BestFoodJunction Grand Launch

BestFoodJunction (BFJ) had their grand launch last Thursday - CONGRATULATIONS!

This was the first time I attended such an event - the venue was just a hop and a skip away from my office.

Besides their magazine, BFJ also has a food site where you can read about meal reviews, do e-reservations with certain outlets, get food vouchers/discounts and a host of other food-related ideas. They featured one of my blog posts some time ago.

There were various food tables set up by several outlets for the guests to try out their offerings.

A pretty kimono-clad lass representing her outlet - Yaki Yaki...


Brownies and cookies from the hotel...
Cute yummy stuff from Zen Cafe (of Secret Recipe Group)... quiches...
...strawberry mousse...
...green tea cheesecake... these were really good!
...mango mousse...
I had the opportunity of meeting a few fellow bloggers there: Babe in the City -KL, Simon Says, 3 Meals, and TheNomadGourmand.

It was an enjoyable evening - quite a new experience for me!

Yummy icecream from New Zealand Natural

Note: Some of the photos here are courtesy of my friend Z as I had problem downloading some pics from my camera. Thanks, Z!

Oh, by the way, this is my 201st post - hmmm... didn't realise I have passed the 200-mark! Yayyy!

My new cool thing!

Yes, I got my new fridge delivered last Friday! A cool Hitachi!

It has ample freezer space - the entire left side, wahahaha! At the moment, it looks kinda empty, eh! Time to buy more ice-cream!

BBQ & Satays - at home...

This is just a short post, peeps!

While looking through my photo archives, I realised I haven't posted about the little BBQ we had at home some weeks back.

I tried my hand making Satay - pork and chicken ones - and they turned out like these...

There're some pork ribs grilling there, too...
... and more satays...

Wooo... these are sinful slabs of pork belly which were marinated with nam yue (red fermented beancurd) ... I can tell you they were absolutely delish!

...and we had Teriyaki Chicken Wings as well...

Errhmm... I forgot to take pics of the grilled-and-ready-to-makan wings because I was too busy after that...lol!

This was how the ribs looked like before they were grilled... marinated & ready to flame!

We had lamb shoulders too... and good ole vegetables, of course!
That's all... hmmm.... shall we have another BBQ soon? *wink*

Happy weekend, all!

Pan Heong - Noodles Heaven

At first the idea of going all the way to Batu Caves, even on a Sunday, seemed daunting. But surprisingly, it was a breeze driving there - just take the MRR and go straight all the way!

When I reached Pan Heong, I experienced a sense of deja vu - I have been to this place before - long time ago! I haven't started blogging yet back then - heck, blogging must have been an alien word many years ago!

Even from the sidewalk you can see how immensely popular this place is! There were scores of people waiting at the front of the shop (they have considerately put chairs for people to sit & wait). Everyone was pretty patient - that's because they have a pretty good system for you to get a table. Register your name and you will be given a table number in due course.

While waiting, I took a walk round the place and saw these pineapple tarts for sale. I heard they're pretty good but after our meal, we didn't buy any of it. Hmmm... maybe next time.

After about 25 minutes' wait, we got our table and quickly placed our orders with the friendly auntie-captain. First to arrive was this plate of Sweet Potato Shoots - lightly and fragrantly tossed with garlic and chillies. Nice appetizer - it quickly disappeared and we waited eagerly for the next dish.
Next dish: Fried Pork Belly - beautifully marinated with nam yue (preserved beancurd), chinese wine and fried crispily. This disappeared in record time, I tell you! Definitely a must-order item!
Next, came the carbs!

Rice Porridge - silky smooth with slices of uber fresh "sang yue" (ikan haruan) and chunks of century eggs. This pic below hardly does justice but believe me, you have to taste the porridge to fully appreciate what I'm trying to describe here, LOL! You can actually choose what you wish to have in your porridge - the captain rattled off choices like pork ribs, frog legs, fish, prawns etc.

Floggers have raved about their Kau Yoke Meehoon (Meehoon with Stewed Pork) and when this was served, I can totally relate to their ravings! The rice vermicelli had totally absorbed all the sinful fattiness of the stewed pork, resulting in a dish that makes you crave for more. No joke. Worry about the lard & cholesterol tomorrow - you definitely cannot miss this out.

