Daorae - ... KPOP Promoter...

U-KISS - ... dare desuka?

It's official. Malaysia is stuck in the Hallayu wave. Even I have to confess of late i am also stuck in the KDRAMA series ( of the non weepy kind ), how can one resist the sometimes good looking heroes and er ... kinda carbon copy actresses in the show. I used to dislike kdramas because all i got was those weepy, really worst luck (Guy is blind, or some one has a fatal disease, they die etc ) in the world kind of stories. Of late, there are more general funny ones that came out that is worth watching. You can say i was 'k-drama-fied'. So i shouldn't be suprised when i stepped into Daorae recently, and they were kpopped/kdramafied as well. The walls of Daorae Sri Hartmas was adorned with the likes of Rain, U-KISS, did i see SNSD as well all signed and autograph adorning the walls of the shop. Unfortunately my Rain pic had my brother's head 1/2 way there, and i could not photoshopped him away.  I will be very happy if they can bring Lee Min Ho round to the KL parts *hehehehe*
Daorae is my current go to place for Korean food, besides Ko Hyang and my office area's sole Korean shop. However i should start venturing to other areas for Korean food ( just that Little Korea is a wee bit far to go for dinner. Attempted once, food very good. Got lost 1/2 way )

In my first months back to KL, my usual makan gang and i decided to have a "eat together" session. Since i left for overseas work, rarely everyone caught up and during flybacks, it was too short to catch up. Most of the time was spent 1) Sleeping 2) Doing chores that i cannot do online 3) Eating malaysian food to the max.

Makgeolli - it is better than Soju IMHO

I haven't been to Daorae since a year back and i wanted to introduce everyone to Makgeolli :)  My preference of alcohol as compared to Soju. I normally don't drink but if i do, i like alcohol that is sweetened. Makgeolli is actually rice wine and served in a chilled cup. It looks like pale diluted milk. Doesn't really smell like milk.  Drinking it before and after you have eaten food is helluva difference. Before we had food, the taste felt like cheap toddy... however after a few bites of food and especially with barbecue, the makgeolli changed taste a more sweetish taste. Weird.  But that's how i felt it tasted like and the more everyone started to drink. Initial taste -everyone was giving me disdainful looks >_<. [ i swear!] But paired with BBQ meat, the sweetish taste started to come out.

Bachans in Daorae is plentiful and unique.  However, we always like the potato salad, which we only got it once after that, it seldom re-appeared.

Banchan Galore - check out the brown cups serving makgeolli

Hong Kong Trip last June... Part 1

   Hong Kong - On EMO mode. It was raining at the Avenue of Stars. But made great picture day

I am quite sure by now people know i am one for late posting. No wonder people don't ask me to write Adverts! Will fail!.  Last June, during a long weekend, i flew to Hong Kong. Yes, country of residence at that time was extremely dull and i wanted to shop till i drop, Hong Kong seems like a reasonable place to be. And yes, i got tired of failed dim sums in the place i used to stay, wanted real authentic hong kong dim sum.

The flight just took 2 hours and i have to say this- never go hong kong during their start of summer. The word ... hot is just not able to describe it. You start off the morning nice and clean but by 1/2 hour, you are all sweaty and dirty. Nevertheless, with plenty of malls and shops in Hong Kong, you can always duck into the shops for a quick breather. Heavy amount of my budget was spent on 1) Ice Cream 2) Lots of cold drinks 3) Lots of Desserts in cold places - if you want to go June, prepare to sweat it out. But it is a good time to go as there is a lot of sales going during that period.

From Airport to Kowloon
For those who are afraid to travel on their own, Hong Kong is quite an easy place to get around. Once @ Chep Lak Kok airport, if you want to go to Kowloon - take the airport express.  I was quite impressed with this service  as it only takes 24 minutes to central locations in Kowloon and Hong Kong. You can even buy a return pass like i did, so the day i left hong kong, i just went to Kowloon station and hoped on to the Airport express. I paid about Hong Kong 90 Dollars for this, but i thought it was much cheaper than taking a taxi to the airport.  I find countries with advance transportation planning are awesome! And, if you are lucky, and you can also get a free ride to your hotel - depending on where your hotel is located- now how is that for transportation.

