some cute, 'chinezy' cafe, what with the trendy english magazines, the flat screen TV, the contemporary furniture but the 100% chinese menu... However, the best attraction I would have to say, would be the OH SO affordable prices, in a comfortable, contemporary if not slightly spartan, setting. (what's better than good food huh? Good, affordable food! lol.. i am a sucker for the bargain)

Kids love this place. Working adults love this place. Famished, "lazy to cook" female adults with un-fussy husbands love this place.. ;P (oui, oui.. c’est moi.. haha)

We tried the Tong sui here and found the portions to be generous and the taste good. Water chestnut with fungus and red dates at only RM2.20. Same goes for the Gingko Barley.

The Fish head noodles really impressed me. It was HUGE. 6 big hunks of fish (minus the bones).. and delicious soup. More "Ham Choy" would have been great though, but at RM7.80 one cannot complain. Real value for money!


You can ask for "Pan mee" in your curry laksa if you like. We found the texture of the pan mee perfectly chewy and the soup had kick. Not bad at all.. at RM4.80 this really filled us up to.

The Hakka Mee at RM4.80

The Char Choy dish plus the Braised Pork (minus the rice) was only RM4.80. The braised pork was soft and succulent, with just the right ratio of fat to lean meat. Incredibly tasty.

Pan Mee at RM4.80. The man happily scoffed up his pan mee noodles to the latest boy magazine :P

The homemade minced pork balls that accompany the pan mee were a nice finishing touch to the meal.

All in all a zippy, no-fuss meal. A nice answer to the mundane question, "So where/what shall we eat tonight babe.. and don't say anything/up2u... !?"

Address:

Home Recipe,

No.57, Jalan 21/12,

Taman Sea, PJ

( General directions :Coming from PJ ss2, At KFC Sea Park traffic lights, turn left. It's the row of shops on your left facing the link houses on the main road)

The Hau Kee Empire

They eat with Aluminium chopsticks! How clean.. how hygienic...

Not only that, their Yong Tau Foo serves TAUHU SUMBAT (Stuffed taufo) as well as Quails eggs!

Quails eggs are my fav. What luck;)

I am talking about San Yulik. Old but good. This tiny, unassuming looking but clean coffee shop in Cheras is one of my favourites haunts for the YTF.

The curry sauce has kick! We find the sweet sauce too "beany" and salty. But the curry taste more like a Thai Laksa curry, and it is tres, tres YUM :)


This is the YTF with the sweet sauce.

Also, the super sweet and starchy "Pak Kor Yee Mai" (barley with ginko).

Our initial plan was to eat at the Char Siew (BBQ pork) place up the road (Meng Shiang) but at 1pm, all the Char siew habis.... So, being the greedy pigs that we are, we ordered the Char Siew from the Next door neighbour, which was a chicken rice shop.

Only RM3 for a plate (for 1 person)! Now a days, what with hawkers hiking up their prices, THIS is considered cheap. Eventhough the Charsiew was only so-so... where can you find a plate of Char siew for 3 bucks in KL? Summore damn a lot.


Not only that, San Yulik is also incredibally affordable by KL standards.

55 cents per piece of YTF. A steal.

Because we are gluttons (not unlike team BSG... thanks boys!) and still hungry :P, we walk across the street looking for more goodies.

Hurray! More food! We tapau some "Ham Chim Peng" (chinese doughnut with sesame/red bean/glutinous rice centre) ... some "Yau Char Kwai"(chinese doughnut that look like Siamese-twin, bread STICKS)...

And some huge-ass 'cucuk udang' (fried prawn fritters/cake)... bigger than my face!


On our way home, we pass the Hau Kee "EMPIRE"... Hau Kee 1, Hau Kee 2, Hau Kee 3 and Hau Kee 4.

How grand!

I love Cheras.. i do:)

Add: Restoran San Yulik,

Jalan Kaskas 2,

Taman Cheras,

Cheras

I don't mean nail, as in hammer...

Those of us who engage in consistent food reading/blogging/tasting, enjoy extolling the virtues of various foods and restaurants. Many of us have been moved by the skill and talents of various artisans throughout the world and have little difficulty in heaping praise on those we think deserve it.

There is a flip side to this. In order to find good food... stellar food, we have to sample a fair amount of it. This means, for every great place that we find, the odds are that we should bump into some place, less than acceptable/poor/bad. I don't mean poor, where the food is edible but uninspiring. I mean BAD, in the "holy cow! Woe be unto the Man who unknowingly steps into this wayward joint and eats from its kitchen,"... kind of way!

