Shanghai Ding Signature Sauce Container

Shanghai Ding 上海鼎 is not new in Penang and reviews already exist since 2 years ago. It has its own specialties despite bombing Shanghai restaurants here. Today I will briefly review the two branches.

正宗上海小笼包 (New World Park)

正宗上海小笼包 (Bayan Bay)

带子小笼包

The main restaurant is in Bayan Bay (nearby Queensbay Mall) and a branch is opened in New World Park. Obviously its signature dish is the meat dumplings (正宗上海小笼包) (RM6.80++). It was nicely prepared without spoiling the hot soup inside. By adding RM2.00, you can order scallop meat dumplings (带子小笼包) (RM8.80++). The scallops, however, are small and it tastes no different compared to the original’s one.

奶皇刺猬包

酒香子虾QQ饭

腊味叉烧煲仔面

Else, you can order for spiky buns stuffed with sweet custard. There are also new dishes being introduced, including QQ fried rice (酒香子虾QQ饭) which is seriously cute and will make your girl(s) happy. It is an ordinary fried rice served in love shape. Other than that, it also has new claypot rice (腊味叉烧煲仔饭) (RM5.80++). Since it is called 煲仔, it is small and my stomach didn’t feel anything after finishing it.

鲜虾卖

上海排骨清汤面

炸酱肉碎拉面

You also can order some dim sum, which are steamed on the spot to ensure the freshness. There is also a series of ramens, such as 上海排骨清汤面 (Shanghai Pork Rib Ramen in soup) (RM7.20++) and 炸酱肉碎拉面 (Ramen with meat sauce topping). They are slightly spicy though.

雪耳苹果 (New World Park)

雪耳苹果

红枣参茶

As a whole, a restaurant worths trying for its reasonable and juicy meat dumplings. If you ask me which branch is better, perhaps New World Park is slightly better in dumplings, while the main restaurant is better in drinks and is more spacious.

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Hakka Mee 客家面

If you come from Queensbay Mall to Pantai Jerejak’s roundabout, turn left, take the flyover, and you will reach Sungai Nibong area. On your left after the flyover is a row of shop, including Restaurant Teppan Yaki, and the one we going to review today, Hakka Mee.

Yong Tau Foo

Fried Fish Dumpling 炸鱼饺

Seriously there is no restaurant sign in front of the shop. The restaurant’s actual name is “Kampar Fish Jelly Restaurant“, or more known as Sungai Nibong’s Hakka Mee among locals. There is a counter in front of the shop in which you pick your own ingredients and make them into a bowl of soup (also known as Yong Tau Foo).

Hakka Mee 客家面

Other than Yong Tau Foo, Hakka Mee is their signature dish  Usually I order Hakka Mee (large). The shop has yum rice as well.

Herbal Chicken 药材纸包鸡

Chicken Leg 鸡脚

Other signature dishes include pork in soy sauce, herbal chicken wrapped in aluminum, and chicken legs. All signature dishes are quite delicious and definitely worth a try. The herbal chicken is a quarter chicken (drumstick part) and usually I am able to finish it alone. Unfortunately they don’t have pork legs in vinegar (猪脚醋) which I like.

The shop initially only consists of one shoplot but now it had expanded another lot with air-conditioning. Note that it closes on Monday. It can be crowded even during weekdays. Make sure you arive on or before 12PM during lunch to enjoy your meal. As a whole, the food is delicious but prepare to drink more water due to various seasoning (a.k.a Ajinomoto) commonly found in Yong Tau Foo.

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Orenji Ogon

Last weekend, grandpa added two more kois into the fish pond. This time it is local kois. They usually have poorer textures compared to Japanese kois. Even when packing, local kois also being treated differently, that is, two kois shared a small bag without adding general aid (yellow) medicine. It makes me very difficult in taking photos.

Aka Bekko

For Orenji Ogon (Metallic Orange Koi) which is about 25cm, the scales are less shiny. The four “beards” are shorter and it has only 2 noses. Another one (about 40cm) should be Aka Bekko (White base, major red with black patches) variation, but the red color is faded into orange. It may be not Aka Bekko… just a mixed local koi.

Anyway, the price is far cheaper than Japanese kois. With the price of one Japanese Yamabuki Ogon, you can get about 6 local kois like these.

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金菠萝 Heros severus (Gold)

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African Cichlid

Sometime after washing aquarium, this playful yellow African Cichlid (非洲王子) will jump into a Sushi King teacup ready to become sashimi.

