It is not Chinese croissant

I love yew char kueh. It is such a simple food and yet so very good. Especially when they are freshly fried - hot from the pan - so crispy on the outside and yet so soft inside.

YCK can be enjoyed in so many ways. Perhaps the most traditional is with kopi-o. A nice hot cup of thick old fashion kopi-o. Dip the YCK into it. Yum. It has to be the original kopi-o. Not instant coffee.

We can also eat it with porridge. Soak pieces of the YCK into meat flavored porridge. Another yum. We can re-fry it - stuffed with meat and fish paste - like how they do in some yong tau fu joints. Or eat with curry sauce. And yes... with bak kut teh. Let it soak up the BKT soup. 3 yums! Or... you can even eat it on its own.

There are only 3 places I know of in PJ and Subang Jaya where I can get YCK. There is a stall in the SS2 hawker centre on Jalan SS2/61, PJ. I do not frequent that place, so I really do not know very much about the YCK there.

There is another stall also in SS2. It is outside the Lim Mee Yoke coffee shop (formerly known as Cheow Yang) on Jalan SS2/6. His YCK is really quite good. He sells only in the morning. But he is quite irregular in opening his stall. A lot of times, he is not there. And because of his popularity, we often have to wait in queue for quite a long time. Also, the guy is quite cocky. I do not like to buy from him.

Nowadays I tend to get my YCK at a stall on Jalan USJ10/1D in Subang Jaya, between the Sin Kong and Nanking coffee shops. It is just across the road from the USJ PappaRich kopitiam, which I wrote on in my last posting. Often, I buy the YCK from this stall to eat in PappaRich.

The YCK there is very good. They are sold at 70 sens a piece.

The stall also sells different types of fried food - hum chim pian, cucur udang, white carrot kueh, spring rolls, etc. I have not tried them but they all look delicious.

I have tasted different versions of YCK in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. I still find ours in Malaysia the best. Some people describe YCK as Chinese croissant. It is a absolute misnomer. They don't look alike. They don't smell alike. They don't taste alike. I have nothing against the French pastry. In fact I like it too. But really, there is no comparison. I love our YKC a hundred times more.

PappaRich kopitiam

PappaRich is a chain of restaurants serving good Malaysian food. I believe it is a franchise chain. It is among the many restaurants chains the have sprung up capitalizing on the Malaysian kopitiam concept. Of the many kopitiam chains - Old Town, Old Taste, Uncle Lim, Station 1, Kluang Station  etc -  I like PappaRich best for its taste, menu variety and food authenticity. 

According to its websute, there are now 27 PappaRich outlets mainly in the Klang Valley. The place we most frequent is the one at USJ Taipan in Subang Jaya. This outlet is located in a corner shop on Jalan USJ10/1D. It offers a favorable dining ambiance with soft lights and oldie music which, to me is very conducive to a quiet meal.

Our latest experience at this outlet was a few days ago. We were there for breakfast. The place, as usual was quite crowded.

I had the curry mee. The bowl came with pieces of chicken, see hum, tau fu - the usual stuff you find in any bowl of curry mee, plus a some mint leaves. The curry was nice and thick - rather rich in santan. It was a bit sinful. But heck, it tasted good.

My wife had her usual plate of char koay teow. I don't often see her having char koay teow in other makan places. In PappaRich, this was probably her 3rd time. So I guess it must be good. It certainly looked very authentic - the usual prawn, see hum, taugeh, chives and egg. I had a taste of it and I could understand why it was her 3rd.

The nasi lemak was also very good. It came with a good portion of chicken in curry, egg, ikan bilis and kacang. The rice was fragrant. The curry was lemak. The sambal not so hot. Nothing to complain on.

The roti kulit bakar with kaya and margarine is one of my favorite. They use traditional coffee shop bread. The kaya and margarine were in generous portions. I like the texture of the toasted kulit.

We also had a Pappabun - a bun with with kaya and margarine. All that together with drinks - coffee, tea, barley - came up to be just over RM64. It is really not that expensive considering the ambiance they offer.

