Chinese New Year is all about re-union. A group of food bloggers, including me, were having “re-union” in one of the restaurants at D’Piazza, Bayan Baru. Food bloggers come and go (some gave up blogging, some simply  due to food poisoning). It would be grateful if similar faces are still there during new year.

Demax, a Chinese restaurant (seriously, I don’t know its Chinese name), was having a management change recently and we were invited for review.

Perhaps this “No government and service taxes” is a welcoming sign.

It got set lunch with big bowl of rice (RM11.90 Nett). Suitable for cheap labor like me who always looking for cheap + big piece food to survive.

The set lunch comes with a drink, soup of the day, and dessert. There are some choices to choose from, including:

Special fried Fish  (Saa Bee Hu) 三味魚

Sweet & Sour Chicken

Kong pou Pork

Note that the rice portion had been reduced for this review purposes (we need to reserve our tummy for other dishes). The actual size is bigger.

Other than set lucnh, they did provide ala carte as well. One of the dishes we tried was Lime Steamed Siakap (酸柑蒸石甲) (RM28). The fish was topped with garlic/chili/lime sauces which will increase your appetite. It was spicy for me.

Curry Sotong (RM8.00). Best served with rice.

Not to be confused this one with curry sotong. This is the Tomyam Soup Noodle (RM5.80). The soup was at sweet side.

Seafood soup noodle (RM6.50). One thing I noticed about the food here is that – they like to use widely available fake crab  meats with artificial favoring on their dishes and label as “Seafood”. Personally I would prefer the real seafood instead.

Oyster Noodle (RM5.80). One of the best noodle type of that day.

Ice Sour Plum Pork Rib 冰梅骨 (Small RM8.50). I like this one.

Salad Chicken (Small RM8.00, Large RM16.00). Both taste and texture were just average.

Special Tofu 招 牌 豆 腐 (Small RM8.00 / Medium RM10.00 / Large RM12.00).

Beverage-wise, they did have some signature drinks, such as this one:

滄海一香 Shandy + Champaign + Sea coconut (RM5.90). I like this one.

Other than that, they do have some ice-blended stuff, such as this Ice Blended Smoothies Blackcurrant (RM4.50).

Ice Blended Smoothies Mango (RM4.50)

Ice Blended Smoothies Milo (RM4.50)

Best of all, they did provide detox health drink 排毒健康飲品 (Carrot, cucumber, apple, beetroot, celery) at the price of only RM5.90 (in case the food is too toxic for you…. just kidding).

Environment-wise, the restaurant is so classy that you won’t notice that this is a “Choo Char” restaurant (More like a western food restaurant).

At a whole, a restaurant which variety of food to try on. There are some improvements which we would like to see after new management taking over the restaurant. What we like to see is that they should have more signature dishes. There is a menu changes in March and hopefully there are some exciting items in it. Instead of being an average all-rounder, they may also consider segment themselves into either fast-serving food stall or fine dining style, and target for specific customers. Hereby I would also like to thank Mr. Tonny for inviting us for the food review. Also thanks to Cariso and FoOdPaRaDiSe for organizing the event.

Other participants:

http://www.buzzingbee.blogsome.com/
http://yummy-station.com/
http://www.gourmetgarden.com.my/

http://cokeworldcitizen.blogspot.com/

No related posts.

If you ask me what I did during Chinese New Year, here the list:

1. Eat
2. Eat
3. Eat
4. Eat
5. Eat

Yes, it is all about eating, including this Zealand Bak Kut Teh which I visited during CNY at Gurney Drive.

Zealand Bak Kut Teh opened from 7:30am – 2:45pm daily. The same restaurant serves seafood at night (from 6pm – 11:30pm).

There are actually two Bak Kut Teh restaurants there. From what I heard is that Zealand provides better service but less varieties, while another one provides more varieties but more expensive and the service is poorer. Let’s see how’s the food tasted like…

As usual, we ordered Chinese Lettuce topped with Chicken Floss 玻璃生菜 (RM8.00). The portion suits two persons and tastes ok.

