120509 New Ipoh Chicken Rice Restaurant, 107 Jalan Gasing 10/1, 46000 Petaling Jaya, 46000, Malaysia

(This was eaten quite a while ago, but I hadn’t posted it till now. I’m quite hungry now, so I might as well make you hungry also.)

This restaurant has been one of our favourites pretty much all along, as it used to be located along the way from Petaling Jaya to Kuala Lumpur. These days, it has expanded to 2 shoplots, across 2 floors so it fits quite a few people even during busy lunch hours. Both floors are air-conditioned, but previously, only one side of the ground floor restaurant was air-conditioned.

When we walked up to the first floor restaurant, we thought we’d walked into a school canteen as it was filled 90% with kids in blue uniforms. Guess it beats the school canteen option, since the restaurant is just across from the school.

The menu is quite small, with only few things to be ordered, but all the dishes are good so where there is quality, you don’t need quantity (only kidding, you need quantity all the time).

There were 7 of us at lunch, so we decided to order plain bowls of noodles and rice each, and also ordered dishes to be shared.

The noodles (known as ‘chai’, as in, plain noodles with just soup) came also with some complimentary pig skin and ‘taufoo pok’ (fried beancurd). Pig skin, you ask? It’s quite a delicacy, but a cheap one thus it’s given free in the noodles. The texture is chewy, and slightly like jelly. You say yuck, I say yum.

Steamed chicken – half for about RM20

See how almost half the portion looks like it’s breast meat? Over here in South East Asia, chicken breast is seen as the not so fantastic part of the chicken, because it’s drier and tougher than the other bits. When we called the waiter over to complain, it seemed as though complains are quite regular as he was very well-versed with explaining how although it LOOKED like we had alot of breast meat, it was actually half the chicken, because see here, there’s the wing, see there, that’s the chicken leg.

Not convinced? Neither were we.

Roast pork – siew yuk RM24 for this portion

Nominated most expensive dish of the meal, it was also the majority’s favourite as the skin was crispy, the meat was well-flavoured and tender.

Chicken gizzard, skin and others RM1.50

This was slightly chewy and very flavourful, went well with the noodles and rice as it was a slightly salty dish.

Hakka stewed pork with mui choy (preserved vegetables) – Mui choy kau yuk, about RM15

This is a home-cook favourite, and is one dish that is not easy to master. When cooked well, the pork becomes melt in the mouth, and the preserved vegetable blends well to make it a salty, sweet and very delicious dish with rice.

Plain curry noodles (‘chai’) RM1.50

The usual price for a bowl of curry noodles elsewhere, with other things in it such as chicken, costs about RM4.50. Here, for RM1.50, you get a reasonably large bowl of curry noodles with tofu pieces, very delicious soup, and very smooth noodles.

Ipoh beansprouts RM4

If for one moment you thought these were ordinary beansprouts, think again, buddy. These are Ipoh beansprouts, which means they are immediately superior to the more inferior non-Ipoh ones. How do you know if you’ve been tricked into paying for Ipoh beansprouts when you’ve received the other version? The Ipoh ones should be short and plump, which means that they’re crunchier and juicier than the longer versions which tend to be stringy (and get stuck in my teeth a fair bit).

These weren’t quite up to the usual Ipoh standard, but still OK.

Pork meatballs RM1 for one

Made with pork, these meatballs are quite bouncy and chewy, but slightly pricey for one.

At the end of the meal, the air-conditioning went off, the school kids left the building, and so did we. Would we come back to this restaurant? I’d like to, as I really enjoyed the food here.

The Red Velvet experiment

One of my friends recently mentioned that she was into baking cupcakes. Now, call me stupid or something, but it’d never occurred to me that you could do these things. Sure, I like cupcakes, but seldom buy them because they were so expensive. Those lovely little cups of cakes with icing on top, colourful and delicate. And so very expensive.

At about £3.50 per cupcake (my favourite being the Red Velvet from Hummingbird), it was one of those little luxuries which, once I bought one, meant I couldn’t have dinner that day (slight exaggeration).

