Valentine Celebration 2011@The View

This Valentine we've decided to celebrate it as lunch since both of us were on leave on that day as well. Reasons so that we can spend time with William after nursery plus there's no need to deal with the crowds celebrating at night.

I've been wanting to try on The View restaurant at Equatorial Hotel, but most of the time ended up in Kampachi instead since we loves japanese food so much. This year being very persistent and "demanding" from my end, we finally step into The View.

The restaurant had already make preparations and decorations for Valentine celebration, with 2 cupids by the doorway and many lovely hearts hanging down from the ceiling inside the restaurant. They were serving semi-buffet lunch then, where the appetizers and desert are buffet style and we just need to select the main course from the menu provided. The prices varies from the main course selection.

Our waiter introduces to us the promotion of the month, which are dover sole at RM118 and duck trilogy at RM128. My hubby opted for dover sole, a type of freshwater fish reportedly imported from Australia, while I ordered the duck trilogy, which consists of duck confit, smoked duck breast and foie gras.

While waiting for the main course to arrive, we helped ourselves to the appetizer first. It has many choices of salads and cold cuts, plus fresh oyster as well. My hubby is not a fan for those but I enjoyed the fresh salad and oyster a lot. When we are done, the waiter brought us our minestrone soup. Again the soup is not to my hubby's liking as he's very much a meat-lover.

Next is the main course. With my duck trilogy, I first tasted the smoked breast, it was superbly juicy and tender. In fact it was the best duck breast I ever had in my record. The duck confit was well seasoned, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. Nicely done as well. Foie gras was very soft and smooth, but I eat it heavy heartedly with the images of the fattened goose in my mind. As for the dover sole, it was so juicy and fresh. Each bite of the meat was a heaven. But since the whole fish itself was so big, plus there's 2 side of meat to be consumed, my hubby was having quite a hard time finishing it. In fact he do not have room for desert afterward. I was also quite full and only manage to eat some light desert.

Overall the food, environment and service was really worth the money. Will definately be persistent and demanding again in the future to try out other courses as well.

Onde-onde

I was talking to my mom the other day, when we chance upon an article in The Star newspaper about kuih making trades in Penang. There onward my mom was reminiscing the time when she was small and helping my grandma in making nyonya kuih. From there on only I knew that my mom knows a trick or two into making these wonderful treats.

I quickly make a date with my mom since I'm taking long leaves for CNY, asking her to teach me how to make onde-onde, one of my favorite kuih. She told me of the ingredients and off I went to Tesco to purchase the basic ingredients. I only manage to purchase brown sugar there. I was looking high and low for the glutinous rice flour but don't see any. My mom was a life saver when she said that she had plenty of those at home when I called her.

After I dropped William at the nursery, I went to meet my mom at the wet market to purchase coconut flakes. But the seller must still be in holiday mood since the stall did not open. We then had to improvise and make the flakes ourselves using electric blender with the matured coconut from my dad's coconut tree. With some screwpine leaves for its natural green coloring, and we are ready to go.

The method is exactly the same as making tang yuan ball, with addition of brown sugar as its fillings. In total we made 45 of them and I am quite happy with the results. Here's the photo that I've taken...

Suffolk House

In celebration of my belated birthday (*Blink*Blink*), I manage to "persuade" my hubby to go to Suffolk House for dinner last Saturday. We left William with my mom so that we can enjoy the romantic evening together ;)

Since Suffolk House is one of Penang heritage building (reportedly built by Sir Francis Light), there's plenty of signboard guiding you on how to go these from Masjid Negeri onward. But be careful though if you are going at night, it is quite dark and secluded, plus the road is abit windy. It was our first time going there, and my hubby is abit worried that we went to the wrong place. In front of the mansion there's a guardhouse. I felt abit insecure as to whether we're at the correct place as the security guard was looking at us when we walked close by. With all the signboard showing the closing time for tour of the mansion made it even worse. But since the guard never stop us, we just walk right in. The walkway is made from small pebbles, so it is abit difficult to walk for me as I was wearing high-heels.