Next at the airport, grab an Octopus Pass. This little handy card where you can buy a certain amount is useful for MRT travel within Hong Kong and Kowloon. (Think you can also use it for buses as well as trams ). Some of the more popular hotels are drop off points for the free shuttle bus from Kowloon station.

Accommodation:
It's pricey in Hong Kong. I paid a bit more because i wanted to stay in proper places but for those on the budget you can check out Hop Inn budget hotel. It's clean and in the middle of Kowloon. When i was there in June, i chose to stay at Luxe Manor because Agoda was offering discounts! It's quite a boutique hotel ( i loved the toilets ) but i felt the deco made me feel like a gangster's moll. Service wise the place was awesome. Deco took some getting used to. Location: excellent - 2 minutes walk to my favorite mall and food food all around in Nathan Road.

     Complementary Breakfast at Luxe Manor Hotel

Food: 

If you are booking via agoda - read the fine print if the deal comes with breakfast. For hong kong, mine did but when i book for bangkok the room was cheap because it had no breakfast provided. However, along Nathan road there are abundant of those small "char chan teng " which you can pop in and have a quick meal. I found a great little tiny shop that sold the most awesome egg tart and er ... spam bun on my last day in Hong Kong.

Egg Tarts at the corner of Carnavon street

Things to do in Hong Kong: 
Hong kong is one of those super vibrant cities that never sleeps   My first night there, after reaching my hotel at 8pm ( Traffic in Nathan road on a Friday is hectic ) i showered and headed off around Kimberely road and shopped till at least midnight. The damage for 4 hours was quite ... extensive i would say and sometimes bordering on silly :D  There are way too many cute stuff in Hong Kong to say no to. But Hong Kong has a lot of activities all year round - so time your visits to events which you can find on the Discover Hong Kong website  I was lucky, i got to see my first up close Dragon boat race and met Mickey rowers

Row, Row, Row your boat... Gently down the ... er Harbor

M.I.C.K.E.Y M.O.U.S.E - Team Disney's rowers for the day

However, everyone goes to Hong Kong mostly for this... Shopping.What is there not to buy. I almost bought jelly colored galoshes back to KL. For what reason i have no idea but just because they were there! Hong Kong island is too expensive? Go to Mongkok's Luen Yuen Kai  ( Lady's Street )... While i think it is good to go there for the experience, i don't recommend buying stuff there, it's quite a tourist trap and you need to bargain your way there. Plus the quality of goods are quite meh in Luen Yuen Kai. There are plenty of malls in HK for you to buy reasonable stuff from.

Across the waters in Hong Kong Island

So this is just a short teaser of what i saw in Hong Kong. Next up, what i ... ate while in Hong Kong- Yes the other " To- Do" things in Hong Kong is enjoy the glorious food. 

Fancy a spot of Thai food in an English Smokehouse?

Really, sometimes some restaurants surprise me. I used to hunt for Thai food around KL. Often, they are either very far away or they have small servings or they are too fusion i can't tell it is really a Thai dish. So i was pretty surprise after some googling - i found that the Smokehouse in Jalan Telawi 3 actually served Thai food. Yeap, an english smokehouse with Thai food. Don't ask my why, probably the owner woke up one day that was a spot on good idea to work on.

However, i am not really complaining because Thai food is my latest craze.  On one recent meet up with a girlfriend who was about to get married, we decided our meeting ground was The Smokehouse in Jalan Telawi 3.  And yes, they are related to the one in Cameron's and Fraser.  Being a typical english smoke house, this place is filled with men of a age > 50 who were busy smoking and discussing the previous days' English league games. So suffice to say when 2 working ladies walked in, i bet a pound they were surprised. On top of that, one with a camera.  After a while, they got used to us and they went back to the football game on the TV.  