They do have fried noodle as well. My friend recommended me this Fried Tau Chiam 豆签 (RM5.00) which was mainly made of soy bean. Not bad. It tasted a bit like Teo Chew Fried Noodle.

Here came out main dish of the day – Bak Kut Teh (RM10.00). The bak kut teh is of sweet (甘甜) type. This bowl is for one person.

It came with two choices of rice – plain rice (RM1.00) and Yam rice (RM2.00).

One concern when eating Bak Kut Teh is whether or not they provide soup refilling. Some give you only one refilling while some give you a dark face. This restaurant, surprisingly, generously give you refill without you asking them to do so.

I like to dunk You Tiao (油条) (RM2.00) into the soup. When refilling, the manager saw us putting them into the soup and advised us not to do so since it will make the soup oily. He then gave us another bowl of soup, just to put the You Tiao into it

At first glance, Zealand provides good service with reasonable price at one of the tourist spots in Penang. Will visit them again.

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Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Chinese used to settle all debts before Chinese New Year, but not for my case. I have too many restaurant reviews in buffer, such as this one. As you may already aware, I went to Malacca for holiday last Xmas holiday. We departed at a whoppy 4am from Penang. You may think that we gone crazy, but actually we wanna pass by Ipoh for a Dim Sum breakfast before we continue our journey (We knew that it will be ultra mega crowded as early as 7:30am). As long as Ipoh is concerned, there are two restaurants worth considering – Foh San (富山) and Ming Court (明阁). We plan to “eat double” that morning but sadly Ming Court is closed on Thursday.

We reached there at 6am and the restaurant was not yet opened. Surprisingly there were a bus of customers already waiting outside.

While waiting for the shop to open, I snapped some photos from outside.

Seriously, this is one of the most nicely-decorated Dim Sum restaurants I ever visited (Heard it was recently renovated).

Finally the shop opened at 6:30am. We quick quick grab a table and sit down. Tired of normal Chinese tea, we ordered green tea instead. Note that in Ipoh, people like to “tap toi” (share table). Be prepared if someone roughly sit with you without your agreement, especially if your table still have space left. Fortunately, these things didn’t happened to us as there were ample tables in the early morning. Hoho~

The first item we grabbed was Water Chestnut Cake 马蹄糕. This sweet, springy outside and crunchy inside cake is a must-have for any HK Dim Sum restaurant.

I took one Char Siew Bao 叉烧包 and one Fermented Pork Bun 南乳包. The later was fat and juicy. Good if you like fat meat.

Whenever I visit a Dim Sum restaurant, I must take their Har Gow 虾饺 and Sieu Mai 烧卖. Not bad for this restaurant.

We liked fish balls as well so we took both fried 炸鱼丸 and steamed 蒸鱼丸 version. I still prefer the steamed version.

Yong Tau Fu 酿豆腐. Quite representable compared to some restaurants which steamed it together with other dim sum and looks messy.

This is called “Double Layer Milk” (双皮奶), one of my friend’s favourites.

It has two layers – springy milk skin layer and slightly watery milk layer, and is famous in China and Macau.

Another good thing of arriving early is that the egg tart is freshly came out from the oven and is still hot. This is one of our favorites.

I like to order Chee Cheong Fun (猪肠粉) whenever I visit a dim sum shop. You can tell how stingy a shop is by simply looking on how many prawns they provided on the dish. Fortunately Foh San passed my test. The addition of sesame and veggie is a plus.

They do have quite a number of fried items, such as fried shrimp rolls (虾卷) and…. (I forgot the name already)… bombs stuffed with Char Siew.

A point worth noting is that its chili sauce is quite spicy compared to ordinary’s one with mild spiciness. It may kill your tummy early in the morning. I heard some locals prefer to bring their own chili sauce there.

If you asked me how much we ate that day, it is RM45.70 for two persons (with 5% government tax…. hmmm) with 16 items.

As a whole, a Dim Sum shop you should visit in Ipoh. The newly-renovated environment is a competitive advantage. It may not be a “everyday-must-go” Dim Sum restaurant but still worth visiting. However, the price may be slightly above average (It was heard that the quality is not as good as before as well). Make sure you reach early there or else you will have difficulty in getting a seat.