It was a relief to see the restaurant as we entered the building. The lighting was slightly dimmed, making it look very classically romantic with European style decoration. I like the way they concealed the airconds in the room with wooden boxes and cleverly disguise it as side table for lamps to rest on. The restaurant only serve dinner sets where you just need to choose the main course. From the menu, you'll see a long listing of food upto 2 pages but there are only 5 types of main courses to choose from. So the rest of the food is made up of appetizers, soup and desert. The price ranges from RM90 to RM130, depending on the type of main course that you choose.

Ok, let me recount back what I had eaten there.

1. Freshly baked bread with butter. My hubby suspected that they bake the bread themselves. I'm not very sure but it does look and taste special, and especially hot and fresh.

2. Sun-dried tomato rolled pastry. It is superbly small that they serve it with only a ceramic spoon and you just pop the whole thing into your mouth.

3. Fish pie. Very very juicy and tasty.

4. Watercress and lotus root salad. I'm a bit skeptical since watercress is bitter when taken raw but the salad dressing really compliments the whole thing. I just love it.

5. Garlic soup and bread. Now you don't see any spoon on the table, so how are we going to taste the soup? If you notice carefully, the soup is served in a narrow cup. So you just pick it up and drink it as if you were drinking tea! How unique! The soup is abit too sweet for my liking but my hubby loved it.

6. Tomato sorbet with plum powder. Excuse my photo as I only took it after I've eaten it halfway. Just double up the portion from what you see here. The taste is refreshingly cool.

7. Finally the main course. My hubby ordered grilled cod fish and I ordered sausage wrapped with chicken thigh that comes with mushroom sauce and almond flakes. My hubby comment it right out that it looks very nice and regretted not ordering it when he saw the chicken. The waitress that served us can't help but laugh when he said that. Both of us are extremely full even before finishing the main course.

8. Coffee or tea. Both of us opt for tea.

9. Then the desert. Instead of one, we are served with 3 types of desert. There were hazelnut cake, ice-cream with somekind of pastry (I'm not sure what it's called but it is very good. My hubby called it modified cornflakes :P) and creme brulee. I really loved the top crispy layer of the creme brulee but the hazelnut cake is abit let down.

The staff is very attentive, service is very fast and the food is nice. We hardly need to wait for the food to come as we finishes each course. It just took us about an hour to complete the whole course, but we were extremely full from all these foods. I'm already considered as one of the big eater among my friends but then I had to pass almost half of my main course to my hubby to finish it up. You really need to make sure your stomach is big enough to fill in all these if you're not the kind of person who likes to waste any food.

Cream of Mushroom

All these while, I always bought canned mushroom soup whenever we wanted to have mushroom soup at home. The most common is ofcourse from Campbell, and I would buy another small can of button mushroom, chop into small pieces and add it in to make it more enjoyable. However, after few occasions, I noticed that I'm always thrist for water afterward. Not to mention that it is at times quite salty.

Now my hubby loves mushroom soup alot. And he said the best he had so far was from TGIF. It was very thick and creamy and have lots and lots of fresh mushrooms. He then gave me a challenge to make homecooked cream of mushroom for him. But that was many months ago, in which I did search for simple recepi from the Internet but just do not have the time to really study and experiment with it.

Just recently, I finally had time to source for the necessary ingredients and it ended up quite an expensive meal to cook due to the fresh white button mushrooms that I bought. No wonder TGIF serve with oyster mushroom instead, which are very very much cheaper. But my husband likes the one that I cooked, he even rated it better than the one he had at TGIF :D

Company Dinner @ E&O

Let's do it this way:

Purpose: Company Dinner

Location: E&O Hotel

Food Theme: Japanese and Chinese Fusion Buffet

Date & Time: 10th February 2010, 7.00pm

Price: RM 74.75 per person (including tax & service charges, but ofcourse company is paying :P)

There's lots and lots of food, and lots of lots of people. This is the second time I've eaten there but this trip is the most crowdest. The ambience was spoilt with sooooo many people and soooo many noise. It feels like eating in hawker stalls. Luckily the food is nice. But........ those with cameras did not take any photo of the spread of foods on the buffet aisles.

