Home-cooked Prawn Noodles

Prawn Noodles, or Hae Mee (in Hokkien) is a favourite Malaysian hawker item.

The broth is made from boiling meat (chicken or pork) and prawns together with blended spices like shallots, garlic, chillies, belacan, kunyit and lemongrass.

We had this last Sunday - LL loved it so much he practically ate it throughout the whole day!

The blanched noodles - yellow noodles and beehoon, are topped with a variety of condiments before pouring over the prawn broth...

The sambal is a "must"... and I made mine with blended dried chillies, shallots, belachan, dried shrimps and lime juice...

Sliced boiled eggs add color and some protein content, hehe ...

Slice up the boiled prawns...

Fried shallots is another "must" - adds flavour and fragrance to your noodles...


You can see we also had sliced pork and fishcakes... yummy!

Tefal Saucepan

I spotted this Tefal saucepan with a maroon handle in one of the shops here today. I think this matches my kitchen perfectly - maroon red!

Ahh... the 28cm pan costs RM149 and the 30cm costs RM159... is it worth buying?

Sicillian Cheesecake

Still in the "cake making" mood, last weekend I succumbed to LL's pestering repeated requests and taught him how to make the Sicillian Cheesecake... one of his favourite cheesecakes.

So we went to the nearest cake supplies shop and got the ingredients. This is a "no bake" cheesecake, so it's easy peasy. Here are the ingredients that go into the biscuit base:


When you have mixed everything, you just press the biscuit-base dough onto the springform cake-tin, like this...

... and chill it in the fridge while you prepare the cheese part.

Beat the cream cheese and mix it with whipped cream, chopped red & green cherries & chocolates (we used some Lindt Almond Chocs found in the fridge, hehe!), rum, vanilla and yes, some gelatine, too... and pour on top of the chilled biscuit base - ooppss... forgot to take picture of that!

Anyway, just chill the cake for at least 8 hours before turning it out and then decorate it in whatever way you like. I used whipped cream and topped with some Hershey's Kisses (yeah, found these in the fridge, too!) ...

... but then LL decided he wanted a "snowy" effect, so he sifted some icing sugar on top and added more chopped Lindt chocolates ...

"Oh dear... must remember to wipe clean the cake board lah... tsk tsk!"

Hmmm... I kinda preferred the non-snowy version, haha! What about you?

LL immediately cut a piece for himself...

... and Koji was hoping for some, too...

A Baking weekend...

I haven't been using my oven much lately... so last weekend, to give LL his first lesson on cake baking, we decided to whip up try out some easy recipes and baked some of these...

... Raspberry Muffins...

... and some Chocolate Muffins as well... with loads of chocolate chips inside...

Well, as his first efforts, I think my protege LL did pretty ok lah...

What to do with so much muffins at home?? LL took some to school to share with his mates and I took a few to office for my colleagues...

Grilled Garlic Salmon

I must say the Jusco Supermarket in 1 Utama sells pretty fresh fish. Their cuts of tenggiri, kurau, stingray, codfish and salmon are always very fresh. Price-wise, they are also very reasonable - in fact, sometime even cheaper than the wet markets!

Last week I bought 2 huge pieces of cut salmon which were super fresh, for RM17. I seasoned them lightly with salt, pepper, teriyaki sauce, sprinkled some chopped garlic on top and grilled them. The result was this:

The salmon was cooked in its own fats (no extra oil needed - very healthy indeed!) and it was perfectly juicy and delicious!

Try this - it only took about 15 minutes of grilling for both sides of the fish - fast, simple and yummy!

Yat Yeh Hing Chicken Rice

Restoran Yat Yeh Hing
Jalan SS4/5D
Petaling Jaya

(row of shops you can see from the LDP, after the Kelana Jaya LRT Station: it's on the left, coming from the LRT station)

The Chicken Rice stall at this coffee-shop is a very popular one and you can be sure there’ll be crowds there during lunch time. Business is so good there that they can afford to be quite obnoxious (“pah-paei) in their service. Nevertheless, the customers keep patronizing the place - so what to do?