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Snorkeling without seeing bikini girls laying or playing on beach is a sin. We actually arrived at the floating platform which is near to the beach. This post will show guys out there how to get to the beach to see mouth-watering bikini girls.

There are two beaches which are very near to each other. You can reach the first beach by just snorkeling from the platform.

Sadly, not much to see there.

The second beach is at few hundred meters away. There are two ways to reach there. Snorkeling to first beach and walk to the destination…

… or use this “D-Day” boat.

Unless you are state swimmer or used to smuggling illegal things underwater, taking “D-Day” boat is a smarter choice.

I was surprised that nobody is wearing life jacket on boat.

Ahh~ the second beach is a paradise. You can also perform snorkeling there. I noticed that the second beach is operated by another company and when I asked for a mask and life jacket, they were not allowing me to do so. I ended up took the same “D-Day” boat and go back to platform to took my life jacket and the mask. Lesson learned.

There are bridges for you to walk around.

Looks like this boat is out of service…

From another bridge end, you can see the harbor is at the far end.

You can also enjoy jungle tracking there. It had a ball-dropping staircases of 183 steps (should be piece of cake for hikers).

While finding my balls, I snapped some photos as well.

When you reached the top of the hill, you could another side of the sea.

Shxx! Have to walk down again

We still got sometimes left before going back to platform so I took this opportunity to snorkeling. Look ma~ it is a sea cucumber! I hope I can bring one back home for Chinese New Year.

Look! It a baby shark! In Pulau Payar, sharks like this will pass by you quite often. Make sure you didn’t eat KFC in the water or else sharks will eat your drumstick (Guys also advised to hide their sausages and meat balls securely as well). We were told that the “Shark Feeding” session was canceled that day due to the fact that the guards were injured.

I was being chased away at 3pm as it was time to go  back

As a whole, Pulau Payar is definitely a place to visit thanks to its rich corals, fishes, and clean beach. It is hardly to have a clean beach nowadays in which you can see through the soft and crystal clear water as well as playing with salt water fishes. Perhaps the only drawback is that the time is too short to fully enjoy the beach and snorkeling there. Definitely will visit again if got chance.

Related posts:

1. Pulau Payar (Part 2) – Now Eating
2. Pulau Payar (Part 1) – Now Snorkeling

The lunch hour is from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm. There were about 30 variants of food including appetizer, drinks, and desserts. Note that it is a halal buffet. I was not sure whether or not the items will be the same each time we visit the place but it was an international cuisine which included the following (sorry hah Criz, stealing some of food labeling from your site.):

Western cuisine - fish and chip, fried turmeric chicken, vegetable salad, coleslaw, tuna with French bean salad, jellies, fresh bun and butter, coffee, etc.

Asian cuisine - fried rice, fried rice noodle, fried fruit desserts, vegetable spring rolls, five spice chicken rolls, beef slices stew, braised mushroom with mixed vegetables, tea, brown sugar steamed cake (malai ko), and kuih lompang pandan, etc.

Europe cuisine - spaghetti with bolognese

The food tasted good especially after snorkeling. Don’t forget to steal some buns and go feed fishes after lunch.

I wish I could stop here and but there are still some to share in this amazing Pulau Payar. I will show you the beach and hiking experience in my next and last part.

Related posts:

1. Pulau Payar (Part 3) – Beach
2. Pulau Payar (Part 1) – Now Snorkeling

After living in Penang for a while, I asked myself, is there a beach nearby where I can enjoy crystal clear water? The answer is yes, by paying Pulau Payar a visit. I went there in one of the Sunday. It took me few days to arrange all the photos. As a result, this post will be divided into three parts – “Snorkeling”, “Beach” and “Food”.

Pulau Payar is actually an island in the neighbor state – Kedah. To go there, you can take the cruise from Swettenham Pier in Penang here.

We departed at 8am and it took about 2 hours to reach the destination using the cruise above.

Oh ya, make sure you bring sun block there or else your parents won’t recognize you when you return home.

After 2 hours ride, finally we arrive at the floating platform called Langkawi Coral.

For this trip, I noticed many white guys/girls as well as Chinese from China were there as well.