When said friend mentioned that she could BAKE Red Velvets, I was astonished, mouth open with half chewed pizza (how uncouth, I know) as I quizzed her on how she achieved this unimaginable feat.

So, a week later, I decided that I too, shall try to do this crazy thing called baking. And so it was, the bf and I decided to bake some cupcakes to take along to a friend’s BBQ as we were tasked with bringing something sweet. Something sweet it was gonna be.

A bit of Googling, a bit of common sense, and alot of not so good cupcakes later (all lovingly eaten, of course), we had the final product.

Here is, ladies and gentlemen, the home-baked, not so stylish, somewhat pitiful looking, complete opposite of Hummingbird version of the Red Velvet.

We took it to a party the next day, in some containers, and someone actually said to us, ‘I thought you’d bought it from the store, and then put it in the container to pretend that you baked it.’

That was pretty much the best compliment anyone could have given, aside from the fact that the person who said it said it before actually eating the thing. She looked kinda worried after eating it, not sure what that says about our baking.

Could we have used incorrect measurements? Maybe. Could we have beat the mixture too much, resulting in too much / too little air? Possibly. Could we just be really bad at baking? Most probably.

Welcome to the relaunch!

You must have done a double take when you clicked your way here, but you’re still at the same place! I’ve been wanting to give the blog a new look for a while now, as the words going across the screen (all the way across the screen) way after the pictures weren’t exactly what I wanted for the ‘look’.

With much patience and pure genius from the bf (thanks very much for this!), we present to you

The new look!

What I had for dinner – Meat and cheese

After having had a heavy meal of pork chop with fusion style spaghetti (anything which is anything is called fusion these days), we decided to have a lighter dinner the next day. Some of you may foolishly think of salads as light meals. We, on the other hand, consider meat, cheese and omelette to be light meals (it’s all relative, isn’t it). Light compared to an all you can eat, I suppose.

So, off we went to Sainsbury’s. Bought some cold meats, some cheeses, and there we had our dinner.

A combination of roast beef, ham and roast pork.

Comte cheese is currently my new favourite, its creamy, intense, slightly tangy flavour makes it one of those cheeses I just have to nibble on.

Bought another soft cheese just to see what it’d taste like, and it smelt and tasted very much like camembert, a bit like brie.

Papadoms / Mango, Brick Lane, London

Let's give you a preview as to how this dinner went, by relaying the conversation that we had as we were coming out of the restaurant, talking to the guy (presumably one of the owners or waiters) who asked us in there in the first place.

(With one hand shaking my friend's hand) 'How was it! How was it!' in a loud, friendly, booming voice.

'Well mate, honestly, not so good.'

'I know, I know,' patting my friend on the back, in a not so loud, booming voice. Said man then proceeds to give my friend his business card, and promises a discount the next time we go back there.

I'd rather eat dry cereal, to be honest.

So, now that you have a flavour of the story, let's begin, shall we?

(If this didn't get me blogging again, I don't know what did).



Last week, our friends asked us to go with them to Brick Lane for the curry festival that was going on there. Now, having been to Brick Lane a few times (though not to eat), and having seen the countless banners proclaiming wins or nominations at almost every restaurant of some curry award or another, we obviously felt quite suspicious of most of them. Which one do we choose? With nothing to guide us around, we decided on choosing the one with the most people, yet not that many people that would make us have to wait more than 5 minutes.



With that in mind, Papadoms fit the bill, and with the guy at the front telling us that we'd be given first drinks free, and 20% of the food bill, we thought, why not?
(More on why not coming right up.)

Having amused ourselves chatting for about 20 mins, we slowly ran out of conversation topics and began focusing on why it was taking them so long to get us a table. The guy at the door obviously sensed this, and so ushered us out of the original restaurant, and into one a few doors down, which he called his 'other branch'. Alternatively also called Mango, to the discerning public.

So, to summarise the story so far, this is where we should have been eating at, when we made the choice to go into Papadoms.

This is where we actually ate at, when the manager / marketing guy / person doing the business pulling decided to take us to hi ‘other branch’ instead.