Hmmm... fresh oysters, salmons, roasted duck, fried baby crabs, grilled seafood, lamb and beef, unagi, temaki, udon etc. Needless to ask, my fav is oysters and salmons. The restaurant kept on topping up the food, so you never runs out of fresh oysters. The choice of fruits and deserts are plenty as well. There is a 3-tier fountain of melted chocolate at the fruit bar, and you can dip simply anything there. Most popular is marshmallow... yum yum.

Since William is tagging along for dinner, I can't really concentrate much on eating all the foods available. Need to be very picky on what I wanted to eat. Really need to thank the rest for entertaining William while I'm eating.

Eat biscuits first...

Not fair! Mom get to eat oyster but I only get to eat biscuits :(

Shocking Food Industry

My husband had been telling me few days back that this movie is a must watch. The title is Food Inc. But instead of a movie, it is more of a documentary. And it tells what actually went behind the scenes of our modern food industry. This ranges from fast food to bottled drinks to can and packaged food, even vegetables.


This movie shows to an extent where in US, it is cheaper to get unhealthy food rather than healthy food. It also shows how does science makes our livestock such as chicken and cows grow bigger and faster. You can really see the difference of how the chicken looks like 30 years ago at full grown size (it take about 3 months then) compared to current chicken size at just 7 weeks. From the time the chicks at hatched from egg to slaugher-house, they never seen daylight. The movie also shows how pigs are slaughtered in the meat plant is extremely shocking.


Woven between the show is a very sad story about a two-and-a-half year old boy who died from eating hamburger contaminated with e-coli 0157:h7. Being a mother myself, I was so concerned about my own son when I saw that clip. There's photo and video footage of the boy who looked so happy and healthy, and you could not imagine just how he could die just after 12 days from eating the contaminated hamburger. It came to a stage where his kidney failed and he could not drink any water when he was hospitalized, and he kept on begging for water and his family just couldn't do anything about it. Just hearing that the only word that came out from his mouth is water and imagining a little boy had to suffer this until he died just makes me cry.

To read further about the show review, you can go to this site: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=105152916


After watching the show, I became hesitant on what to feed my family. I think in Malaysia's source of food is still quite safe but as time goes on with people striving to make more money, faster and cheaper, it will soon become like what is shown in this show. Organic food is always the better choice, but at a higher cost. Do go watch this show. It is an eye-opening.

Terminal 1 - Bayan Bay

This place is very new, opened less than a year. From the brochure and signage, it says that 'Beside Eastin Hotel' but you will never find it there. It is in fact located in the new shoplots called Bay Avenue, somewhere in the middle block of inner road.

I won't know this place exist if not for our annual Christmas gift exchange. When we first walked in, I was impressed with its interior design. The owner does spend a lot in its renovation. They were preparing menu for new year eve celebration, and from the food selection and offer package, it looks interesting. But I would see how our lunch fares first before decide to book a place for new year dinner.

The waitresses wores cute pink bunny dresses and waiter wores pilot uniform and I liked this concept very much. But the service rate is a bit slow as the waitresses need to serve 2 floors by climbing up and down the stairs. And since the stairs is in circular design and in small steps, they will need to be careful when going down while balancing the trays. During our lunch course these, we had heard at least 3 times of fork or spoon fell down the stairs while the waitress is going down. They should do a service lift instead so that it is easier for the carry the food and utensils up and down like what we seen in other restaurants of more than one floor.

We ordered set lunch that came with soup, main course, desert and a drink. Since our table is quite long and there were 15 of us, the food came to us in batches. I think the chef did not prepare enough soup as the texture and taste is really different between the 1st batch and 2nd batch. I was lucky to have gotten the 1st batch, but the second bacth was sooooo diluted. Everyone who had that complaint and ended up taking more salts and pepper to make the soup more edible.

