Basic dishes from Suzhou

Recently I tried to backpack and move from Shanghai to Suzhou for a few days for a short vacation. Anyway, didn't manage to do in a low key manner cos my friends in Suzhou got to know and wanted to show me around. 

Indeed it is a very beautiful place. If U watched the history of the "Three Kingdom", Suzhou is actually the capital of Dung Wu, city surrounded by water. I love the place especially the night view!!!

 Golden Chicken town.

 

As usual, I am more interested in food and my friends took me to an authentic Suzhou restaurant. No regret cos the food was really great!

Cold dish - grilled fish. Surprisingly, the fish was served warm and tasted great.

Cold dish - vegetable. This is quite common in Jiangsu area.

Cold dish - red dates. Slightly different from Shanghai style of which Shanghainese have glutinous rice in it. This is pure plain date. I luv the Shanghai style!

Lion head

I was so happy to see a bowl of soup. My friend claimed that this is Suzhou dish but I thot this origins from Yangzhou. Anyway, "lion head" is very common also in Jiangsu area. The soup was great. The sweetness from the meat was enough to make you finished the whole bowl! WOW!

This is also my favourite dish. Stewed radish. So nice.

Suzhou has 3 main must order dishes. "3 whites" White fish, white prawn and small white fish. I find it very simple but nice.

One of the 3 most polular dish in Suzhou, the crystal white prawn. Well, so-so only eventhough they took a great pride of the dish (the 1st white dish)!

 

Another dish that is among the "3 whites". This is really good. They can do it in a few style.

The 3rd white - White ikan bilis, haha! This is nice.

I luv this dessert. It has radish fillings and served hot.

Generally, the food around Jiangsu are quite similar. Suzhou's food is lighter as compared to Shanghai. A lot of sweet items too but I still find that is not as sweet as Shanghai dishes.

Try order some of them when U r in Suzhou. Happy trying!

 

 

Favourite old Shanghai Restaurant in Shanghai

Shanghai has a lot of great restaurants. However, I particularly like Jes Se Old Shanghai Restaurant at 41, Tian Ping Road in Shanghai. (Tel : 0086 6282 9260) This is my 1st choice in Shanghai if we have enough time for a great feast! Normally, you need to have at least 2 days advanced booking as the restaurant does not have many tables.

It serves the most authentic Shanghainese food and you just want for more. However, got to warn you guys that Shanghainese food is very sweet and used a lot of brown and white liquer in their cooking.

Just to highlight a few of their specialities:

Raw crab in brown liquer. Not many of u will dare to try this dish but it is one of my favourite. The meat is so sweet and succumb into the brown liquer! Yummy!!!

Sweet dried beancurd.

Stewed spare ribs. But also sweet!

Red dates stuffed with glutinous rice! My favourite too. Yummy.

Highlight of the day! Smelly beancurd wrapped with beancurd skin and deep fried. This is really great and totally different from Hong Kong style. Really stink!!! but great taste with chilli sauce. Haha!!!!!

U hardly see prawns in that size in China. So better enjoy them.

Stewed pork. Sweet and nice.

Not too sure what kind of crabs, but tasted ok! Tasted like our marmite sauce but it is not.

 My favourite soup in Shanghai. Chicken fish with seafood soup and this is not colouring. This fish will dispose of the creamy stuff into the soup. Authentic!

Shi fish is a very river fish and very expensive. Again, this place has perfected it! U just enjoy this without question!

This restaurant has a lot more great dishes and I have introduced their specialities but I will be going back for more! So happy trying.

Pricing is a bit high cos U the place is flooded by Hong Kongers and food lovers like me! Haha. So enjoy. 

Hunan food in town

One fine day my youngest son decided for the whole family to have a spicy dinner together. Thai food is too common and he wanted something different but spicy. Immediately, I thought of Hunan food and suggested the restaurant in Fraser's Place, at the entrance of Jalan Sungei Besi. We were all excited and I brought them to Xiang Man Qing, an authenthic Hunan Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. (Tel : 03-92260717)

You better be prepared cos most of the dishes are hot and spicy!!! I have ordered a few cold dishes as starter. The standards are good.

Spicy century eggs in chilli oil

Layered pork

Black fungus

We have a few main dishes and I particularly liked the steamed fish head with special chillis from Hunan. The aroma of the fish itself has given us the extra appetite to carry on the spicy torture!