PappaRich's menu offers a wide variety of food that suits breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-betweens. They have a variety of noodles. Besides the curry mee and char koay teow, they also have Ipoh hor fun, wet and dry noodles, laksa and prawn mee.They have various rice selections - nasi lemak, fried rice and chicken rice. Their bread selection is impressive - a complete combination of kopitiam varieties. They even offer dim sum, although the variety is very limited and are mainly vegetarian.

Their drink selection has almost every thing you want from a kopitiam. Their desserts look absolutely tempting in the menu. They have ABC, cendol, sago, tau fu fah, ice creams - all Malaysian. I have not tried any of them. Will have to one day.

The roast lamb was awesome!

My 3 nephews are back from Australia. During the new year weekend, my brother and wife held a makan party for their sons and nephew. What a feast it was. The highlight was undoubtedly the lamb.

There is this catering outfit that goes around roasting lambs for house parties and company functions. They only do lambs and nothing else. If you need other makan and drinks, you will either have to make it yourself or engage a separate caterer.

The lamb takes nearly 4 hours to be roasted over a very slow fire. The lady, Mrs Wong came with all the utensils and the marinated lamb at about 3.30 pm. She roasted it just outside the house. At about 6, the sky opened up rather heavily. But Mrs Wong was fully prepared. She had a big umbrella and the lamb was not affected one bit by the downpour.

Thankfully the rain stopped at about 7.30 when the roast was just about ready. The final product was a golden brown deliciously looking sight. The aroma was salivating.

As Mrs Wong started to carve the lamb, we gathered around eager for the first bites. And it was fabulous! The lamb was dripping hot. The skin  was crispy.  And the meat was tender and succulent. The lamb tasted especially good when it was hot from the grill.

We went for it - piece after piece. The 2 best parts of the lamb was the shoulder and the ribs. The shoulder meat was so very succulent. And the ribs, like all ribs, were so very delicious.

Overall, the meat was not so gamey. I wish it was because I prefer lamb and mutton to taste and smell more gamey. Even my wife who does not normally eat mutton or beef found it to be OK and had her fair share of the feast.

According to Mrs Wong, a lamb is enough to feed 20 to 25 people. If other food is available, it is enough for 40 to 45. We had a whole lot of other makan. It was kinda pot-luck. Almost every guest brought a dish. At the end of the night, there was a lot of tar pows to take home.

 

The company doing this roast is Jee Lin Catering. Mrs Wong who is the proprietor is contactable at 012-6900061. She told me that they roast about 60 lambs per month. Her weekends are always full. On busy days, she has 2 to 3 teams roasting at different locations.

You can choose either an Australian or a New Zealand lamb. Each lamb cost about RM730. The NZ animal costs a little more. Why? I really don't know.

Tua Chiu Kah

Perhaps the best value-for-money place that I have eaten in, is Penang's Weld Quay (Tree Shade) Seafood Restaurant. The Chinese name which is more popularly known is "Tua Chiu Kah" or base of a big tree in Hokkien. The makan shop is located on Jalan Pengkalan Weld, opposite the Weld Quay jetty, not very far across the road from the Penang ferry terminal. There is a big tree in front of the shop, hence the name.

The restaurant occupies 2 shop lots - a new wing and an old wing. The place is very basic. It is old and somewhat dilapidated. It is eating Air Asia style - absolutely no frills. No table cloth, no air condition, you eat in assorted plastic plates and you sit stools in stead of chairs. It is totally devoid of dining ambiance. The old wing in particular is pretty "rough" - inside, it is like eating in somebody's old run-down squatter home. The new wing which was apparently added on about 5 years ago, is somewhat better.

The kitchen is located at the front of the old wing. On display in the shop front kitchen are various fresh seafood and vegetables for your picking. You have to order the food at the kitchen. Two workers take your orders very efficiently. They do not need pens and papers to write your orders on. They pick pieces of vegetable onto the plates and the cooks apparently know exactly what to fry, steam or boil. And they serve the food amazingly fast.

12 of us went for dinner one early evening. There was already a substantial crowd. We managed to get a big table in the new wing. They offered papadam with a dipping sauce for starter - which is rather unusual for a Chinese makan joint. I went with my wife to order the food at the kitchen. We were spoilt for choices. There were so much delicious fresh seafood on display - fishes of various varieties, crabs, shrimps, mantis prawns, clams, oyster, etc. We selected 7 dishes, and made our way back to the table. And as we sat down and ordered our drinks, the dishes started to arrive and within the next 5 minutes all 7 dishes were on the table. It was that McDonald-ly fast.

