Champs @ Centrepoint

Champs
1st Floor, Centrepoint
Bandar Utama
Petaling Jaya
Tel: 03-7722-5800



Whenever I feel like I need a Hae-Mee (Prawn Noodles) fix, I always head to Champs for full satisfaction! Their claim that they serve the most "Shiok" Prawn Noodles (RM18.90) in town certainly is justified. The serving comes in a huge bowl, topped with 2 giant prawns and several chunks of meaty pork ribs. This is in addition to generous portions of smaller prawns, sliced pork, kangkong, bean sprouts and lots of crispy fried pork-fat! Of course, the "star attraction" of the noodles is the extremely thick & rich prawny broth. It's so good that every single drop of the soup should not be wasted :-)

Another of Champs' star dish is their Hokkien Mee (RM18.90). It's cooked with generous portions of big prawns, sliced pork, squids and pork liver. Of course, what gives this noodle dish the "ooomphh" is the crispy fried pork-fat...very bad for your cholesterol levels but sinfully delicious!

While you are at it, try also their Roast Pork in Black Sauce (RM16.50). The meat has been so skilfully cooked till the black soya sauce has kinda caramelised and the resultant black gooey topping is awfully addictive!

One of their latest additions to the menu is the Fish-head Meehoon (RM19.50). Garoupa fish-head is used, hence the price is a bit higher. The huge bowl came filled to the brim with pieces of fish-head & fillet, mushrooms, ginger slices, white taufu, bombay onions, tomatoes, lots of chinese cabbage and the must-have crispy fried pork-fat. The creamy soup is full of fishy goodness and again, every drop of it must be savoured!

A Sunday Cookout

Yesterday morning I went to the Subang Jaya wet market for my weekend marketing jaunt. Being in a wet market always makes me "reckless" in my purchases - everything seems so fresh and tempting! As a result, I always tend to over-buy!
So...armed with all the fresh produce bought from the market, I decided to do a cookout...ending up with 5 dishes for dinner! To help eat and/or finish the food, I invited Z over... and she graciously accepted, despite the very short notice.

The menu for the evening was...

Yong Taufu in Beanpaste Sauce

Mui Choy (pickled veg) with Belly-Pork & Water Chestnuts

Fried Spicy Calamari

Curry Pork Ribs

Chicken & Fresh Peas Soup

Brocolli & Carrots (very healthy!)

Despite Z's help, we couldn't finish the food and now there are several containers of them in the fridge. I guess we will have to eat these over the next few days!

Gala Feast of Roast Meats

We love the Roast Duck so much in Canton-i that we went back to it again and ordered half a duck, just so that we can dig into it with great satisfaction...

Just looking at the crispy skin is enough to make you drool...

The Roast Pork was also heavenly...roasted till perfection...

The crunchy skin...covering layers of lean and fat meat....yummy

And not forgetting our favourite dessert...just look at the light flaky pastry encasing the warm smooth egg custard...

A Nasi Lemak feast

Some friends from the gym have been wanting to visit me and finally we were able to get all of them together yesterday. Naturally, a visit to my house cannot be without a meal (I think that was the main attraction and not merely just the visit, hehe!).

I decided to cook our Malaysian Favourite - Nasi Lemak. I also took the opportunity to invite a few other colleagues who live in the neighbourhood to join in the lunch.

The main dish was Chicken Rendang. The spices that went into this dish were shallots, garlic, dried chillies, ginger, lengkuas, kunyit and kunyit leaves. All these were pounded/blended and cooked with fresh coconut milk.

The standard accompaniment to Nasi Lemak are of course boiled eggs, fried anchovies (ikan bilis), cucumber and the crucial Sambal:

I decided to complement the above with plain Stir-fried Kangkung…

and Four-Angled Beans stir-fried with Prawns & Belacan. This was such a hit that they even cleaned up all the gravy!

Needless to say, everyone dug in and totally enjoyed the food. I’m so glad to say that I didn’t have any left-overs to store in the fridge!

Simple Dinner for a Girls' Night

I’m not a pasta fan but last Friday evening I had a couple of close girlfriends over for a “catching-up/chit-chat” session and they insisted they just wanted a simple meal, preferably pasta. So I decided to cook a very simple spaghetti meal, making use of whatever I had available in the fridge and larder.

These were some of the ingredients that went into the spaghetti sauce:

As I had lots of fresh tomatoes, I just needed a dash of tomato sauce to thicken the sauce. The minced meat, ham & bacon chips and sausages were more than enough to give the sauce its robust meaty flavour. All these were tossed together with some Bombay onions and enhanced with sprinkling of pepper.

This was the resultant dish:

Oh, I found some cauliflower and sweet peas in my fridge too which I just lightly stir-fried together and that made up our vegetables accompaniment for the meal. I also opened a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup and added in more mushrooms separately and this went absolutely great with some garlic bread toasted in the oven!

Leung Kee Noodles

This Leung Kee wantan noodles shop in USJ Taipan has been around for some time and it's one of our favourite places to go to when we need some noodles-fix. I believe many USJ residents also love this unpretentious joint - during weekends, people have to stand and wait for available tables. It's located in the row of shophouses facing the main entrance into the Taipan carpark complex.

They serve one of the best Braised Chicken Feet ever. We never fail to order this - in fact we always order extra portions of it. The chicken feet is cooked till tender perfection but the skin is always intact! As can be seen below, the chicken feet is braised very simply in its own flavour and they are extremely tasty.

