the bulge

With belly like a poisoned pup

Said I: 'I must give bacon up'

And also, I profanely fear,

I must abandon bread and beer

That make for portliness they say;

Yet of them copiously today

I ate with an increasing sense

Of grievous corpulence.

I like a lot of things I like.

Too bad that I must go on strike

Against pork sausages and mash,

Spaghetti and fried corn-beef hash.

I deem he is a lucky soul

Who has no need of girth control;

For in the old of age: 'Il faut

Souffrir pour etre belle.'

Yet let me not be unconsoled:

So many greybeards I behold,

Distinguished in affairs of state,

In culture counted with the Great,

Have tummies with a shameless bulge,

And so I think I'll still indulge

In eats I like without a qualm,

And damn my diaphragm!'

- Robert W. Service

Add:

TGIF,

The Curve,

No.6, Jalan PJU 7/3

Mutiara Damansara

47800 Petaling Jaya,

Selangor.

Food:5/10

Salt levels:high

Nutrition levels:low

Fat levels:sky high

The two P's of eating...

We are back in that familiar place! ... My favourite Italian restaurant (I cannot say it enough).. on a weekend.. Read about my other visit here.

How goooood it is, when close friends meet together over Prosciutto and Prosecco!

Those have got to be my two favourite P's in the Italian vocab;P

Speaking of which, they do Prosecco by the glass at Nero Teca, so you can really pace yourself and get plastered nice and easy...

RM26.00 per glass


This is the Prosciutto Melon.

The story of Prosciutto is really the story of pigs, since it takes the best pigs eating the right foods to make a perfect ham!

(Ooo, which reminds me of a cartoon i read..)

How cute is that.. ?! :P

Ahem.. as i was saying...

Prosciutto is an Italian ham that has been seasoned, salt-cured, and air-dried, but not smoked. It has a gorgeous salty meaty taste, offset by the sweetness of the melon... heaven!

Prosciutto Melon - RM34.00

This is the Carbonara. I love this carbonara because, it's not too creamy, the pasta is rapturously al dente and the bacon is smoky, chunky and fatty. This is the soft chunky bacon sort as opposed to the streaky crispy thin bacon. I find the soft chunky sort absorbs the carbonara flavour so much more effectively. Pure art!

Eating is believing so... just come eat...

Spaghetti Carbonara - RM23.00

This is the Costina - fried pork ribs. Not for the faint hearted. Let me just warn you that this dish will not be of the 'soft, fall off the bone pork ribs' sort. Me, I order this when I am in a feisty mood, because the Costina will give you a good fight - meat is tougher and the smell of pork is strong. This does not make it any less good! Infact, I dare say, this is the way pork ribs should be eaten (bangs the table, spits and swears..) :P:P

Finally, no italian meal is complete without the Panna Cotta! An Italian invention - pure, simple, delightful cooked cream! Cool and soft and goes down easy... Do not leave without trying this!

Panna Cotta - RM14.00

Many flutes of Prosecco later, we stagger out the door and into the dark and starry night.. , happy to be alive and well...then we begin the long journey home:)

Add:

Nero Teca,

ground floor, somerset

8 lorong ceylon

50250 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2070 0530

Food:8/10

Service:8/10 (slower on friday nights as it's usually packed)

Salt levels: moderate

MSG levels: nil

Mee Jawa @ Casa Tropicana

Mee Jawa Restaurant at Casa Tropicana, being a 5 minute drive from our office, is fast becoming our favourite place for lunch!

Me and my colleagues love this place for the Mee Jawa! It has a light taste, with just enough oomph! to fill you up but not leave you feeling too sleepy after your meal. This is really important especially if you still have a lot of things to do, after lunch.
Just a word on the Mee Jawa, it is really not that spicy for those who like a lot of heat in their noodles.

The Assam Laksa. This was really rather poorly done. Weak with hardly any fish taste. The soup tasted like dish-water. Do not order this if you eat here!