The worst restaurant I had ever had the misfortune of visiting, was a cafeteria in Wales. A simple big breakfast was quickly turned into the nightmare meal of my life, when the food got to my table, soft, lumpy and reeking of something organically stale/sick/putrified. Nevermind that... when I bit into the meal, which was soft and lumpy and reeky… my teeth hit a crunch, and I quickly spat it out. There sat a nice big piece of NAIL in the shiny palm of my hand. I don’t mean nail as in hammer, I mean nail as in phalanges. Calcium. What is that.. Toenail? Fingernail? Cow’s Hoof? I couldn’t be sure but whatever it was, we complained, paid and where out the door faster than a bolt of lightning. Thank God I didn’t suffer any ill effects later, from that meal. Needless to say we never went back to that restaurant again !

What was the worst meal from a restaurant that you have had? Leave a comment below.

The last of the Mohicans

I was so excited! We rarely see, these days, in KL, Charcoal stoves...

So, you can imagine my happiness at seeing the cinders fly from the WOK of Mr. and Mrs. Wong.


Wow.. we had driven past this 'no name' Hokkien mee on Jalan Cheras many times but the traffic is normally heavy and we never got the chance to stop.

Those of you who have read my Blog on Late Night supper on Jalan Seladang, Pudu, will know that I am a huge FAN of the 'no name'.. :P


Apparently charcoal stoves give that amazing "WOK HEI" that no other stove can compete with. The flame and heat from the charcoal is harder to control.. but the end result is worth it.

Amazing Hokkien mee... a hard act to beat! There are a few charcoal fried noodle places still in existance, now a days, but they are few and far between.

Each plate is lovingly fried and it takes longer than your average Hokkien mee to prepare.

The YOUNG toil at the stove... (i.e. Mr and Mrs Wong)



While the OLD.. yack and yell and make a DIN, competing with the blaring TV and the other patrons of the shop.. (i.e. Uncle and Aunty and Grandma Wong and old-timer friends of Wong... etc, etc)

A cacophony of dissonant sounds and laughter fill this crazy corner shop.. and we begin our long, long wait for the Hokkien Mee.

You see the uncle with the CIGAR? How mad is that.. I hope he doesn't get ASH in my food.. (erm.. like am I the only one who noticed?! :P)

But for a crazy, cigar chugging ole man.. he sure speaks perfect English.

As in Queen's.


All eyes are peeled on the TV because the cigar-ed uncle has told us all, "HALF HOUR to ONE HOUR OK? Have to wait... coz individually fried... OK?!"


Hmmm.. that's weird... the TV is playing ER (oops! I mean Grey's .. thx Nic!).. which is like an English show.. that's pretty unusual for a chinese coffee shop right?

Well there you go... killing 30 minutes with Grey's.
Finally, when we think we've had it with the Aunties yelling and telling their crazy jokes and laughing in their crazy high pitched voices...

The Hokkien Mee appears!

YAY.

All the Aunties pause... and look at us.. like as if to DARE us,
to not like/to complain/to give back the Hokkien mee.

AS IF we'd give it back. We waited bloody ages. It's like 11.20pm now, by their clock... and we got there at 10.30pm.


Wow! What can I say...
For RM5.. the plate is HUGE! And the taste is fantastic! Fat where it should be fat, Lardy where it should be lardy, Chewy where it should be chewy.
And with that amazing CHARCOAL flamed taste and "wok hei" coming through...

Worth the wait i tell ya:)


The Aunties smile at us, smiling at them, smiling at us, smiling at the Hokkien Mee, smilling at us, smiling at THEM...

They crack me up. Really:D


Oh.. and since they were so gung-ho about advertising this local beer, Jaz, we decided to try it.
Not bad la for RM5... went well with the Hokkien Mee (but i suppose any beer would go down well with hokkien mee). Sweet after taste. A little like Skol.



At 12am, this place was finally starting to slow down...



I don't know what it is about these "no name" haunts, that give it a NAME! Ironic innit?

I am a FAN .. i truly am ;)

Address :

If you can read the signage (because we can't)..

it's on Jalan Cheras, by the Petronas Petrol Station... if that's any help :)

I was Momo-fied !

You will recognize them distinctly in a crowd.

Their favourite hang-out being the blocks around the Pudu bus station, which is one of the busiest areas in down-town KL.

To many foreigners, when they think of Nepal, the image invariably is of a remote mountainous country with its snow covered Himalayan peaks, deep valleys, and Mongoloid people quietly tilling their hill terraced farms.

When Malaysians think Nepalese, they think immigrant workers, strange food and a race that they sometime do not quite understand or trust.