The wantan filling is made from minced pork + prawns and they are absolutely yummy, served in plain soup and sawi.

We usually order our noodles doused in their curry gravy. You can choose either their Curry Chicken Noodles or Steamed Chicken Noodles but with added curry gravy! For good measure, I always add in Braised Mushroom as well! Yummmm!

Their Curry Chicken tastes really unique - in the sense that it tastes quite different from other curries. It's also very popular and runs out quite fast as almost evey table will have this among other choices!

Their other options are the usual Cha-Siew, braised Pork Ribs and Hakka Cha-Yook. Although I have not personally tried these (because I always have the Curry Chicken, haha!) - they do look scrumptious (looking at other people's orders!).

Choong Foong Seafood Restaurant

Choong Foong Seafood Restaurant
No.8 Lorong 1D
Kampung Subang
40150 Shah Alam
Tel: 03-78463253/2482/1081


This restaurant is located in Kg Subang, right at the end after the old Subang Airport. It has been around for quite some time and it serves good old simple Chinese food at affordable prices. This particular trip to Choong Foong was sometime after CNY but I haven't blogged about it yet until now.

This is one place we go to when we hanker for Sharksfin Omelette (RM30 for big portion). Sharksfin, fresh crabmeat are scrambled with egg into the most delicious concoction and it's eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves. The crunchy lettuce is a perfect wrap for the eggy filling!


One of their signature dishes is the Claypot Braised Lamb Ribs (RM40 for big pot). This is a pot of heavenly aromas as the lamb ribs have been simmered in chinese herbs like tongkwai, spices like star anise, ginger and black fungus which have perfectly absorbed the strong smell of lamb. There are also chunks of water chestnuts which give the dish its crunchy element. You can wipe off plates of rice with just the gravy of this dish!

We tried the Steamed Tilapia with Choy Poh (RM23). The freshness of the fish was delicately enhanced with the bits of fried crispy choy poh.

Of course our meal is not complete without vegetables. We had the Baby Kailan in garlic - a very simple stir-fry dish. The kailan ws just lightly tossed as it came out fresh and crunchy.

Being a shellfish fan, I couldn't resist their Clams in Superior Soup (RM16). The superfresh clams were cooked just nice in the broth which had hints of herbs (tongkwai and kei chee - wolfberries) and chinese wine. We finished the clams and the soup in record time!

Canton-i @ 1U

Canton-i

G-208 Ground Floor

1 Utama Shopping Mall

1 Lebuh Bandar Utama, Bandar Utama

Petaling Jaya

Tel: 03-77297888

As some of us may know, Canton-i is the "sister restaurant" of the popular Dragon-i. Some of the dishes served here can be found in Dragon-i but generally, Canton-i serves mostly "fast" dishes like wantan noodles, congee, fried rice, dim-sum and some stir-fry dishes.

Their Wantan Noodles are fabulous - the texture is springy and light - you don't get the jelak feeling even after consuming lots of it! I absolutely love their shrimp wantans - these are huge balls of superfresh shrimps wrapped in thin wantan skins. For the size and freshness, it's money well-spent (RM12.80) on these balls of delicious goodness and springy noodles!

If you don't fancy shrimps, then their barbecued meats must not be missed as accompaniments for the noodles. The Roast Pork is really one of the best I have ever tasted! The cuts of pork belly are carefully selected - only those with even layers of fatty & lean meats are used and the skin is roasted to perfect crispiness. Mind you, their roast pork runs out very fast and we have experienced waiting a good 20 minutes for the next batch to be ready before we got our serving! It's so popular that you can see this on almost every table!

If pork is not your fancy, try the Roast Duck. This is another must-try. There's not much fat underneath the crispy skin, and the juicy well-flavoured meat will satisfy even the most discerning roast duck critic!

The Fried Radish Cake - a similar dish can be found in Dragon-i, but I think Canton-i's serving tastes much better. It has enough "wok-hei", with generous portions of their superfresh shrimps, eggs and beansprout. Peppered with bits of choy-poh and spring onions, this dish remains a firm favourite with us.

On one of our visits to Canton-i, we sat at the counter table and had the opportunity to watch the chefs at work. One of them was making the Steamed Rice Rolls (HK Chee-Cheong-Fun) and we just could not resist ordering a portion. Hot from the steamer right onto our table, the plate of rice rolls came with a generous portion of HK vege (sawi) - rather unusual but certainly very welcome! As expected, the rice rolls were very smooth and the shrimps were absolutely succulent.Now coming to the sweet stuff, the Taro Skin Custard Pau was lovely to look at. We watched the chefs steaming baskets of these pretty paus and just had to order some. The purplish rings on the pau made it almost too pretty to eat...and once you bite into it, the smooth buttery milky custard filling just oozes out.

Anybody who goes to Canton-i should not leave the restaurant without trying their Egg Tarts. Theirs is absolutely one of the best egg tarts I have ever tasted... and most of the patrons there agree with me because the egg tarts seem to be a standard order on almost every table!

From our vantage point at the counter table, we could see how busy the chefs were coping with orders of these delectable tarts. The pastry is flaky and light and the eggy custard, with just the right amount of sweetness, is a real delight to the taste buds. Every order of egg tarts is served piping hot from the oven. At RM1.50 each, one can easily wolf down a few, with no regrets, hehe!