2 Breakfasts in 1 Morning - Penang

Continuing our food jaunt in Penang... the next morning found ourselves back in Gurney Drive again. Of course the day scenes there are very much different from the glitzy lights the night before. It was a wet morning - the early morning drizzle had somewhat "cleaned" the hazy air and it was really refreshing taking a walk along that popular road as we headed to our targeted breakfast venue No.1.

After reading CK Lam's post on the delish morning fare found in Song River Cafe, we wasted no time in heading there. This well-known cafe, located at No.65 Gurney Drive, was already filled with hungry folks when we reached the place.

We managed to get a table towards the back of the cafe... and quickly gave our orders. We knew exactly what to order after having observed the other tables as well as from CK Lam's recommendation...

Chinese tea & chilli padi all ready while waiting for the food to arrive!

The first dish of Baby Clams (Lala) came very quickly. These tiny morsels were so fresh and sweet-tasting that they were polished off in less than 5 minutes, I kid you not! Lightly saute'ed in whole taucheo beans, chilli padi and ginger, these baby clams did nothing to fill our tummies - in fact, they made us more hungry than ever, if that's possible! Yeah, catalysts for our appetites!

After the Lala, we waited agonizingly for the next dishes.... and finally our plate of Braised Prawn Noodles was placed on our table. At first, looking at the pale yellow noodles, I thought the dish was kinda insipid and character-less. It was when I put the first chopstick-full of noodles into my mouth that I realised the true meaning of "don't judge a book by its cover!"

It was just plain old yellow noodles cooked in nothing but huge fresh prawns and some spring onions... yet, the flavours were so tantalising & yummy. They certainly do not stinge on the prawns - top-rate quality ones, I assure you. Just look at the size lah! And half-peeled for us too!

Now... after demolishing that plate of prawn noodles (in record time too, I must say!), we waited impatiently for the next dish. And we were wondering if the next item will excite our palate as much as the prawn noodles did... and boy...

... were we excited!

In fact, "excite" does no justice to the plate of Steamed Fish with Noodles which appeared next. It certainly did more than excite!

We chose siakap fillet ... which was hidden underneath a pile of beehoon and kwayteow. Again, it was the freshness and simplicity of the ingredients which made this a clear winner. With only soya sauce (of superior quality), fried garlic and toppings of spring onion, somehow the chef in Song River has done a miracle in producing a dish that's sooo delightful that....

.... we just had to order another one! Yes, one plate was not enough! We ordered a second plate but this time opted to have just only kwayteow because we liked that better as kwayteow were way smoother and softer than beehoon.

While waiting for the 2nd plate of Steamed Fish with Kwayteow, we had this fibrous filler...
Ladies' Fingers ... fried with prawns and sambal. My only complaint was that they sliced the ladies' fingers too thinly - they should have cut it in chunkier pieces! Nevertheless, we picked the plate clean...

... until our 2nd plate of heaven came... which was just as good, if not better than the 1st one. The Law of Diminishing Returns does not apply at all, ok!

Good quality food comes with a price... that meal above for 4 of us came to about RM145. Certainly not a cheap breakfast... and that was only just Part 1.


Now, for Part 2...

After some frantic sms'ing with CK Lam who highly recommended Ah Leng Char Koay Teow on the exact location of the place, we managed to find it with the help of our GPS. According to CK Lam, this CKT is one of the best in Penang - read about her post here.

It's located in Khoon Hiang Cafe, fronting Jalan Dato Keramat & Jalan Dunlop...


Our timing was quite perfect... we got a nice parking spot along Jalan Dunlop and there were available tables in the shop since the crowd has not descended to this place yet...

The CKT master at work...

Each portion is fried with great concentration... and there's only koay teow, ok... don't bother asking for mee...
Within minutes, our first plate of CKT was placed on our table. The speciality here is the Mantis Shrimp... there, can you see the caterpillar-like chunks? Those are the peeled mantis shrimps... fresh out of their shells!

Full of garlicky wok-hei, mixed with slightly-charred eggs combined with the humongous fresh prawns... tell me, who isn't in CKT bliss??? Each plate has 4 giant prawns... which tasted like they were caught & peeled minutes before making their way into the wok...

Mmmm... this was MY plate... see the small mountain of cockles by the side, hehe... those were kindly donated by NL who's not a cockle-fan.
Now, if this plate of heaven doesn't raise your bad LDL levels some serious notches, I don't know what will! The amount of mantis shrimps, prawns, eggs and cockles (quadrupled whammies, man!) totally overwhelmed the koayteow... so if you're a carbs fan, I think you have to tell the guy to tambah koayteow for you!! All the sweet briny flavours of the mantis shrimps and fresh prawns have been imparted and totally absorbed by the rice noodles, fanned by the wok-hei.

Save the Best for last - that's LL's motto... he saved this to be munched when all was cleared from his plate...