Their Cantonese-style Kwayteow aka "Wat Tan Hor" was totally good. LL told me he's still having dreams about this one! The full of wok-hei pan-fried kwayteow was doused with a divine eggy gooey gravy with slices of pork, sotong, shrimps and the mandatory sawi. I'm usually not a fan of wat tan hor but this version had me hooked.

Next up: Lor Mee with Frog Legs. The slithery fat yellow noodles were totally immersed in a huge bowl of eggy goodness, plump frogs (eewww, does that sound kinda gross??), sawi and generous toppings of fragrant fried shallots. Initially I really had my doubts whether we could finish that giant bowl of noodles (even though there were 12 of us!) - but hey, what do you know - the bowl was practically wiped clean!
Now... the Star of the meal >>> Sang Har Kwayteow (Freshwater Prawns Noodles)! OMG!!! It was indeed the Star (and the moon and the sun and tra la la la!)

Huge giant freshwater prawns @ RM18 each - for 12 of us, we ordered 5 prawns and at RM90, this was a steal. The big plate of yummy kwayteow submerged in a sea of cholesterol-laden prawny gravy, topped with superfresh prawns laden with bright orange roe, totally knocked us off.
Generally, the noodles served here are full of fiery wok-hei. Like Unkaleong warned: Do not attempt this at home, unless you really have a HUGE POWERFUL stove, and even so, you run the risk of burning your house down!

You see, the noodles were so good that one does not hesitate to eat from the serving plate :-))
It was a totally satisfying lunch ~ these cleaned-out plates & bowls bear testament to that fact!
Address and contact number of Pan Heong are stated in the bill above. Do call ahead to check if they're open - I heard they have offdays, but dunno when!

Ipoh Food Crawl - Day 2

My fridge died on me.
Sigh. It has been a good & faithful fridge, serving us for the past 15 years (I think) and I certainly mourn its passing. I think the amount of foodstuff stored in it all these years has finally done it in and it's time to go to fridge heaven.
Luckily I have a 2nd smaller fridge... so now that is packed to the brim... plus I have an assortment of other dried foodstuff now all laid out in my kitchen which kinda resembles a mini war zone at the moment.
Hopefully the new fridge can arrive by tomorrow.

OK, now that I have sorted out the fridge dilemma (Hitachi or Sharp or Mitsubishi??), let's get back to the food crawl.

We started out early, heading to Menglembu again! On the way, along the main road heading to Menglembu (on the right), we stopped by this old-time kopitiam which sells big-portions dim sum.

The name's Sun Kim Aik... and as you can see, even their staff are old timers!


These boisterous aunties insisted that I took their pics! We didn't eat here but tapau lots of their paus and fishballs - huge ones! You have to be early coz their stuff sell off very fast!After packing the paus and dim sum, we headed on to Menglembu town... for the Twins' Curry Chee Cheong Fun! Read about Motormouth's post about them here.

Located in a unassuming corner lot, Restoran Wing Kat Fong is where the twins ply their spicy stuff. Right across is this very laid-back Rojak stall.

As you walk into the shop, you will be greeted by this big pile of fried goodies. We had the Fried Prawn Crackers which were very good - crunchy and full of prawny goodness!
The trays of curries, sambals and other yummy-looking dishes really made it hard for us to choose! In the end, we ordered their Curry Wild Boar, fresh-from-the-wok Fried Chicken...

and of course, the Chee Cheong Fun with Curry Pigskin - the reason why we went there, in the first place! I must tell you that I am a Ipoh CCF fan and with pigskin somemore, I'd be happy anytime! While the CCF here may not be the best one in Ipoh, I would say it's still commendable and I would go for it again (if I have the time when back in Ipoh!). Oh, their Curry Wild Boar was good! Fried chicken - hmmm, while very freshly fried, the skin was somehow not so crispy and lacked taste in its marinade - can skip this.

Next... went to the town centre to tapau more food... the kaya puffs in Sin Eng Heong. This place has been blogged to death... so I don't think I need to say anything more. Just look at the queue - and this was the queue of people who had placed prior orders, ok! If you didn't order, you don't even get to be in this queue - go another day!