We had a deep fried black pomfret in soya sauce. It is one of our favorite dishes there. It was so very well fried. Every part of the fish was crispy and crunchy. I had the pleasure of the head. It was delicious. I ate every morsel of it - bones, eyes, sides, mouth - nothing was wasted.

The kangkong belacan was equally nice. Unlike kangkong belacan in most other places, the dish was not very oily. It was obviously fried in pork lard. There were generous pieces of bak yew pok (Hokkein) or chui yaw char (Cantonese).

The sweet and sour pork was ordered for the kids. The pork was well fried, and the sauce was good and a little extraordinary in that it was not the usual tomato ketchup.

I was somewhat disappointed with the mantis prawn. The meat was deep fried in flour without the shells and cooked kung pao style. When we ordered this dish, I did not expect that they would cook it minus the shells. Had they kept the shells, the meat would retain its original taste, succulence and texture. But all those were lost. It did not taste like mantis prawn at all. Eating with the shell would had required a little work, but I think it would had worth the effort.

The stuffed yew char kueh was quite unique. It was the normal yew char kueh stuffed with fish and meat paste and deep fried. It was served with mayonnaise. It was crispy and delicious.

The clam or kapar was prepared kam-heong style - with dried shrimps and a nice chilli sauce. The kapar is similar of la-la only with thicker shells. The meat is about the same. The preparation was tasty and savory. Yum.

Finally the ho chean or oyster omelette was rather dry. It was more like a pancake. Still it was delicious. The oysters were generous and the kids loved it.

All in all, it was a very good meal. The dishes were rather small and were hardly enough for the 12 hungry mouths. At the end of it, the plates were wiped cleaned. I should had ordered more.

The damage from the 7 dishes, rice and drinks was only RM95. It is difficult to get such value for money anywhere in Malaysia nowadays. Considering that we had fish, mantis prawns, clams and oyster, a similar meal in PJ or KL would cost at least twice more.

Ipoh Funny Mountain smoothie

Everybody loves a smoothie. And when we want one, we head to a 7-eleven. No convenient store can make anything as smooth as Funny Mountain in Ipoh. But I am not talking about ice cream or yogurt. I am talking tau fu fah.

This corner place in Ipoh serves the smoothest, nicest tau fu fah I have tasted for a long long time. The place is not even a shop - too small to be one. It is a little corner at the end of a row of shops at Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar in Ipoh. The place has a unique name - Funny Mountain Soya Bean. Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar runs parallel to Jalan Yang Kalsom, and the corner is not very far from the famous Lou Wong Chicken Rice. The corner is so small, it has hardly enough space for the 2 to 3 workers running the business.

The tau fu fah they serve was heavenly. It was so smooth that it almost slipped pass my mouth, right down my throat. The corner is quite traditional in the sweetening. They use only white sugar syrup, distinctly pandan flavored. The rich pandan taste reminded me so much of the tau fu fah I used to eat when I was a young lad. In the old days, tau fu fah was served only with the same rich white pandan-flavored syrup. There was no brown sugar or gula melaka that are so commonly used nowadays.

The servings are small - really small. They come in tiny bowls. I had 2 servings and came out not entirely sated. Each bowl is 80 cents.

The corner has some benches along a five-foot way for their customers. But seats are limited and because of its popularity, a lot of the customers slurp down their bowls on their feet. Or you can drive up to the corner and enjoy your tau fu fah in the comfort of your car. They serve your bowl right up to you.

豆腐花

吃咗眼花花

鸡公报 mata

鸡婆 bicara

Char koay teow in Air Itam

Foodwise, Air Itam in Penang is well known for the laksa. There is however a char koay teow stall that is apparently quite popular among Air Itam folks.

We went there for breakfast one day. The stall is located in a coffee shop called Restoran Lasia which is along Jalan Air Itam, about 100 meters from the Air Itam Maybank. If you drive along Jalan Air Itam towards Kek Lok Si, the shop is on your left and is the last coffee shop before the Penang Hill round-about. It is next to a Chinese primary school.