The first batch of soup

Next is the main course and again it came is batches. This is where the nightmare began. One colleague ordered cod fish, but the fish was so stale that he can't even take the first bite and ordered for a change. The replacement came after a long waiting time, but the cod fish got even worse. We can smell it when he cut the meat open. He gave up and change the food to spaghetti instead, hoping that it won't go wrong. Luckily it didn't. Another colleague ordered tuna fish, same as me but her meal came first. It was so dry and hard on the surface but it was not properly cooked from the inside. She ended up changing her meal to spring chicken and it fared a little better than the fish. My meal came then and similarly it was dry and hard but it was thoroughly cooked though. The mistake came from the large cut of meat. They had to cook it for so long to ensure that it was cooked from the inside that the outer part of the meat became very very dry.

The dreaded Cod Fish

The waitress kept apologizing to us when we complaint about the food. Furthermore, it tooked them 3 hours to serve us all the food. Most of us gave up asking for change as everyone was extremely hungry by then. Well, they can forget about asking us to get a table for new year dinner. Heck, I did not even bother trying to take more photos of their food.

Sesame Restaurant in G Hotel

As promised in my earlier post, it is now time to review the food that we had at Sesame restaurant. Actually there are 2 restaurants even though there is only one entrance. When you first walked in, the restaurant is known as Soy. You need to walked to the end of the Soy restaurant, and you will see a new area and that is where Sesame is located.

From the Sesame's menu, it is mainly chinese food ala-carte. You need to flip to the end of the menu to go to the set. Of course, the more you flip, the more expensive the set is. The cheapest set is RM68++ per person for 5 course meal. The rest of the set is 6 course meal and the cost range from RM88++ to RM128++ per person. The naming of the set is quite funny though. It is called "Sesame's Tasting Menu". It really gives the impressions that we're doing food tasting for wedding dinner selection :P

Both of us opt for the 6 course meal. But we were so busy eating and talking that I forgotten to take photo on some of the food. Anyway, lets start with the appetizers.

Both appetizers came with 2 items. I ordered Sichuan Chilled Smoked Duck and it came with jelly fish stuffed with tuna mayo, served in japanese cucumber ring.

My hubby ordered Nutmeg Mayo Prawns with seasonal fruit salad and crispy rolls with sesame and tomato salsa. The naming is very long, but we liked the presentation and the taste. Very unique.

Next is the soup. Basically both of us ordered shark fin soup but there are some slight difference in the side ingredients. I personally feels like it still tastes like the normal shark fin soup that we had at expensive chinese restaurants.

OK, I forgot to take photo of the next meal :(, so we'll skip that (psst... mine is baby lobster and it is very nice). Following that is fish. I had grilled cod fish while my hubby had baked tuna. Nothing to shout about for my fish but it is really fresh. My hubby liked his tuna alot because it is cooked the same way as chinese herbal chicken wrapped in tin foil. Since its fish, the meat is juicier. Yum yum...

Again I forgot to take photo (ahhhhh). If I can recall correctly, I think it's rice. Finally it is time for desert. Well, I think it is just a simple desert nicely presented. I ordered green tea tiramisu and it really goes down well with the rest of the food that we had earlier. Not too sweet, just nice. My hubby had Gula Melaka Crème Brulee, but he does not have much comment on this, so I can't really says anything about this.

In summary, the ambience is really nice and the food is great. The waiters and waitresses are very friendly and helpful as well. It is a sure recommendation.

Mommy Wang @ Queensbay

This place mostly serve Taiwanese style food and so far I've visited the place 2 times. The taste is acceptable. My main complain would be their misleading menu as it had already tricked me on both of my trips.

In my first trip, I ordered milk tea and from the picture (with the same ref# as the item in the menu), it has pearl in it. I also asked the waiter whether the pearl is included as shown in the picture, he replied "yes". But when my drink came, it was without pearl. So when I queried the waiter (it was delivered by someone else instead of the one who had taken our order), the waiter replied that he is not sure and need to check with their boss. At the end, the waiter who had taken our order came to apologized, saying that he is new and did not know that pearl is not included. We'll need to pay additional if wish to add some pearl into the drink.

As for the second trip, I ordered noodle with braised pork. However, when my order came, the quantity that i got is a lot less than what is shown in the menu. Another disappointment.