The platform is quite hygiene. Unfortunately there is no locker so make sure you don’t bring gold bars or diamonds there.

This is the GPS location.

Standing from the platform, you can see the water is crystal clear.

And there are massive amount of salt water fishes beneath it.

Beside the platform there is a staircase in which you can walk down for snorkeling or to play with the fishes.

Look at those fishes, there are so adorable!!

I hope I can bring some of them back.

If you asked me how I took underwater pictures. Basically I wrapped my camera into a waterproof case called Dicapac. It took some courage to submerge your few K camera into the water. For my case is like taking one PC into water.

Another thing to note is that once you put your camera into the waterproof case, you probably need to set to AF mode as well as Auto scene mode. Operating camera in manual mode underwater is a nightmare. I wasted 50+ photos just to snap those fishes. Already told them not to move but they never listen.

Time for snorkeling!! There are snorkeling gear for you to use there. What you need to bring is your swim suit.  This is my first time doing snorkeling. It took me few tries to fit the mask properly. Sigh~

The coral is great.

You can see fishes of many species wondering around the coral.

I even saw some Nemo (Crown fishes) hidden in sea plants.

Even though that was my first time snorkeling, I was quite enjoying it. At first you may feel scared as the water is somehow deep and some naughty fishes will come and “kiss” you. Eventually you will get used to it. Make sure you wear a life jacket for safety reason. I will definitely do snorkeling in the future again.

That’s all for the first part. For those who can’t wait for 2nd part, here is the Langkawi Coral link in which you can make reservation from them or call them at04-899 8822.

Related posts:

1. Pulau Payar (Part 2) – Now Eating
2. Pulau Payar (Part 3) – Beach

In Malacca we have red houses. In Penang, we have Brown House. Located opposite of Midland (and beside Adventist hospital) is a restaurant called Brown House (previously housing Island Red Cafe) serving a number of cuisines, such as Chinese, Malay and Western. We were invited for a food review last weekend.

First on the building itself. It is a 2.5 storey building with private parking provided. The entrance is at the back so make sure you turn into Brown Road (and hence the Brown House) if you wish to park there.

For each floor, there are smoking/non-smoking areas provided.

On the 2nd floor, there are pool table …

… and performing stage as well. Should be a good place for gathering.

Let’s jump into the food. Note that the food here is non-halal (I can’t find any non-halal sign around). The first dish we tried was the Pork Chop with Lemon Grass Sauce (RM17.90). The dish looked plain at first. Expected it is another “chicken breast” I am going to try, surprisingly it tasted good. The pork was somewhat tender and tasted sweet.

One special thing about this cafe compared to other cafes is that they provide somewhat authentic dishes came with claypots, such as this Puff Pastry Chicken Stew (RM12.90). The puff is crispy and tasted good, especially when dunking it into the soup which was cooked with carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, and of course, the chicken.

Another special dish is Pork Leg with Coconut Juice (RM10.90) served with flat rice noodle (Koey Teow). According to the menu, the use of coconut juice is to neutralize pork fat found in pork leg. Tasted good.

Alternatively, you may try Braised Pork Ribs with Nuts (RM10.90) which is also come with flat rice noodle. Each has different taste of base soup even though they look similar from outside.

Similar to most cafe of this type, they also provide nasi lemak (RM7.20).

This is Ee Chee Loh Fun (鱼翅捞饭) (RM10.90). Tasted average and can’t see a single sharkfin there. More like Hor Fun sauce for me.

Other than main dishes, they also provide some starters, from as simple as a plate of french fries (RM6.90)….

… to Potato Wedges with Paprika (RM6.90) …

… and to Potato Skin (RM11.90) – baked potatoes stuffed with bacon and cheese.

Other starters include hot & spicy chicken wings (RM11.90) …

… honey chicken wings (RM11.90) …

… Arabian Toast (RM3.60) – bread stuffed with Pandan Kaya …

… and Hanoi Rolls - warm and crispy roll of minced meat, mushrooms, egg and greens (RM11.90).

For starters, other than Arabian Toast, Potato Skins, and Hanoi Rools, the rest were quite normal appetizers we have out there. Pricing-wise, some starters could be expensive compared to some rice & noodles dishes.