It is a typical Chinese coffee shop but is owned and operated by an Indian gentleman. The are several stalls in the shop. The char koay teow appeared to be the most in demand. The coffee in the shop is quite good. If you get there, ask for Kopi Cikgu - kopi si kau tarik jae which is roughly translated to be thick coffee with evaporated milk, less sugar and tarik. It is the favorite beverage of my brother-in-law who is also a teacher in the nearby school.

As we sat and waited for our food, the aroma of the char koay teow prevailed in the shop. There was the distinct smell of pork lard. Char koay teow in Penang is always fried with lard, unlike those in KL and PJ. I guess that is why it is so good there.

 

The char koay teow arrived after about 15 minutes, quite long considering that there was not many people then. The koay teow is individually fried. The seller does not mass cook. Each plated is by itself.

The portion was quite small. If you are a good eater, you will probably require a second. Two large shrimps dominated the plate. There was the usual see hum, taugeh, koo chai (chives) and of course egg. The char koay teow was OK. The taste was really not bad. But I found the koay teow rather soggy. I would prefer my koay teow to be drier. I would not consider the char koay teow fantastic. I think there are better else where in Penang.

 

But do not just take my words. Go and try it. My not-so-fantastic experience was probably because of a saturation of char koay teow when I was in Penang. There must be a reason why it is so popular in Air Itam in spite of the price, which is rather high. It is RM5.00 for the small plate - up from RM4.50 not too long ago. At RM5.00, it is apparently still not the most expensive in Penang. I was told there is another stall, also in a coffee shop, that sells for RM7.00 per plate. I knew char koay teow in Penang is good. I did not know it can be so expensive. I have to try the RM7.00 one. Perhaps the next Penang visit. And if I do, I will tell you about it.

Recipe for yim kai

Yim kai or salted chicken is one of my favorite way to eat the bird. I have a simple yet very delicious recipe for preparing the dish. This salted chicken is very popular in Malaysia, especially in the northern states. In Ipoh the dish is sold widely. There are even shops that sell nothing but the popular yim kai.

My recipe is really very easy to prepare. I prefer to use ayam kampung (village or free running chicken). Although more expensive, I find ayam kampung more delicious and the meat texture more firm. For my small family of 3, I usually cook just half a chicken.

There are only 2 ingredients to prepare the chicken - salt and tong kwai (angelica sinensis). I prefer to use the unrefined sea salt. I find that the unrefined sea salt not as salty as normal cooking or table salt, and the outcome is a more delicious chicken. Tong kwai is a Chinese medicinal root, available in all Chinese medicine shops. They are dried and normally sliced.

The chicken is washed and dried. Cut the chicken into quarters. You could cook the chicken whole or in halves. I find that by quartering the chicken, the baking is more even. The areas around the thighs of the chicken tend to be harder to cook. By baking the chicken whole or in halves, these areas tend to be rather raw while the rest of the bird may be over-cooked.

For half a chicken, I use 1 tablespoon of unrefined sea salt. For a whole chicken, the salt is doubled.

The amount of tong kwai depends on individual preferences. Some people do not like too strong a tong kwai flavour. I prefer a stonger taste. For half a chicken, I use 7 to 8 slices of tong kwai. Again the quantity is doubled for the whole chicken. Grind the tong kwai to a coarse power. I use a blender to do that. Then mix the ground tong kwai with the salt.

Stab the chicken all over with a fork and apply the mixture on to the chicken. Put the chicken in the fridge let it marinate for about 24 hours. Be sure to cover the marinating chicken to prevent dehydration. A cling film over the plate or dish would do nicely.

The next day, take the chicken out of the fridge about an hour before baking to allow the chicken to come to room temperature. Wrap each quarter of the bird in an aluminum foil.

Put them in a oven and bake at 210 degrees C, for 50 minutes. For the whole chicken, bake it for an additional 10 minutes.

The result is a beautiful golden baked chicken. The oil and juice of the chicken is collected in the aluminum foil. They can be use as a sauce for the chicken. Or you can use it as a stock to prepare Hainanese chicken rice, which perhaps can be another posting for my blog. I normally discard the juice. I find it too salty and sinful. The meat is good as it is without any additional flavouring.