We only opted for the special green chilli paste. They also have another type with red hot chilli paste with chilli oil. I also ordered a fish soup for the kids in case they surrendered and true enough even some adults couldn't carry on! No regret, as the fish soup is fantastic.

Coupled with some other vegetable dishes, we had a wonderful dinner.

We finished off with fried pumpkin cake as dessert! Also great!

Generally, the restaurant served very nice and authentic hunan food. Worth trying!!!

Another ramen specialist in town

Looks familiar? It is a new ramen shop just opened in Mid Valley Mall, next to the Jusco at level 2. 

Those who knows me will acknowledge that I am a noodle crazy person. I took my family to the shop last week and we had a great time!

Two major things that made the hell of difference in a bowl of ramen. The broth and the texture of the ramen.

Goku Raku Ramen shop specialised in pig bone broth and as such, it is non-halal!



Ultimate Tonkutsu Ramen



We ordered a few varieties to try and they specialised in two different type of broth - tonkotsu (pig bones broth) and goku raku (pig bones, chicken and fish broth). Most of my kids opted for the ultimate tonkutsu ramen. I have to give them the compliment that the tonkutsu broth is really fantastic. The nice aroma stays in your mouth. However, it is a little too oily.

The sad thing was the egg was over-cooked. It was a real embarassment for a ramen shop not to perfect the Japanese style of boiled eggs! I was so upset and complained to the Japanese chef when he came out to greet us!




GOku Raku Ramen

 I opted for the goku raku ramen. The broth was thicker and it did not have the strong pig bone aroma. However, the taste is so different and I have not tasted this kind of broth before. Phenomenal! It is nice for a change. Honestly, I will still go for the tonkotsu broth in my next trip because that reminds me of the sweet memories in Japan! Haha!

This is very different from the chicken broth that Marutama Ramen used. http://tangeddie.blogspot.com/2011/03/nice-japanese-ramen-shop-in-kuala.html

The ramen is very "toin-toin", springy. However it is a bit thick and different from the normal ramen that we have eaten. As opposed to Marutama Ramen, the ramen is very thin.

We order a few side orders and the gyozas were great. The skin of the gyoza was very thin. I gave this dish 100 points!

However, I believe the management needs to make sure the comfort of the environment as the place is too hot as if, there is not air conditioned!

It is never cheap to eat ramen nowadays in Kuala Lumpur. A bowl is averaging around RM20 before taxes!

For those who craved for ramen, you can dropby at Mid Valley level 2 to catch a bite! Make sure you suck the ramen hard like the Japs do! Happy trying.

Father's day celebration at Dave's Bar & Grill, I Utama

This year I have decided to have an early celebration for father's day last Saturday. Well, I booked a table of 12 and we walked into this crowded Dave's Bar & Grill Restaurant in 1 Utama, Old Wing. AND of course, also preordered the whole piglet so that I wouldn't get upset.

It was a great experience for my whole family as well as my godparents.



Me and my god father

 As there were so many of us, I have ordered almost 10 different types of porky dishes.

Started with the piglet as starter (funny, they straight away served it when we arrived without taking the other orders yet) but no one complained because we were all hungry.

Tender and tasty and the skin was very crispy. We all enjoyed it.

My mum enjoyed the bacon salad and the garlic bread. The spare ribs were very well marinated and it tasted superb too. We didn't request any additional spice or sauce at all. It was so good that we added another large portion.

We also ordered three different types of pastas and great taste! I enjoyed the olio as usual.

I still thot that the highlight of the evening was the ham and bacon lasagna. Unfortunately, they left one portion and each one only has a small scoop!

The kids enjoyed the long pizza and this is their speciality.

 It is at least one and a half feet long full of ham, mayo and cheese. Pizza is never my stuff! Haha!

We spotted two logs of roasted pork at the kitchen but too full to add the order. Will keep that for our next trip.

I really think it is a great place to have a full porky meal. However, it is not cheap.

 Address: Lot G 209 1-Utama, Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya.
Tel: 03 7725 4017

I also take this opportunity to wish all great dads in the world, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

XO Fish Head Noodle

I had a few meetings this morning and decided to meet up with my ex-colleague for lunch after that. I suggested to have fish head noodle (my favourite) and took him to Goon Wah XO Fish Head Noodle Restaurant in Kuchai Lama.