Luckily we did phone in & made prior booking, so we got our 3 boxes of the kaya puffs! They do sell other biscuits which are not popular (I wonder why they bother with these - why not just bake ONLY the kaya puffs, huh?!). I tried their hamtan-soe (kinda like mooncakes - lotus paste with salted eggyolks) which were actually good.

Next...another must-tapau item whenever I'm back in Ipoh ... the Salt-Baked Chicken of Aun Kheng Lim...
We went home, dumped all the tapau'ed stuff and then head on to our 2nd breakfast, hehe!

This time, it's to Canning Garden...the halal corner-lot coffeeshop: Restoran New Hollywood. And right across that, there's this cool dude selling Rojak. He saw me taking his pic and gestured to me that I must try his rojak because it's very good! Okayyy... I ordered a plate, he brought it over to our table inside the coffeeshop... and it was actually pretty good :-)

My niece's absolute favourite item in this place is the Indian Rice... served by a smiling lovely Indian lady... I find their curries a tad too salty but what daheck, my niece polished off her plate in next to no time!
Other stuff which we ordered were the Cha Kway Teow (good stuff), Fried Crullers (also good stuff)... Prawn Mee (so so only) and Assam Laksa (no good!)...

Ahh... my brother's fave item was the Hor Hee but he opted for tunghoon (glass noodles) instead of hor-fun. We had to wait for a very long time for this small bowl of noodles!
It seems this fella only sells at this shop on Sundays - no other day! Frankly, I don't find anything spectacular about the noodles - just plain soup with a few fishballs & slices of fishcake. I only 2 mouthfulls of this and I suspect there was a lot of MSG in the soup too!

Just look at my car boot - almost full with all the tapau'ed food!
Until the next Ipoh trip...burpppS!

Get Softa-Man today!

I'd just like to post something non-food related here.

It's about this worrisome A(H1N1) virus that's becoming quite alarming - what with 1 school in the Klang Valley being closed and the virus becoming "locally-transmitted" now! That's where the danger lies - I mean, you never know when you can be exposed to this risk even though you have not travelled anywhere out of the country!

One of the very crucial ways to help prevent any kinda infection is to keep our hands clean and disinfected at all possible times.

Do try this Softa-Man ~ it's a hospital-grade product that fights germs & viruses and is also gentle to the skin and hands. And it has a very nice refreshing scent! It's one of the best germ-busting hand disinfectant around - even the doctors and nurses are using it in the hospitals!

It comes in 1L bottles which you can place in your house/workplace as well as handy 100ml bottles you can carry around in your handbag.

It's available in all Caring Pharmacies ... so if you're looking for a top quality disinfectant to protect your hands against the bad bad germs, get this today!

Trip planning made easy!

I am so used to the internet these days that I cannot imagine how my life will be affected if suddenly there is no such facility! I mean, blogging has been such fun - whether it's reading other people's blogs or posting your own. Not a day passed by without me clicking on all my regular & favourite blogs and leaving my crappy few cents' worth of thoughts, hehe!

Now the other thing I love about the internet is how easy it has made our lives now - especially when I need to source for information. Like how I'm now searching for travel info on Bandung - because that's where I'm heading to next month! Recently, I discovered 2 great sites to get travel information: hotelscombined and wego. I'm so glad I found these 2 gems as they have substantially reduced my planning headaches!

Hotelscombined is an excellent search engine that finds you the best deals in one search on one website, saving you the trouble to click and open several websites. You get instant comparisons of hotel details, rates and availability all one one page! Instead of searching various individual accomodation providers separately, this site does the job for you and all you have to do is just analyse the comparisons and make your decisions! I also do rely on reviews submitted by other travellers who have actually stayed in those hotels when deciding on hotel bookings and this website does feature that - what a great help that is!

Wego is also another excellent search engine that caters to all your travel needs. Besides hotel accomodation, it also helps you to plan and book your flights, package tours, car rentals and even gives you the best deals for any travel need anywhere in the world! It searches multiple travel sites for you and present all the options on one simple page. If you are one of those people who need to do some in-depth research (like me, ahem!) on the places to be visited, wego links you to guide books, forums, blogs, travel magazines and industry news that feature your trip destination.

I am getting so much information from these 2 websites that it's making my Bandung planning such a breeze! I can't wait to get there - for the shopping and the food!