The fruit rojak. Delicious! Lots of apple,pineapple, sour mango, sotong and crispy bits (keropok and peanuts) to make it a refreshing lunchtime snack. If you want an ultra-light lunch, this is it. Still, there is enough sugar in that sauce to give you a buzz for sure!

The fried chicken here is excellent. Crispy bite sizes with a zesty sauce.

If you are going out for after work drinks, this goes great with beer!

The Prawn Mee. Not 'dirty' enough for me, but still pretty decent, if you get what I mean. (I like my prawn mee, murky, pungent and swimming in gooey prawn-matter..;P)

All in all, a good place for a fast lunch on a workday.

Check it out, if you are in the area;)

Add:

Mee Jawa Restaurant,

B-0-3A, Block B,

Casa Tropicana,

Persiaran Tropicana,

47410 Petaling Jaya,

Selangor

Food: 6/10 (except for the asam laksa, which is rubbish)

Service:7/10

MSG levels: low

Salt levels: low

The Golden Egg

Golden Egg Noodle. We read about this place from Masak-masak and decided to go check it out.

Sure enough, there was a 'no camera' sign, which meant that we had to be discrete about taking any photos, so we sat outside.

The interesting thing about this Pan-Mee restaurant is that it has a really colorful selection of pan mee due to the ingredients that they put in their noodle, i.e. Seaweed, Pumpkin, Chili or Coriander.

This was the 'meet' (torn by hand) pan mee that Cumi had. It was small for RM4.80 and lacked any true flavour. Pretty average. The noodle that was of the pumpkin sort, was overcooked and way too soft. The mince was overly salty.

Since Cumi was having the Pan-Mee, I decided to have the pork noodle instead, utilizing the Chili Pan-Mee (the orange color one).

The flavour was better than the Pan-Mee but still lacked enough Chee-Yau-Char (Pork lard). The soup tasted artificially sweet, which may have indicated a lot of MSG! Still, at almost RM6.00, it was an average bowl of Pork noodle.

After lunch we went a-walk-about. We spotted something familiar looking - Pu Yuan.

When we went in to have a closer look and to talk to the owners, we realise that this was indeed the same Pu Yuan as the Old Klang Road one , which is famous for its 'Char Peak Kuay' or fried rice sticks, in English. This is a famous Heng Hua dish, and one of our all time favourites, and we will be back to eat here! Once our stomachs are empty again :)

Add:
Golden Egg Noodle
23-01, Jln Kenari 19A
Bandar Puchong Jaya
Puchong

Food:6/10

MSG levels: high

Service:8/10

Eat your Beer!

Nothing beats a hearty casserole on a wet and thundery day... and boy have we been having a spat of those!

My friend Lisa is an excellent cook. We were elated when she invited us both over for one of her famous beef beer dinners.

This is what she cooked...


First, the homemade Caesar salad. Even the sauce is made from scratch! Light, crunchy yet healthy - the prefect prelude to a meaty dinner.


Then the garlic bread. Toasted till it is crispy at the edges and oozing with butter and garlic and herbs. I love homemade garlic butter because it has THAT much more garlic and butter, know what I mean?

Enter the Casserole.

This is the amazing Beef Beer... a whole, massive pot of it ! I love the way Lisa cooks this ... over a slow fire, with lots of tender loving care... beef simmering all day long in beer, so much so that the heady aroma is the first thing you smell wafting out of her kitchen when you walk through the front door! Not only that, she uses Beef Brisket to ensure it melts in your mouth. Rapture!



Finally, nothing goes better with beef than mash potato! Lisa's mash is buttery, creamy and baked to give it that gorgeous, browned, finishing touch! All my memories of uni days come flooding back - how many Sunday roasts have passed since I last got back to KL (sniffle). This, my friends, is what life is all about... :)


So, if Beef Beer Stew and Mash is my comfort food on a wet & stormy night, what is yours?

Feel free to leave a comment. Cheers!

The Dragon Pig Fish

One of our all time favourite places to eat is in the vicinity of Puchong. Why? Because there are just so many restaurants to choose from.