This coffee shop is already there for a long time and they only opened from Monday to Friday. They closed during weekends and evenings as well. I guessed they are just too rich by now!!!

You won't be able to miss the shop cos when you reach the traffic light at the Shell station in Kuchai Lama, you just need to take a left turn and the the shop is just along the row of shoplots on the right. It is just in the middle of the shoplots and next to a coffinshop.

This place served very good fish head noodle and claypot lou she fun. They used the thick mihoon together with the fish head and served in a claypot. U will be surprised to find yam in it too. I liked the aroma of it as it is not too creamy.

This place is also famous for the fried pig intestines and stomachs. I called it a miss. However, I go for the layered pork with yam served with bun. Indeed, this is a better choice.

With drinks, it only costed me RM40. Very reasonable.

If you happened to go but not too sure about the location, kindly call 03 - 7982 0048.

Have fun!

Russian food in Solaris

I came across this Russian restaurant, Samovar in Solaris Mont Kiara and decided to give it a try. Samovar literally "self-boiler", is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia.

Well, a very quiet place and location is not too good as it is facing the highway at the upper level of Solaris Mont Kiara but I luv the Twin Tower view if U sat outside the restaurant.

This could be one or the only Russian restaurant in town and the owners served authentic Russian food.

The owner recommended a Borsch soup as a starter together with it's signature Olivia salad. I enjoyed the vegetable based soup. They claimed that the Olivia salad is an authentic russian salad which made up of green peas, carrot, corns and a little shallot with small cubes of chicken in a thick mayo sauce. I believed there is also a little bit of yogurt in it. I am not too fancy of this cos this salad is really filing.

Olivia Salad

  To my surprised, when the main course arrived, it resembles a mixture of western and chinese dishes. Katletti, breaded minced chicken with butter and cheese filling served with rice. Not bad for a deep fried minced chicken.

I also ordered the Russian dumplings, pilmeni. They looked like chinese dumplings but it is served dry. Haha! So don't expect to see the dumplings in a nice bowl of hot soup. Funny thing is the dippings are yogurt and chilled butter. Kind of weird combination. I asked for chili sauce instead!

Well, overall, it is a great experience. They don't serve russian beer nor wine. I don't think the business can sustain for long judging from the items that they offerred.

The menus also include some western and local food.

If you have lost of ideas to dine, just dropby!



Nice Japanese ramen shop in Kuala Lumpur

When comes to good noodle shop, I believe I will always be the one who wanted to try out new places.

I luv all kind of noodles especially chinese wantan mee regardless whether I am in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, China or Macao.

However, I came across a ramen shop which does very nice thin ramen. The ramen resembled the wantan mee that we used to eat in the chinese stalls. Located inside Farenheit 88,  Marutama Ramen serves very nice and fine ramen.

Normally in Japan, the broth for ramen is mainly done with pig bones but Marutama used chicken as it's base. The chicken broth was phenomenal as it took them few hours to prepare the broth. However sad to say, today the broth is not as good as my 1st visit.

The kakuni (stewed pork) is great here and the roasted char siew is also great.


Kakuni & Charsiew ramen

The spicy soup is not too promising. I still like the original flavour.



Spicy char siew ramen

 I like the side order, fishcake with fish roe and cheese.

Enjoy!

Shi fish from YangTze River



Shi Fish from YangTze River

 

I will never miss this steamed "Shi" fish in Shanghai each time I visit the city. No exception for my recent trip and my friend took me to a local restaurant of which we waited almost an hour for a table. For those who luv "Terubok" will know that you need a lot of patience to enjoy this fish as it has a lot of tiny and fine bones. Shi fish is exactly the same. I always believe that they are from the same family.

The steaming is perfect with a few slices of ham which bring out the aroma of the fish. I bet they have added some brown rice liquor but my friend told me that they have mixed the brown and white liquer together! It's just so yummy!

He also ordered some local dishes for me to try.

This claypot bun is also a very nice dish that I have never tasted before. In fact, it is liked a big marshmellow in a thick gravy. It tasted perfectly right.

He also ordered a plate of wild vegetable in white liquor and we enjoyed the evening very well.

The restaurant is a very nice and simple Shanghainese restaurant located in South Maoming Road. It is called Rui Fu Yuan Lian Yi Restaurant (+86 6445 8999). Happy trying!!!