With all the super ingredients thrown it, it's not surprising that the price of this CKT is RM9 a plate. Yes, not cheap ... but then you pay for the quality and experience. LL had double plates... so in total we had 5 plates!

And that... was our 2nd breakfast for the day ... all done before 11.00am!

Look out for what we had next...hehe! Next post!

Bali Hai @ Penang

Recently we took a short break for a makan trip to Penang. It's been several years since we last drove there. So, when we were finally crossing the Penang Bridge, I couldn't help clicking the above pic from the screen of my car's GPS.

It was drizzling as we left the mainland heading towards the island. As we were crossing the bridge, the sun was finally peeping through the dark clouds ... but it was still kinda hazy, as you can see...

By the time we reached Gurney Drive, it was dinner time. We didn't realise Friday evening traffic in Penang can be that bad, kinda underestimated it! So, on DL's friend's invitation, we headed to Bali Hai at Gurney Drive. The other Bali Hai which I know well happens to be a Dive Centre in Tioman, haha! Anyway, this Bali Hai in Gurney Drive is a very popular seafood place, judging by the crowd there!


There was a huge array of fresh seafood and vegetables on display - just take your pick! Even the dead ones were very fresh...

We actually had a hard time picking our choices...
This was the Starter - Cockles, lightly boiled and eaten dipped in their garlic chilli sauce...

Next came the Baby Octopus.... absolutely divine! Again, we chose the same style of cooking - lightly boiled... the best way to taste the freshness of sea produce ...
They were tender yet succulent... and when married with the green & red chilli dips - fabulous!
Since the light boiling method worked so well with fresh seafood, we had most of the dishes done that way. You can't go wrong with this, believe me!

The Tiger Prawns... they were swimming in the tanks before they were served (ok, I'm being gross) ... Mmmm... they taste good dipped in wasabe+soya sauce too!

What is a duck but not a duck?

Yeah, sounds kinda lame, I know... but then the Geoduck is anything but a duck! (i wonder who gave that very inappropriate name lah!)

It doesn't look like a duck....

... and it certainly didn't taste like one!
Known also as the "Elephant Trunk Clam" (direct translation from Cantonese), this saltwater king clam is really one ugly fella. We had this thinly-sliced, served on a bed of shaved ice - eat it either sashimi-style, dipped in wasabe...

... or dip them in a pot of boiling herbal soup! I tried it both ways and I must say nothing beats eating it sashimi-style - that's when you can really taste its sweet succulence. It's slightly chewy, just slightly only, giving that delish bite to it... and then its smooth sweetness just burst upon your palate before slipping down your throat.

Ahh... let's take a break from all those seafoody stuff and have some bites of greens... Pea Sprouts was our choice... lightly saute'ed with garlic... refreshingly yummy.

The greens were to cleanse our palate... before the next onslaught.

Yeah... enter the Lobster Baked with Cheese...

It was a fair sized crustacean... ahh, but then I'm not really a fan of cheese-baked seafood, much to the delight of the boys. "Less man more share" for them! I would have prefered to have this lightly tossed in ginger & spring onions... or even sashimi-style... but hey, the guys love their cheese! Judging from their moans of ecstacy, I guess this scored pretty high marks with them :-)

There were 2 disappointing items that night. The Garoupa... steamed with soya sauce... while the fish was fresh, unfortunately the cook left it in the steamer too long, so the poor fish was served overcooked! Quite a serious crime, I would say... coz that rendered the fish kinda chewy and somehow the taste went a bit off.

The other big disappointment was the Seafood Fried Rice. LL, who is now an established Foodie, took 1 bite and promptly declared it "no wok-hei!!!" with a grimace. I took a spoonful and totally agreed with that statement. Worse, it was just mildly lukewarm when the dish was put on our table... the rice grains were kinda limp and the shrimps, scallops and anchovies could do nothing to revive the dead rice ....sigh.
Sad.
Anyway, by this time, we were all stuffed with the earlier dishes, so even without the carbs, we were pretty happy and satiated, hehe!

The restaurant was very much in the Merdeka spirit... and the tables were really filling up fast as our dinner progressed. What can be more pleasant than digging into seafood, with the sea breeze blowing in, ... and if the crowds were to quieten down a bit, I bet you can even hear the waves lapping, LOL!

I kinda like their tagline "If it swims, we have it!" even though they didn't totally live up to it!

Hmmm... I didn't see any sharks...


My rating: 6.5/10

Chicken Rice in USJ14

A few months ago I blogged about the Curry Laksa in USJ14 in this kopitiam called Mei Sek. This is a corner coffeeshop in the row of shops near the fruit stalls in USJ14. I was told that in the evening, that same kopitiam has a Chicken Rice stall which is very good.

So that was how one evening some weeks ago we decided to give the Chicken a try, haha! They start at about 6pm and their serving crew is unmistakable - they have yellow & red uniform - very professional-looking with caps and all!