Now, the first thing to note here is that I ALWAYS look at other people’s food on the way to my table. This is pretty much so that I can see what’s good, what’s not, and how pleasing the portion sizes are. What I saw on the way to the table this time were lots of little dishes, with bland-looking watery curry in them.

(Should have walked out, huh.)

Sat down, ordered, and asked for a jug of tap water. We got the first round of drinks free, as part of the curry festival customer-pulling deal, so we figured, why not make the most of that, and then make do with tap water after. Thing is, Mr Waiter Guy must have had something else on his agenda, as it took us 5 tries before some water finally came our way.

With some soap bubbles added for good measure.

Obviously, you can see from the picture that the soap was on the outside of the glass, and Mr Waiter Guy also vehemently stressed this fact to us, as though we were being unreasonable, because, hey, the soap is on the outside, not on the inside, no probs!

Nada, my friend. Probs. You don’t serve water in soapy glasses.

Anyhow, moving on to the food, when it came. Almost at the same time when our food arrived at our table, I overheard the lady at the table across from us say loudly to the waiter that her food had no flavour at all and that she didn’t order what she was served. The waiter then said that he’d give her another complimentary dish, and that it would be one of the nicer ones there. When the said dish arrived, the thank you was said, the waiter walked away, and I overheard her saying that the new dish wasn’t up to scratch either.

Thing is, even with all that, we approached our food with open minds. Wanting to make the most of the meal, and wanting to enjoy the rest of our night out, we waited for the food to arrive. When it did, let’s just say, the plates were much bigger than the amount of food actually in them (with the exception of the side dish, in which the biggest thing in there was the spoon).

Note: No prices stated here as I didn’t note them down, but the curry dishes were about £8-ish, and we had a 20% discount.

Chef’s special lamb curry with calamansi
Look, this dish was tasty, with surprising new flavours which were nice as I’d not had them in curries before. True, the dish was cooked well, the meat was OK tender, and the blend of flavours worked well. However, when the portion is barely enough for one, but priced higher than average, I find it hard to stomach the dish. Call it quantity over quality if you like, but that’s an important factor to me.

Lamb mango curry
This was what I ordered, mainly because I like the taste of fruit in curry, and find the mix of sweetness in curry quite delightful tasting. It didn’t disappoint, and exceeded my expectations actually, with the mango infusing ever so well with the curry sauce. The sweetness of the mango was evident throughout the sauce, and the only thing bringing the dish down was the tough pieces of lamb in the dish.

Fish balti
The flavours here were again, quite good. Dry and fragrant, the dish would have been top class if not for the fact that the portions were just too small, and the fish was just that bit overcooked and tough.

Chef’s special chicken curry (not trying to be vague, but I didn’t take down the name of the dish)
Refer to comments above, is all I can say.

Bhindi side dish (ladies fingers, or okra), about £3

This is the dish where the spoon was almost bigger than the portion itself. As we ordered this to share, there wasn’t much there to be shared, so we kinda had about a teaspoon each. Tasty, but so very little of it.

And as I usually say at the end of each post, would I recommend this restaurant? Not really, no. From the deals you have to negotiate outside the restaurant, the wait, the being led to another restaurant, the soapy glass, the small portions, the not so attentive waiters, and the overall feeling of dissatisfaction as you come out of the restaurant, it just didn’t give me the feeling of having just had a good meal out.

Google Maps to here!

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The 50% off Mille Miglia extravaganza (Part 3)

For those of you who have not been reading Parts 1 and 2, it’s called the 50% off because the full Mille Miglia (1,000 miles) is a journey of … a thousand miles. We only did half of it, hence the 50% off.

Anything for a bargain.

*continuing from Chioggia, the fishing town with Orange Campari

After spending the day previously in Chioggia, we returned to Ferrara to discover that half the town’s residents, and the next town’s tourists, had all turned up in Ferrara for the Buskers’ Festival. Now, up to that point, I’d not heard of such a thing as the Buskers’ Festival, but this was a nice discovery.