Tonight, we were undecided what to eat... Seafood?

Or maybe Ah-Mah's porridge... Set for 2 at only RM28.00, cheap!

Taiping Cuizine looked inviting too...

Then there is always Gao Ren Guan, for Hakka food...


Even a cute little Jelly Cake shop(where all cakes sold are made from jelly) for supper later perhaps..

Finally we decided on Fatty Tiger.

Many of you may have already read about its famous branch in Connaught. Fatty Tiger is pretty famous in that it has appeared in both the Chinese and English newspapers pretty often.

This place serves every fish under the sun. But not just any fish, WILD river fish specifically, i.e. only those that live in pollution free tropical waters. Most of those you see in other restaurants are cultivated river fish, which are actually less sweet due to the quality of the water. Also because of stress. I mean if you were a fish, wouldn't you get stressed out swimming in a glass aquarium when everything within you screams to be free?!

The distinct sweetness of the flesh, firmness and smoothness is undisputed in the wild river fish.

Anyway, each and every wild river fish has its own unique distinct taste, and the best part really is... from the BELLY! (gimme, gimme belly).

The price? Well, as you can imagine since 60% of the fish actually come from the Orang Asli(100% authentically caught by the indigenous people of Malaysia) the price is on the high side. However, it is still considered pretty affordable if unadulterated river fish is what you are looking for.

The price for a fish goes anywhere between RM60 per kg, to RM600-1000 per kg, as in the case of the Empurau you see in the photo above! This is like the Lamborghini of all fish! And there I was thinking that Soon Hock was the be all and end all... haha..


First we had the sayur manis(pan mee vege) with egg. Delicious! RM8.00


Then special toufu pok in claypot RM8.00. The sauce is thicker and sweeter than normal They use fish rather than pork and 'Kau Choy'.


Ah, one of my all time favourite dishes... the wild boar! Oh, in keeping with the theme, every thing WILD, obviously we had to try the wild pig instead of the cultivated one right?

We were not disappointed - Taut and sweet and just with the right amount of fat, this wild boar is less gamy tasting due to the fact that it is generously seasoned in cinnamon.

And if you think it looks small, it actually comes like this (above). One layer of 'Pai Kuat' (rib) and one layer of the succulent belly ! LOVE!

Wild boar in special sauce - RM18.00

The Man Tau drenched in the wild boar sauce is addictive. We devour the entire plate.



Riddle: When is a fish, NOT a fish..?


Answer: When it is a DRAGON PIG Fish ! (Well not even that, more like eel. Still the fishermen call it a fish and it goes by the pet name Chi Nar or For Loong) .


Chi Nar (pig) because it has a mouth the shape of a pig's.


For Loong because the tail is brightly colored in fiery orange and red and looks like the dragon tail! When it is deep-fried, it automatically curls into the shape seen above! This fish/eel is rare and rather hard to come by.
How cool huh? Delicious!

Ikan Tilan - RM60 per kg.

Some info on the fish: Ikan Tilan/Sili (Mastacembelus erythrotaenia)
The Tilan is from the family Mastacembelidae and Ordo Perciformes. It also goes by the name, Fire Eel or Spotted Fire Eel. Though it swims calmly, this fish has the capability of flying out of the water through the air. The Tilan is a predator fish and hunts for food at night.

Mr Joe Fong is a delight to talk to. An avid fisherman himself, he is passionate about nature and all things wild and free. He believes that the best foods are those found closest to its source and we agree!

Joe in his younger days! An amazing fisherman no doubt.

Some of the weird and wriggly things that ended up in Joe's net along with the catch! This python can still be seen in the Zoo Negara today:)

Add1:

Fatty Tiger,
Bandar Puchong Jaya,
No.123, Jalan Kenari, 23A,
47100 Puchong, Selangor,
Tel: 03-80752647

Add2:
Fatty Tiger,
Taman Connaught Giant,
Lot 12G Grd Flr South Walk,
CMC Centre, Jalan Cerdas,
56000 KL
Tel: 03-91003990