They serve both the white steamed chicken as well as the roasted version. However, I always prefer the steamed chicken as they have perfected the method of keeping the chicken skin silken smooth and the meat cooked just right - it’s also silken smooth and tender! As you bite into the perfectly-cooked chicken meat, it’s just pure satisfaction tasting the smooth tender tasty meat, oozing with flavourful juices. Eaten with their fragrant rice and excellent chilli sauce, this is certainly one of the best Chicken Rice I have ever tasted.

Their chilli sauce is a perfect combination of chillies, garlic and lime, topped with ground ginger. You can re-fill the chilli sauce yourself using your own chilli plate, it's FOC - but if you order for extra plate of chilli sauce, you will be charged - so, be warned!

Most people would order a plate of their crunchy Bean Sprouts - lightly blanched and topped with soya sauce & oil. I’m happy enough with this simple dish.

What’s unique here is their Super Flavourful Soup - which you have to self-serve! Yes, they have this huge pot of boiling soup and customers have to line up with their own bowls to serve themselves.

The soup changes every day - today it was ABC Soup. Rest assured that their soup is boiled with very generous amount of ingredients - lots of chicken feet, chicken bones plus whatever other ingredients.

You can re-fill as much as you like, FOC, but you must observe these rules:

• Use back your own bowl
• Return the tray to them after you have used it to transfer your bowls of soup to your table

If you fail to observe any of the above, you run the risk of being “reprimanded publicly” by them - see, that’s what I meant by them being rather obnoxious!

Price-wise… chicken, bean sprouts and rice (4 plates) for 4 persons came to RM29.50.

My rating: 8/10 (despite their pah-paei-ness!)

W.I.P. Cafe @ Bangsar

W.I.P. Cafe
Lot G111, Ground Floor
Bangsar Shopping Center
285 Jalan Maarof
59000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2094 2789


This is just a short post. Last evening we had a quick dinner at this place after a show at The Actors' Studio. We have been here a few times in the past but I had yet to blog about it.

W.I.P. stands for "Work In Progress" and it's owned by the same couple who owns "Soul'ed Out" in Hartamas - Fred & Michelle Choo. The decor of this cafe has undergone some changes since it first opened - sometime last year, I think... Back then, it was really in a state of "work in progress" - the walls, ceiling, floor were kinda "unfinished" and their crew wore overalls - just like workmen.

Now the place has somewhat spruced up... even the tables and chairs seem to have been replaced with bright shiny metallic ones... the walls and ceiling now look "done" and their crew now wear red t-shirts instead of overalls. The lighting remains kinda dim though.

Anyway, the reason why I said this is gonna be a short post is because we only had 2 dishes last evening. Generally, their menu is similar to "Soul'ed Out"... but the prices are a bit higher.

I had their Baked Chicken Roulade (RM26). When it was served, I was kinda shocked with its very small portion. The dish consisted of 3 small pieces chicken thigh rolled in ham, sitting atop baked potato slices with a few pieces of "siew pak choy" leaves. There were 3-4 cherry tomatoes circling the chicken & potatoes. Taste-wise, I would say it's just average - this being a "main dish" the portion served was worse than an appetizer.


LL ordered the Seafood Aglio with Spaghetti (RM35). Just look at the portion and tell me if it's worth the price? It's just spaghetti served with prawns, a few small pieces scallops and topped with 2 small green-shell mussels. LL commented it tasted "nice" (I stole a bite and didn't think it was anything spectacular) but .... even though there was pasta in the dish, it hardly lined a quarter of LL's tummy! Maybe they think the few small pieces of scallops justified the price?


OK... I guess when you're in Bangsar, you have to pay Bangsar prices... so go there only if you think you wanna be seen in a "hip" joint. Now, your interpretation of "hip" is as good as mine...

I think if I wanna eat the same kinda food, I'd head over to Soul'ed Out.

My rating: 5/10