Scientific name: Labidochromis caeruleus
English name: Yellow Labidochromis

Max. Length: 10cm
Water Quality: pH 7.5 ~ 8.5
Hardness: 5.0 ~ 12.0 dGH
Note: Easy to keep. Entry level of species. Semi-aggressive. Can mix with other type of fishes. Male fish has brighter and greasy-look skin.
Food: Mix. I usually give frozen red worm to them.

Related posts:

1. My African Cichlid

Decorative Mushroom House	Magic Pro 100g Fish Food (S)	Quanrantine Container
Decorative Broken Car	Decorative Sand

AB-Bacteria: There are two bottles, Bacteria-A and Bacteria-B. Each costs about RM8.00. You need to mix one cap of Bacteria-A and Bacteria-B to a separate basket of water (usually I just fill in half basket). Then, pour one of them into another one and add some more water. Then, pour them into the pond. I also use this medicine to cure cloudy eye disease on fishes.

Some aquarium decorative stuffs such as mushroom house, broken car, and sands. It is good for the fishes to play hide-and-seek. I am also planning to use the broken car to trap some eggs lay by stupid gold fishes, who like to eat their own eggs.

A quarantine cage for naughty Cichlid who like to attack other fishes.

An expensive floating food (100g) for my Lili and Cichlid fishes. Normal floating food just cost about RM7.00.

With this visit I spent nearly RM50. Not a good hobby for cheap slave like me to keep fishes.

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As you may aware, I have a fish pond at home consisting of 11 Koi fishes purchased by my family. The pond has more than 11 Kois initially but due to parasite diseases, some of them had died off. After cleaning the pond for weeks, it is time to introduce some new members into the pond.

I visited Zen-Koi at Tanjung Bungah, Penang. Surprisingly, a real Japanese Koi is not as cheap as I am expecting. A 20cm single color Koi costs RM280. Three colors one (e.g. Showa) is about RM380. Since the owner is not around that time, and workers there are unable to operate credit card swiping machine, I can only afford one Yamabuki Ogon, a metallic yellow color Koi. At this stage it is hard to tell the sex of this Koi but it should be female judging on the opaque fins and longer head. An interesting fact about Japanese Koi is that it has 2 pairs of nose.

Yamabuki Ogon seems shy at first but after a week it is able to swim up to catch some food (even though sometime returns to hideout with empty hands.. uh.. mouth). Now, I have 12 Kois in my pond.

In the same week, I also purchased an interesting fish floating food made of Chinese herbal. It is said to be able to cure ulcer on fishes (but who knows and who cares). It is slightly at expensive side but the Kois seem like it.

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Few months ago my brother brought back a 2-feet wide aquarium. Initially the tank had some tropical fishes but now it has 7 African Cichlid fishes inside. Cichlid fishes are agreesive and should not mix with your gold fishes or Koi. They will bite gold fish’s tail. They also like to fight for territories and chase each others. Other than those behaviors, it is nice to keep some colorful one in aquarium as they may look like sea fishes.

Click here for a short video clip of my Cichlid fishes.

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1. My African Cichlid ready to become sashimi

Last week, I had solved electric shock issue by replacing internal power filter to canister filter. Another problem is, my aquariums and pond are full of algae if not cleaning them for a week. Water will become green and eventually you cannot see your own fish. One way to solve this issue is by putting lots of salt into the water (e.g. 10kg for 10,000 litre of water). For me, problem solved after I installed a 9W external UV light on my 3-feet width aquarium, as well as a 30W light-tube version in last chamber of my ground filter for pond. A big investment I would say.

For glass tank, the algae finally dissappear and the only thing I need to do is to replace 20% water every week. 9W is slightly stronger for  a 3-feet width tank and thus I put a timer switch on it to run for 6 hours per day.

For my 15,000 litres pond, there is still algae sticks on inner wall and floor but the water is now clearer (no more green water).

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I used to have an internal power filter for my 3 feets width aquarium. After using it for some time, there is electricity leakage… making washing the tank a nightmare, not to mention hurting fishes inside. So, I purchased external canister filter.

This canister filter is able to filter 1000 litres per hour, slightly powerful for my tank. There are 4 “baskets” inside the canister, with the last one is bio-ring section. The shop dealer gave me a bag of filter fiber so that I could customize it and add them into first 3 “baskets”. Installation is quite easy but make sure the canister is below the tank.

With additional UV light (purchase separately), I only need to clean the canister every 2 months compared to every week when using internal power filter. Worth the money.

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