Some of their drinks are quite special. I am lazy to go through them one-by-one here. You may try their Brown House Special with has a flat price of RM7.20.

They also have set lunch menu (RM12.80) which is only available during lunch hour.

The light set menu (RM7.80) is available throughout the day.

They also have delivery service provided for those living nearby. You can download the ordering list here. Note that the minimum quantity is 15 items per order.

As a whole, Brown House did provide some unique dishes other than traditional cuisine we found in most of the cafes. Other than pork, they serve beer as well. The parking is convenience. The restaurant also provides free WIFI and delivery service around that area. Probably a new gathering place at Pulau Tikus area.

Menu can be downloaded below:

Take-Away Menu: Download

Participating bloggers:

Steven Goh

Criz Food

Viva for Min’s Adventure

Yummy-Station

Gourmet Garden

Related posts:

1. Dim Sum House @ Anson Road

In Thai, we have red shirt protest. In Malaysia, we also have red shirt “protest”…. at Kenny Rogers Roasters. This is in conjunction with Roasters Healthy Eating Day organized by the restaurant. As long as you wear something red, you are entitled for buy 1 free 1 meal. We reached at the Penang Airport branch at 11:40am and the queue already extended out to the restaurant (We ended up eating at McD there). Based on our observation, most customers were from company M. Well done!

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During Christmas weekend, I went for holiday and countdown at Malacca (Can you imagine that I actually met Steven Goh there?). I will write a blog about it one day. At the mean time, let’s begin with a small blog about one of the chicken rice ball restaurants there – Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Ball (和记鸡饭团).

The restaurant opens at 8:30am and closes around 5pm or when the food sold out. We saw many customers queued up outside around 2:30pm. When we returned to the same place around 4:30pm, there was no queue and we straightaway walk in

The interior has a classic look.

We asked for drumstick part but sadly they gave me the upper portion The chicken was just average.

Perhaps the only reason you visit chicken rice ball shops in Malacca is to experience its rice balls versus normal rice we have. I can’t make comparison on the rice balls in this restaurant as this is the only shop I visited. However, they taste good to me. I was told by the owner to consume the balls with chili sauce and dark sauce provided. They tasted better that way.

We also ordered cabbage as side order. Also average.

Another side dish we ordered was the curry fish (also known as “Asam Fish” there). The fish is fresh and tastes good.

As a whole, if you are new to chicken rice balls, you should pay one of the restaurants there at least a visit due to its uniqueness. Tasty or not is based on personal perception and experience.

Related posts:

1. Famosa Chicken Rice Ball – A not-so-famous commercialized shop
2. Happy Cafe – Happier with Duck Rice and Fried Rice

About 2 months ago I reviewed Sushi Kitchen, a genuine vegetarian Japanese restaurant in Sungai Ara. It is a place for nice food and relaxation. I re-visited it recently, just to found out that it will terminate its business end of December 2009.

According to the lovely couple, they planned to further travel (I also hope I can enjoy my life like this.)  For those who did not visit it, please do so before next year. If you asked me, “What should I ordered for my first visit?”, I would say try their Happiness Set (皆大欢喜) (RM26.80 big) which combined almost all Sushi available in the menu in one plate. I ordered it every time I visited the restaurant.

During my last visit, we ordered the same Sushi Kitchen Fried Rice (RM6.80). It was a bit small for my big tummy but again it was delicious.

Take a look on their carrots! It even had star and love shapes.

Unless I was sick, I rarely ordered porridge. It was an exception during my last visit in which we ordered Relaxing Porridge (清松之粥) (RM5.80).

It was very unique in which the porridge was further mashed and mixed with various veggies such as cabbage, carrot, “chicken” fross, black sesame, and etc.

Another new dish we ordered was Madam Tan Roll (陈妈妈肉卷) (RM6.80). It is similar to our “Loh Bak” but is stuffed with various vegetables including yam.

Anyone know where to buy this chili sauce?

If you are still reading this, what are you waiting for? Go and make a reservation before next year!

Related posts:

1. Sushi Kitchen – Healthy Vegetarian Japanese Food