The little cobbled pavements were bustling with the heat, laughing people, dancing children, men holding plastic cups of golden coloured beer, and tanned beautiful women with white teeth. The smell of salami and cheese panini filled the air, beautiful music floated in and out, and the sound of laughter was just so invigorating that we felt the need to join in, to explore.

No pictures here as we were too busy looking around, and didn’t want to worry about the camera bag with that many people around.

The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel which was surprisingly empty considering the fact that there were so many people in town the previous night. Anyhow, less people = more food for us, always a good thing when there are no waiters watching.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d definitely not seen caviar on any of my breakfast menus before.

The buffet selection was huge, which was just as well, because our appetites were just as huge.

We continued our journey towards the country on a hill, San Marino.

The views from the bottom of the hill as we were going up changed slowly from hot, dusty and orange to cool, clean and green.

Ever seen one of those winding, spiral car park places? San Marino was like one giant, winding car park, with one road going steeply upwards with an almost U-turn bend going up the other way. The shops were tiny, the streets were cobbled, it was absolutely wonderful and unlike any other place I’d been to before.

No matter how wonderful a place is, one has to eat (I could have substituted the first bit of that sentence with anything, really).

Scusi moi, waiter. Could we have a table with a view, please.

The price of everything in the restaurant was so reasonable that we felt the need to order 3 meals between the 2 of us. As we couldn’t not order a pizza in Italy, nor could we miss out the Bolognese, there wasn’t much hesitation when the waiter came around to the table.

Being an absolute fan of the carbonara (my version is pretty good, but I have to constantly keep up the with competitors), I had to order it here. You must understand how difficult it can be to order something new when I only seem to be ordering carbonara everywhere I go.

The carbonara was enjoyable, though slightly different. Because I’ve had so many versions of this dish before, sometimes in rustic restaurants in London, sometimes in posher ones, and a few times in Italy, I’m quite lost as to which one actually is the authentic version.

This version had some cream in it, but also quite a bit of water resulting in a soup-like sauce. Instead of using just egg yolk, they must have had some egg white in it also, as there were bits of cooked egg white floating about in the sauce. A little bit cheesy, a little but salty, and a little bit … scrambled, it was one of the more interesting versions I’ve had.

The Bolognese was just OK. Nothing much to say about the sauce other than the fact that it tasted very same-ey, like plenty of other versions I’d had before. The pasta could have done with a bit more cooking, or a bit more oil when it was being cooked, as it kinda soaked up all the sauce, and then got stuck to other bits of pasta, resulting in one dry dish of pasta.

The pizza was the best dish of the meal. Soft and chewy dough, with fresh vegetables and cheese on top.

After the meal, we wanted to continue going around (literally) town, but the shops were beginning to close as the tourists slowly left. So, with no where to go, no shopping to do, and no more scenery to photograph, we decided to go back to the hotel and watch some Italian television (no subtitles either, what fun).

The next day, we drove to Assisi which is one of the towns on the way to Spoleto, the destination of the day. Not knowing much about Assisi, we were very surprised to discover that it looked very similar to San Marino, though without the steep hills.

Being another warm day with fantastic sunshine, we parked the car somewhere in town, went through a Roman tunnel (don’t ask me why it’s Roman) and looked for the town centre.

Those cobbled streets are really something, aren’t they. It was lunchtime, so we looked for a restaurant which would most resemble a non-touristy place but most of them were either full, or looked too expensive. Just as we were about to give up and go to McDonald’s (as if, just kidding) we found one little cafe which had Bob Dylan blaring out of the speakers. The bf decided that we just had to eat there, if not for the Bob Dylan factor alone.

One spinach sandwich and half an hour later, the waitress gave us the salami sandwich free as it was taking them too long to serve us. Of course that wasn’t enough, so we decided to get more food from another shop further down.

One thing I noticed here in Italy is that the sandwiches are usually prepared ahead and left in a fridge type place on display. When a customer buys the sandwich, it is warmed up in a Panini grill and it suddenly transforms from a cold, dry looking piece of bread to a lush, cheesy, warm sandwich.

Next: Roma