The Nepali cuisine, also known as the cuisine of the Himalayas, bears its uniqueness by incorporating the two great culinary traditions of the region, Indian and Tibetan, into a mainstream culinary culture of its own, which reflects the geographic and demographic diversity of the Himalayas. Nepal, a tiny country by any geographic measurements, stretches from the lowlands of the sub-tropical Terai plains in the south to the highlands of the Himalayas, as dominated by the majestic reign of Mt. Everest, in the north. Hence, Nepal has resurrected its own unique cultural identity into a harmonious culture, combining different traditions of different indigenous cultures rooting on all corners of the country.


We went in search of The Khukri (which means Dagger in napalese), because it has been touted as the most ‘trendy’ and foreigner friendly of the lot. Great nepalese food at affordable prices we heard.. we could not wait to get cracking... but, erm.. first, we had to find the place.



Getting to the Khukri was proving to be quite an adventure... just look at how many wrong turns we took, up dodgy, dirty stairwells looking for this place…

Eek.. I hung close to my man… worried that I would get lynched at the next corner...



Luckily not...!

Phew we made it! Sweating like a pig… (from anxiety as well as the noon day heat), I demand they give me a cold drink quick!


Pop-corn for starters..

Recycled paper for a menu! How cool!


As if to read my mind, the sassy waitress tells me to order and sends over a tall, cold glass of Mahi - This is a traditional drink in Nepal. It is made from dahi (yogurt like milk product) prepared from whole or skimmed milk dahi fermented either by natural souring or by ‘artificial’ lactic acid bacteria.
In India, mahi is known as lassi and largely used as a liquid drink. In Nepal, mahi is consumed as a drink as well as with food.
It slinked down my throat like water from an oasis to a camel in the sweltering SAHARA.

Bliss.


The food of Nepal is as diverse as the country itself. The Nepalese recipes are quick to cook and good to eat. Nepalese food is famous for its nutrition level and tempting taste. Whilst Nepalese cuisine is somewhat basic, it certainly does not lack in flavor, making extensive use of spices and flavorings such as ginger, garlic, coriander, pepper, cumin, chilies, cilantro, mustard oil, ghee and occasionally yak butter.

Now we were ready to start with the Momo! What is a momo? They are dumplings filled with minced meat, served steamed or fried. A terrifically popular appetizer, afternoon snack or evening meal. We chose lamb out off all the meat options, and rightly so. It was moist and fragrant with coriander and dry spices, and the skin was perfectly al-dante.

The coriander and spices took the edge off what would otherwise have been 'gamy' tasting lamb stuffing... The sweet soup accompanying the dumplings is pungent, whilst meaty in flavour. Heaven in a bite!

When we courageously ordered the Dhedo, our sassy lady waitress looked skeptical as if to say "are you sure you can stomach the Dhedo.. you Chinese amateur…"

Haha… kidding.. but honestly she looked really dubious.



The most average Nepali people have this Dhedo as a meal. It is made of different kinds of flours, ranging from wheat to millet, which is boiled until thick.

The Dhedo, in reality, we soon found, resembles half a sphere of a brown substance with a volcano, crater-like indent at the top, filled with GHEE! This stodgy lump of thickened flour, will not suit everyone's taste-buds.

I.e. it has a slightly gummy and fibrous texture but bland taste (like saw dust ! haha… kidding) which amazingly went great with the accompanying curries and gundruk (vegetables). Because of harsh conditions prevailing in the highlands of the Himalayas, foods are preserved by dehydrating or fermenting staple ingredients during their growing season. Examples include Sukuti - dehydrated meat and Gundruk - fermented vegetables.


Feeling emboldened by being able to stomach the Dhedo, we proceeded to order the Sukuti ra bhat. Sukuti is dried buffalo meat! Black and chewy like beef JERKY, they resemble little black square CUBES! I chewed till my jaw was sore I tell ya! For this dish the jerky is grilled over charcoal or wood, and then simmered till dry with tomatoes, onions, and lots of chopped cilantro leaves and stems. It was good.. but a little too hard for me…



Finally after a long negotiation with my man (who isn't as into/a fan of, the spare-parts, as I am), we had the Poleko Khan, which was roasted whole TONGUE and EAR of the pig, with achar. Animal FAT, meat and cartilage... cut into bite sizes..
Again I was Gobsmacked. Speechless. Over the moon.
The dish was chewy with a nice barbeque flavour and that typical Himalayan meaty pungence and feel.

Ok, ok… I think we have out-done ourselves today with the experimenting… My stomach feels like it's about to burst...

Time to go home and unwind…

Hmmm... some place safe and a little less unfamiliar would suit me just fine, right about now.. :)

Add:
The Khukri,
26 Jalan Silang,
First Floor,
Pudu, Kuala Lumpur.

Food:8/10
Price: for 2 persons, RM40… affordable!
Service: V good
MSG levels: nil
Salt levels : high
Ghee levels : VERY high!