Since we wanted something sour and spicy, we decided on the Thai menu. I will come back though to explore the English menu some other time. 

First up - a veg dish or rather salad. Ya Ma Moung - young mango salad was our choice. Have to say this was quite an excellent dish. With rather green sourish mango, with plenty of onions, fish sauce and nuts and a few weapons of mass destruction (Chilli padi ) hidden along there, if you are not hungry that day, the right mix of sourness and spiciness will get your appetite going. 

Now, i was meaning to try this in Bangkok. However because we had so many other choices of food, i decided to skip it. So when i saw this on the Smokehouse, i decided to call for this purple dish - known as Chor Ladda. It's a traditional Thai dumpling stuffed with chicken and peanuts. The dumpling was shaped into a pretty flower and then drizzled with sweetened coconut milk. While it sounds a bit overwhelming, it was actually quite an umami moment for my friend and myself. Only thing we need to mention, the flour used to make the skin of the dumpling smells a bit "hong".

Can't tell if this really a Thai dish or just because Softshell crabs are very popular, but we had the soft shelled crab deep fried. It was ok nothing really spectacular.  Good food to accompany beer though.

Meat is up next with a standard carbo required. Our choice is Thai Green Chicken with pineapple fried rice. I find that Thai Green curry is the epitome of Thai cooking. Either you do it well or you don't. Like the one i had at City Square in BKK, twas horrible ( chicken was soft and felt uncooked ) however, the smokehouse version was just right. The pineapple rice was a bit meh ,nothing special, should have just ordered plain rice. I could just drown in green curry sauce.   Plus, the amount of meat provided was quite substantial. 

Some how or rather, i felt we should have skipped the rice, cause we were like super full after that. So much for dieting for the wedding :P . We couldn't even stomach a try for the Thai desserts. I should try it with a bigger crowd later.

For those who are craving for decent Thai food but ain't willing to fly to BKK just yet, try the Old Smokehouse.

The SmokeHouse Restaurant
67,  Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar

Cabbages & Condom, Soi 12, Sukhomvit, BKK

This post is dedicated to the people in BKK. Hope everyone there stays strong in the face of the flood disasters.

Floating Markets in Bangkok - Bringing a new meaning to cooking on the fly

Some time back during the raya breaks, i made a beeline for Bangkok. To be honest, it's my first time there, though i have been to Hatyai and Chang Mai. When i was younger, where i went was dictated by my parents ( cause they paid ) and i was poor ( pocket money those days and now so different leh ) but as you grow older... with your own money, you can practically go any where. Provided there is no civil war, no floods, no tsunami, no earthquake and of course ... doesn't break your bank to go there ( Like Europe ).

My initial plan was to go back to HK but heck, i find Air Asia DOES not excel on cheap flights on the last minute [ Tony, are you reading this? ]. So BKK was not extremely pricey and i manage to get good rates @ the Ramada Encore, so i went to BKK instead.  The plan was to shop, eat, shop, eat, pretend to be tourist then eat and shop. Actually i ended up eating more than shopping. (Some how or rather, i couldn't get anything nice there ) At the point when i was there, it was actually raining quite often already, i remember my rather unpleasant flood walk in Chatuchak. Not impressed. T_T

One of the famed places to eat in BKK was this place called Cabbages and Condom. The name was a shoe in for "must visit place" even for the heck of it. Situated in Sukhomvit 12, this restaurant cum education place is quite an attraction for tourist.  In conjunction with the Population and Community Development, the aim is to educate people about safe sex ( we are in thailand after all :D ) and at the same time, hey feed you well.

Amazing Condom Varieties - are these really sold in the world? 