Item shown with 3 big piece of pork and generous portion of sausages

The end result

Tsuruya at Times Square

Oh my!! I just heard the news. Tsuruya Restaurant at Times Square had closed down. Guess must have been due to high rental and little crowd and customers. The management at Times Square better think of ways to increase more crowd.

Max Gourmet @ Bayan Bay

This place is always pack during lunch time. In my recent trip over, I've ordered their version of Malaysia Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken. I've forgotten how much is cost though. It came in large plastic plate with few compartments, and it just reminded me of eating at canteen. The rice is ALOT and though I managed to finish it all, I am extremely full.

The curry was abit too salty to my liking. But they sure not stingy with the meats and potatoes :)

Tsuruya @ I-Avenue

After many years of eating japanese food, I am now able to enjoy eating cold japanese noodle. I remembered the very first time I had it in one of the restaurant at Georgetown more than 10 years ago and it was a very bad experience for me. In fact it was my very first japanese food and I just couldn't accept eating cold food unless it was a desert. I almost throw up eating it. It is definately a no-no for first timer.

Piri Kara Chicken Set - RM 17

Since I already loved sashimi, I was thinking why not give cold noodle another chance. My second try at cold noodle was at Tsuruya located in Penang Times Square early this year, and to my surprise, I liked it very much.

Chicken Teriyaki & Horenso Set - RM24, however changed the spinach (horenso) to black fungus with egg (tamago kikurage) as per our request

This is my third trip to Tsuruya restaurant located in I-Avenue, apart from one time earlier this year at Times Square. I actually preferred this restaurant compared to any japanese restaurant located in Queensbay Mall, but ended up frequent Azuma more due to its location.

Though both Tsuruya restaurant (I-Avenue and Penang Times Square) is owned by the same person, the menus are slightly different. In fact, the set lunch in Times Square is cheaper than those availble in I-Avenue. My colleague had a member card so we enjoyed a 10% discount from the total bill. I'm not sure how to apply for member card though (never bothered to ask since she's always with us whenever we ate there :P).

Tenzaru Soba - RM18

We requested some change to the dishes from the sets and the people there are nice enough to accomodate to our needs. I ordered tenzaru soba which ofcourse, cold noodle that came with tempura which costs RM18. I also wanted to have some sashimi, but the available ala-carte are just too big, so I requested them to provide the one that came from set lunch, minus the rest of the stuff (rice, miso soup and fruits) and they gladly attended to my request (charged Rm25 for my sashimi but the set would cost RM30).

Customized Sashimi - RM25

Now, if only they would open another at Queensbay Mall...

OXO Restaurant

A group of visitors came to our office for training recently and we took them to have lunch at OXO restaurant, just opposite our office block. The restaurant had opened quite sometime but I never went there to eat before. Each time I wanted to go, my lunch partners will say it is not nice or there is nothing special (they've went there before).

When I walked into the restaurant, the environment is very warm and cosy. It has a very nice ambience and furnishing. In fact, the owner of the restaurant is the same guy that operates Macedoine (previously in Queensbay north zone but had closed down). From the menu, the choice of food are more and the price had increased as well. I guess that's the downside of people upgrading to bigger restaurant, able to handle more crowd and orders, but price will be higher to cater for more workers and operation costs.

I ordered a lunch set that comes with either soup or salad, main course, desert and coffee or tea. It has many choices for main course, and I've selected the one that consists of chicken, lamb and seasoned baby octapus. The portion is bigger compared to previously in Macedoine (I was never full whenever I ate there), but I would feel it is still not enough for big eater. However, the main course is a bit disappointment. The chicken was not tender and the lamb was overcooked. In fact, the only thing that is nice is the garnishing. However, those that ordered other main courses such shrimp and chicken says that it is nice.

In all, I think I would probably revisit the place again for casual meetup thanks to its cosy environment, but it will not be my first choice.