Cut the chicken to bite pieces to serve. The chicken is aromatic and delicious. The meat is not dry and retain its succulence. The salt and tong kwai permeate into the meat. Even the breast is salty and delicious.

My family loves the dish every time I cook it. And it is so very simple to prepare.

Kulim fish escapade

There is this quaint little restaurant somewhere near Kulim in Kedah that amazes me. It is not only a good makan place. It is an adventure by itself.

My brother-in-law in Penang told me about it. Nine of us drove there in 2 cars. He led the way and I followed behind. We drove across the Penang bridge, headed towards Kulim on the highway, passed Kulim town, and drove towards some place - I don't know where. Then we turned off the main road and after awhile found ourselves on an unpaved gravel country road.

We rocked and rattled for about 2-3 kilometers. We nearly missed a turn on the gravel road. Fortunately a signboard of a big tilapia fish pointed us to the right direction. We passed some cows, some oil palms and finally parked in a kind of forest clearing.  We got out of our cars and lo and behold, we were in a beautiful fish farm.

 
There are several ponds in the farm. Each one was teeming with fish. They were swimming and splashing at the surface and we could see that they were really big. There is a small fast flowing, clear water river in the midst of the ponds. Upstream of the river, we could see a small waterfall. Surrounding the ponds and the river is the lush forest. What a beautiful sight.

 

The restaurant is located in this environment. The scenery is pretty, but the restaurant is not. It is a wood and zinc structure with earthen floor - no cement. There are no lights, so I guess they only serve lunch. But surprisingly, several fans whirled overhead, apparently powered by a generator nearby.

The name of the place is Restoran Kolam Ikan. It has a very limited menu - 5 types of fish and 1 type of vegetable (lettuce), 1 type of drink (Chinese herbal tea) and rice. That is all. No chicken, no pork, no prawn, no crab, no tofu. Nothing else. The fish they serve come directly from the surrounding ponds. So you can imagine how fresh they are. 

We ordered 4 fish dishes, the vege, the drinks and of course rice. We wanted the 5th fish as well, but the guy said enough, too much for the nine of us.

The first dish was the Thai style tilapia. The dish did not come with too much garnishing, just some onions in the unmistakeable Thai chilli sauce. The fish was deep fried and it was so well done that the head, fins and tail were crispy and could be eaten, bones and all. The sauce was great. The good size and freshness of the fish made it such a very nice dish. It was probably the best Thai style fish I ever had.

The sultan fish was deep fried in soy sauce together with the scales. This is the first time I encounter a fish served with the scales. The scales were crispy and the flesh tender. This apparently is a house speciality. But I did not appreciate the scaly texture, however well done it was. I also thought that a such a good fish like the sultan should have been steamed rather than deep fried.

The steamed dish was a fresh water cat fish - pak sou kung. It was a big fish. We were served only half the head and belly, and the tail. It was steamed in a soy sauce with some ginger garnish over it. The belly was delightfully smooth. Because the fish was so very fresh and farmed in a pond, there was not a trace of fishy taste or muddy smell. A most enjoyable steamed fish.

The best of all was the eel. The meat of the eel was stir fried with dried chilli and onion. It was so very delicious. The eel was so fresh and tender that it practically melts in the mouth. I cannot describe the feeling. I thought the Japanese prepare their unagi very well, but this eel in Kulim beats them all - hands down. If you have to drive 300 km to Kulim to eat just one dish, this has to be it.

All in all, the fish meal in Kulim was a unforgettable experience. The pleasure of having a meal in a lush green forest, surrounded by ponds and a running river and on fish that were probably still alive when you made your order, is one that I will relish for a long long time.

The restaurant is apparently very popular. On weekends, you will have to wait for your table. The amazing thing is how people even come to know about  this place. It is located in a god forsaken forest. The guy who runs the restaurant apparently also owns the fish ponds. Still he must had been either very enterprising or very brave to start a restaurant in such a place.

If I have to drive back to the restaurant by myself, I most definitely will not get there. So I won't be able to give you any directions. I can offer a rudimentary map that is at the back of the proprietor's business card.

But forget it. Don't even try. You won't get there. If you are desperate enough, you can take a drive to Kulim and call the owner, Ah Yew. He is contactable at 013-4379606. By the way, they are closed on Mondays.