Bangkok - the Food Courts

While in Bangkok, we ate in the foodcourt in MBK on the first night. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of that session. We had tomyam soup, phadthai (thai fried noodles) and thai green curry chicken that night. The food was average, and I remember the prawns were pretty fresh.

The next day we tried the food at the Platinum Plaza foodcourt. SL had her Tomyam Noodles

while I had Fishball Noodles.

We also had a bowl of Kway Chap - pig's innards in herbal soup. However, the soup was kinda like our bak kut teh but sweet - sugar added. The Thais love to add sugar to their food.

We loved the Food Hall of Siam Paragon. There was so much variety there and everything just looked sooo delicious!

We loved their sticky rice - they have so many different-coloured types - very high quality and taste very different from those found here. Steamed sticky rice with fresh mangoes and coconut milk was one of our firm favourites.

The Thais love their salads - and we love their mango and papaya salads!

Some of the other yummy food available:

We didn't taste all the above...that would be really too much, but they really looked yummy!

Bangkok - Street Food

Bangkok is a paradise for street food. On every street, almost every corner, there will be carts and stalls selling all kinds of grilled, pickled, fried, boiled or just plain fresh food. There are full-fledged stalls with tables and chairs, some are just wooden carts, some are mobile stalls and some just lay out the food on benches.

We stayed in Asia Hotel on Phyathai Road and just outside the hotel, there're lots of food vendors, massage centres, tailoring shops and 7-Elevens.

The mango season is now in full blast. I absolutely love their fresh mangoes and you can find these everywhere in the streets, malls and markets.

Due to the high pollution and SL being very apprehensive about food hygiene, we limited our street food purchase to just fresh mangoes and their fresh local mandarin juice. This being the hottest month of the year, we were practically drenched in sweat just after a few minutes' walk in the street!

SL insisted we eat food bought from indoors, so we mostly ate at food courts in the malls. I will post about this next.

Betty's Kitchen

Betty's Kitchen

5G Jalan Anggerik Vanilla AB31/AB

Kota Kemuning

40460 Shah AlamTel: 012-3345028

I read a review of this place in the newspapers not too long ago and decided to give it a try. Initially, I had a bit of problem locating the place as it's tucked away in a quieter road of the Kota Kemuning town centre.

The restaurant was rather quiet. The 1st dish - Laksa Nyonya (RM7) was disappointing. The laksa gravy was just lukewarm, which is a no-no for me. I had to get them to reheat it and when it came back the 2nd time, it was hotter, but the noodles and vegetable garnishings were limp.

The Lamb Chops (RM21.90) fared a bit better. Although the lamb was kinda dry, the sauce was interesting and made up for it. There were chopped tomatoes and parsley in the sauce. As we ordered the set meal, it came with Mushroom Soup and 1 small piece of garlic bread. Nothing special about the soup - tasted like it came from a can and they could have done better with the tiny slice of baguette. I don't think it would have hurt their costing much if they had served a bigger slice of the toast and it would definitely have added more value, in the customers' eyes.

Their recommendation of Otak-otak (RM5) came served plainly. It tasted very mediocre and there wasn't any daun kadok in it - which is the core ingredient in a good otak-otak!

Ah Lek Bak Kut Teh

Ah Lek Bak Kut Teh in Taman Teluk Pulai is almost a household name in that part of Klang. We have been patronising this outlet for about 20 years and that guy had been in this business much longer than that!

Ah Lek's style of BKT is that the meats are boiled till very soft and they are served in big chunks in a claypot. Of course there are also some customers who want theirs served in bowls and that can be accomodated as well.

For us, we definitely prefer the claypot servings and it's just so nice to pull and break the soft meat in the claypot! Somehow, that adds to the overall enjoyment of the meal!

What's soooo good about Ah Lek's BKT is their pig intestines - layers of intestines are stuffed together and boiled in the aromatic BKT herbs. The best thing is we can order extra servings of this and eat to our hearts' content...haha!

Dubai - Airport Food

On our last day in Dubai, while waiting to board the flight to Doha, we tried the super-expensive food in the airport food court.

This serving of Shrimp Pasta cost about RM45 and it's only a single portion, meant for one person! I'm not a pasta fan, so taste-wise, I would say it's just average. Rather bland and cheesy.

My order was for this plate of Thai Fried Rice - cost RM32. Again, it's for a single portion only. This tasted much better than the pasta!

Dubai - Chinese Food

The Dragon Mart is so named because the entire mall houses only "made in China" goods. You can find everything under its roof, ranging from industrial machinery/equipment to clothings, accessories, household items, toys, shoes, garden furniture etc etc etc!

We had lunch in one of the chinese restaurants there - the Sun Tour Restaurant. It seemed to be a very popular place as it was full so service took some time.

The 1st dish we had was Fried Mutton. Small pieces of mutton fillet were skewered together with toothpicks before being fried with pieces of capsicum. The meat was fried crispy, well-marinated and went very well with rice. It was a bit dry though as there's no gravy in this dish.

The next dish we had came with lots of gravy - Chicken in Oyster Sauce & Spring Onion. A simple dish that we can all cook at home; nevertheless this version was very yummy. They used boneless chicken thigh meat and the flavourful gravy went extremely well with our rice.

The Tofu dish was also full of gravy. It had capsicum, green peas, carrots and mushrooms tossed in the gravy which was slightly spicy.

Our vege dish was Lettuce in Oyster Sauce. The oyster sauce overwhelmed the vege and we just fished out the lettuce from the pool of sauce. They were certainly generous with the oyster sauce!

Portions served were really big. Even their rice bowls were huge! The rose tea we had was very fragrant. Although the staff were busy with all the occupied tables, they were still very responsive to our requests.

The cost of this lunch, for 3 people, came up to about RM130.

Dubai - Local Snack

In one of the malls - Dragon Mart, in Dubai, we came across this delicious local snack. There was a long queue at the stall, so we decided to join the crowd.

It's basically a huge pancake, made on this special curved wok and you get to choose the types of filling. There were savoury and sweet fillings. We chose the Turkey Ham & Cheese.... this was arranged on the pancake and grilled and then folded.

It was served on a plate, cut into pieces, together with some pickles. The pancake was crispy while the ham and cheese inside was hot and soft & creamy! Each piece cost an equivalent of RM12.