Desert of cake & biscuit

Bak Kut Teh - Boooo

There's a new restaurant opened in Queensbay mall, claiming to be the "king" of bak kut teh. Few people I've known that had eaten there, most commented that doesn't taste like "bak kut teh" at all. One funny comment was it tasted like pork dipped in black soy sauce soup. However, being curious, I went there for lunch on my own to try it out. I opt for individual meal that comes with "original bak kut teh" with "yau char kuay", 2 appetizers, chinese tea and desert.

There were some customers having meal there as well, but I did not smell any herbs fragrance at all. When my order came, I tried the soup and indeed, there's were totally zero herbs fragrance but there's some slight taste of "bak kut teh" when I drank the soup. The portion was large, I was very full but it was quite a disappointed meal. It was missing one very important factor, nice and strong herbs fragrance. I've tasted even better "bak kut teh" at the hawker stall and at a even cheaper price.

Ang Mo Koay Teow

Since the knee operation, my mother in law do not have any appetite to eat anything at all. We need to force her eat during each meal in order for her to gain back her energy and for her body to replenish her blood loss. We suspect it could be due to the medicine that had been prescribed to her.

Due to her appetite loss, I decided to make something light and simple for her to eat. All these while she does not fancy pasta as I usually makes it creamy to my hubby's liking. To make her interested into eating pasta, we called this "Ang Mo Koay Teow" and purposely bought fettucini for this meal. For me, I think I will call this Aglio Broccoli Fettucini :)

Ingredients:

Lots and lots of garlic, some broccoli, grated parmesan cheese, sliced chicken meat, some olive oil, 1/2 of chicken stock cube and some salt. Oh... don't forget fettucini lah...

Step 1: Cook the pasta as per packaging instruction. Drain the pasta but save some of the water for later.

Step 2: Heat some olive oil and add in garlic. Once you smell the sweet garlic fragrance, add in broccoli.

Step 3: Once broccoli is almost cook, add in the chicken meat and chicken stock cube. Pour some of the pasta water that you have saved earlier to simmer all the added ingredients.

Step 4: Once all the ingredients are cooked, add in the drain pasta and stir well. If there is not enough olive oil to cover the pasta, add in more olive oil and keep stirring. Make sure the pasta are all properly covered with the olive oil.

Step 5: Serve onto plate and sprinkle with some grated parmesan cheese. You can add some salt to taste if you prefer it to be more salty. Another option is to add in the chili flakes or pasta garnishing if you want more spice and herbs.

My mother in law quite like the taste and manage to finish it all :P

As for my husband, I kept some of the cooked ingredients aside b4 adding the pasta and do the creamy version for him.

Quick Pasta

I was in the mood to cook pasta for breakfast last Saturday while the baby is still sleeping. While in preparation, I remembered my camera and quickly took some photos during each step. I'm not sure what to name my pasta though... perhaps Sausage & Mushroom Pasta. For this meal, I used angel hair instead of spaghetti since it cooks faster. Can't afford to spend own sweet time cos to the baby can wake up any time soon :P

Step 1: Dice some fresh mushrooms, sausages and chop some garlic.

Step 2: Some other ingredients needed are some creamy herb and mushroom sauce (available in all supermarkets), olive oil, eggs and pasta. You can use any type of pasta that you like.

Step 3: Boil some water, put pinch of salt and few drops of olive oil in the boiling water. This helps to keep the pasta from sticking to each other when cooked. Put the pasta in after that.

Step 4: Heat one tablespoon of olive oil into pan and stir in garlic and mushroom.

Step 5: Once the mushroom is almost cook, add in sausage.

Step 6: Continue stirring and once the mushroom and sausage are cooked, add in the pasta sauce and let it simmer. Keep on stirring while simmering to prevent the sauce from being burnt.

Step 7: Drain the pasta and add in the eggs. Quickly mix into the hot pasta and allow the heat from the pasta to cook the egg. Do not switch on the stove while doing this else the egg will dry up and becomes scramble egg instead and stick onto the pasta. We want it to be creamy...

This is how it looks like after the egg is cooked with the heat from pasta.

Step 8: Pour in the cooked pasta sauce and mix well. You may on the stove in slow heat.

Step 9: Serve onto plate and sprinkle with some black pepper and parmeson cheese.

Step 10: Time to yum yum...