Restaurant Robson Heights

I feel like i am the last person on earth to blog about this. :) But yes, just a few short stops away from my office, there is a gem or 2 of restaurants hiding in the hills of Robson. ( Can they be called hills?)   The Makan Gang 2 has not gone out in ages because most of us were in the far reaches of the earth but that day was a rare day everyone manage to get together to makan. Inclusion of 2-3 new faces, one or 2 we may have possibly scared with our frantic picture taking and whatsapping of the food. < sorry >

The favorite choice of food of course in such a gathering is always Ketam. And each time, we always always over order. ( Never learn one all of us , either that ore we are just greedy piggies, the waiter was already giving us the look for over ordering) But naturally eating crabs is always most fun with a large group of people, otherwise a small group could be an overkill.

For the uninitiated to Robson Heights Restaurant, there are so easy ways to get there:
* From Federal highway, direction of PJ to KL, first turning to KL Sentral, go on that road and make a u turn at the old Brickfields police station, go straight up turn left. Can't miss this restaurant.
* From KL, to PJ still on the Federal high way, look for the SSF building on the left and then turn left, and turn left - can't miss this high up restaurant

I am amused that you need to climb up a flight of stairs ( not very high lah ) to get up this restaurant, kinda like a work out before you eat and after you eat. The interior is typically chinese not very exciting, clean and not stinky like some chinese restaurants are. And surprisingly cooling. ( Thank God, with the weather these days, aircons are a must )
Since this is a crabfestival, naturally most of the orders are about crab. First up was the Spicy Chilli Crab. Generous serving of sauce and a bit of a mustachioed crab here. The crab was fresh and meaty. However sauce wise, i still feel King Crab has the best sauce. King Crab seems to have that extra oomph in the sauce that keeps you going back for more.
Next up, Crab in salted egg. Look @ the coated claw. Cholesterol heaven.  I think most of us were licking the outsides of the crab. Again superbly fresh crabs but luckily this was not a very large order, can be jelakky if cold.

There was one crab pic that did not make the show here ( as in the blog ) because my hands were already about filthy diddling with the salted egg crabs was the Cheese crabs. That was in my books less jelakky than the salted egg but also the sauce cheese dib was awesome!  I liked it more than the other crab dishes i had.
One of my all time favorite dish and rather cholesterol laden is the Sang Har meen. I have practically eaten quite a few dishes from various restaurants in PJ/KL ( Greenview, King Crab, the reasonably priced one in Sg Wang, have not really tried Pan Heong yet) but Robson height does a mean version of this dish. Personally many years ago Greenview's one was pretty good, but the quality dipped. So now i think the one by Robson is not too bad. By far my favorite of the night.  Fresh noodles, not jelakky and large and luscious prawns. And the odd broccoli there :D

And then there is pork. Of Course. Pork is a must in most makan sessions. Marmite, Guinness and Honey pork, how can that not be a killer combination.  Tender and finger licking good, the meat just flies off the bone. 
Veggies and others usually fail to make the picture cut :) but nevertheless i swear we did consume some fiber. Good to catch up with the gang after so long.  I heard the glass noodles prawn was pretty good.  If you want some nice eats at reasonable prices, Robson Heights Seafood won't disappoint.

Address for those who fail to understand my poor directions:
ROBSON HEIGHTS SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
10B, Jalan Permai,
Off Jalan Syed Putra,
50460 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Telephone/Fax No : 603-2274 6216.

Ipoh Style Fish ball noodles

I never get bored of eating in Ipoh. In fact, every trip back is like fattening the cow session. :) Food is cheap and good in Ipoh and nothing ever really has ever tasted awful in my opinion. Let me think. Nope, rarely.

Noodles is a big part of the chinese breakfast in ipoh. I don't think anyone eats bread a lot unless it's with Kaya or you dump some soft boiled eggs on it. Unless you suffer from too-much-to-eat syndromes where you require plain wholemeal toast to detox, Noodles are a something that is eaten a lot in Ipoh.