I must say their poached chicken - and they only have poached ones - was pretty good: smooth & tender. Dunk them into some pounded ginger and chilli sauce, this will surely satiate your chicken pangs.

You can have a choice of kampung chicken or town/pasar chicken, the former being more flavourful and of course, more expensive.

You can opt to have their oily rice or kwayteow to go with the poached chicken. Being the true blue Ipohite that I am, I of course opted for the Soup Kwayteow or Hor-fun as we like to call it. It came with a few strands of kuchai and limp taugeh. I would say the kwayteow in Kar Heong was better.... nevertheless it provided the necessary carbs for this meal.

For variety, you can order their Fookchow Fishballs - smooth fishpaste encasing some minced pork, served in seaweed soup... good source of iodine, no?


And if you need some fibre, you have a few choices of greenies - I had my fave baby lettuce, slathered in oyster sauce and with generous toppings of fried shallots.

And that is what I call a simple but satisfying true Malaysian meal of the chicken kind :-))


My rating: 6/10

Shivz

Shivz Restaurant
64 Jalan Maarof
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 2282 4500

I was invited to a private function at this place not too long ago by my friend, Z. I must say I have passed by Jalan Maarof many times but never noticed there's this restaurant there. It's located just a few doors away from Maybank.

The interior's rather cosy, romantically lit... walls adorned with abstract paintings. There are some tables at the front - open-air concept for the smokers.

Now, for the food... they serve a fusion of Indian and western dishes with some local favourites as well. One of their recommended items is the Mumtaz Grill ... a whole chicken thigh grilled tandoori-style but with minced meat encased inside the thigh. It's served with green salad, a mild dhall-like dip and a minty chutney dip.

Z ordered a similar dish (can't remember the exact name though) ... Tandoori-styled grilled chicken but with a skewer of shrimps, a few pieces of naan and the same dips.
As I mentioned before, they do have a few local items and their Kampung Fried Rice is very popular. Fluffy rice fried with bits of chicken meat, anchovies, prawns, long beans and the requisite kangkong, topped with a runny-yolk fried egg and a few pieces of fried chicken, it was good. This was a shared dish among a few of us and as common as the dish was, the rice disappeared very quickly, I must say!
Now for the western items... there was Grilled Salmon in a cheesy sauce...I took a bite and the salmon was grilled just right. I hate overcooked salmon which renders the fish dry and unpalatable but here in Shivz the salmon retained its juiciness and bursting with the signature yummy rich fatty flavours.

The Panfried Cod was delicious too... again done just right, retaining the fish's succulence and springy texture...
The platter of Mixed Bruschetta was another shared dish... the slices of french bread were indeed huge... with generous amounts of toppings, as you can see here... By this time, we were all already so stuffed...!

A must-order item here is their Fresh Mushroom Soup! According to the owner, Mr R. Shiva, they blend 3 different types of fresh mushrooms for this soup. The end result is a very yummy fragrant mushroomy soup which you'll slurp non-stop!

Now here's the highlight of the evening. Besides the very decent food, we were also entertained by a group of belly dancers! The place was filled with middle eastern music and rythms as the dancers showcased their incredible skills with their bellies!
Unlike my belly lah... its only skill is to appreciate good food, haha!

Lammeeya

Lammeeya
Lot LG 333A, 1 Utama New Wing
Tel: 03-7727 4877

As the name indicates, this is a Noodles joint with Lam Mee being their speciality. Lam Mee - noodles in a thick starchy gravy and here in Lammeeya, you can opt to have all kinds of noodles in your bowl.

As I generally find the thick yellow noodles too much to handle, I had kway-teow for my Lam Mee choice. At Rm12.80 a set, it's quite a bargain, I would say... because the bowl of Lam Mee served was gargantuan! It was so huge that I really could not finish it... and I am one person who abhors wasting food!

The Lam Mee was topped with 2 medium-sized prawns, pieces of fish paste, strips of chicken and some chinese cabbage.

The set came with this >>> 2 meatballs and 1 fried beancurd roll. These I liked very much - the meatballs were firm and springy with pieces of fragrant cuttlefish. The beancurd roll's something like the Ipoh-style "sah-kott fupei" with chunks of turnip embedded in the fish paste - nice!
If you choose not to have lam mee, they also have curry noodles, soup noodles and even Ipoh-style Chee Cheong Fun (rice rolls). My colleague ordered the CCF with Mushroom & Mincemeat Sauce... with lots of pickled green chillies at the side... so typically Ipoh-style! This set cost only RM9.80 - came with the meatballs & fupei too.


The set meal comes with a drink as well - Soyamilk!

Service was very quick. The place was very busy during lunchtime, yet our orders were served in under 10 minutes. I have a feeling that this will be a regular lunch place for me and my workmates!

My rating: 7/10