My usual 3 favorite typo of noodle brekkie in Ipoh is 1) Curry Mee ( with Siew Yoke no less ) 2) Chee Cheong Fun Ipoh style [ light soya sauce and loads of fried onions ] 3) And Ipoh Style Fish ball noodles.  Of all 3, item 3 is the healthiest by far.

Some how, noodles in ipoh is crammed into a small tiny bowl of Mihun and yellow rice noodles. And to top this off, you need a decent crushed chilli to go with the noodles. Sometimes i just take plain noodles ( when i feel fat ) and then when i am not, i need my fish ball toppings. It is not the KL style yong tau foo but still it's simplicity is what makes it different.

oooh.... can see my mom topping up the chilli behind.

There are many of these fish ball noodles in Ipoh, however this one in Jalan Bijih Timah is only selling Fishball noodles. Yes. One shop of only fish ball noodles. If you are looking for choices, be forewarned there is none!  The funny thing about Ipoh is, you can always walk over to the next shop and order the food to be brought into a different restaurant. Never see that in KL, you'd probably might get whacked.

Noodles can come in soup or dry version ( black soya sauce ) , with either kuey teow, mihun, mi, or even loh si fun. I normally like mihun/mi. Don't be fooled by the small bowl, actually it is quite filling. My favorite is the pork balls with minced squid, can't see from the picture, cause all the foo pei is covering it up. I like this style of Fish balls because it is not those plastiky bouncy feeling type.  Can't really describe it but i like my fishballs less springy yet not soft. 

Along Jalan Bandar Bijih Timah - there are 2 shops selling the same stuff above - and is actually run by 2 brothers!  Many moons ago, their mom used to run it, but now the 2 brothers spilt their shop in the same row and both are equally cramped and crowded. Their elderly mom can be seen pottering around the older brother's shop packing chilli sauce and trying to make herself busy :)

Can't remember the other brother's shop name, but this one i ate was Restaurant CT - Can't miss it, his shop has like the only noodle shop inside and a lot of people milling around it.

When i was a kid, my aunt always used to called me a Ham Choy Mui...because i was a grubby kid. Ham Choy means grubby, like you know, the unwashed bantal busuk kind :). However, i hope that did not really translate to er the fact that i like salted veggies a lot.  Ham Choy is just one of the types of salted preserved  vegetables found in the Chinese cooking. There is the mui choy that you find in Mui Choy Kau yoke, or Tung Choy or even Char Choi, in which you find in Szechuan noodles.

The salted veg adds zest and sometimes spice to your dishes, but don't necessary are the healthiest kind of food around town. I have to say i love all of them but of late with the wave of fake food around and the high salt content, i try to limit the dosage i need to eat. :)

Ham Choy Chu Yoke or Salted Veg and Mince pork is one of the dishes i used to eat when i was a child. Being extremely fussy with food, pork was of the ways my grandmother and mother tempted me to eat. I guess this dish must hit a spot. Very simply, you just need mince pork { marinate sikit with some soy sauce and cornflour [ gets rid of smell ] ) and ham choy. This ham choy is from Ipoh by the way. You need the dark leaves kind, which so far i only see in Ipoh.

Soak in water before cooking sprinkled with a bit of sugar to take the edge of the sourness.

Heat the wok, add a bit of chopped garlic, and stir fry the pork. Add salted veg in the pan, when almost done, a bit of dark soya sauce and water. Thicken the sauce to your liking. As we grew older, fresh chilli was added in to give it a kick. With a bowl of fresh, hot white rice, this will surely whet your appetite. Alternatively, you can replace Ham Choy with fresh belimbing ( yeap, starfruit - the tiny kind )

Note: in most KL supermarkets you find the Ham Choy with no green leaves, you can use that but add in onions and carrots to give it a different twist.  Or, if you don't like this with pork, boil soup!!!

P/S: This is quite a simple dish to replicate at home. 

Arigatou Malaysia :)

Something i saw in this year's Bon Odori in KL. I admire the Japanese for their resilience in rebuilding their country. Very little blame, just good old fashion hard work.   がんばって!!