Pang (Hainan) Seafood

Celebrated Grandma’s birthday yesterday at Pang (Hainan) Seafood Restaurant at Tanjung Tokong. This place was formerly known as Craven Café which was taken over by a bistro pub which also closed down and now replaced with this restaurant. Talk about some bad Feng Shui there, I must say the current restaurant is doing well with the number of customers they had yesterday which was a weekday.

Uncle from KL came down with his wife and two kids. Had like a mini Yew gathering which I’m sad to say is very small. Aunty from US was not present, but it does not make any difference as it would only be one extra head count.

Well back to the restaurant, this is actually a seafood place I used to go at Teluk Bahang. Back there I knew it as “Ah Pang” seafood. Then recently found out that they have moved up to this place. They should be doing well now as they can afford to take in more customers than their previous small lil kampung house by the beach.

We had sweet and sour crabs (5 of them), fried prawn mantis in oat, curry lala, baked scallops, tofu and fried maggie mee for the kids.

We ordered 5 crabs thinking that crabs may be small and not enough. But we were wrong. Crabs were so huge and fleshy. Imagined myself in heaven eating the crabs. But…yes there’s a but here….was disappointed as the crabs, no doubt fleshy, did not have that sweet crabby taste. I think the crabs were too huge…or maybe the chef didn’t do a good job with the cooking. Big disappointment for me comparing to those other times I had when they were at Teluk Bahang.

Fried prawn mantis in oat was ok only. Cooked the same way you have your nestum prawns. Nothing wonderful to brag about.

Curry lala was a bit on a spicy side for me. But me not being a lala eater, I can’t say much about the dish.

Baked scallops, another disappointment. When I read ‘baked’ on the menu I thought of melted cheese on the scallops. Scallops looked so good when it was served. But when I scrapped the scallop off the shell and put it to my mouth….what taste I got??…tartar sauce!!! WTF…….where’s the melted cheese????
Tofu was normal. Nothing wow to brag. But their fried maggie mee was good. So in summary, dinner was disappointing for me. What happened to their standard last time? Maybe I’ll need to go back there again and try other seafood dishes. Maybe we all did not order their specialty dishes. So till my next visit…hang in there.

Pang (Hainan) Seafood

Big Crab....no pls don't eat me

Sweet and Sour Crab....muahahhaa crabs been cooked. Show no mercy

See how fleshy. Huge claws

Fried Prawn Mantis with oat

Curry lala

Baked Scallops...white sauce like texture is not melted cheese but tartar sauce

Tofu

The mess made

The Yews

Grandmas Birthday Cake

Penang Power Puffs

This shop lot has been opened for quite sometime at my taman. So decided today to take a drive and ta pau back some and blog about it. Actually this is my second time eating it.

The power puffs or simple name, curry puffs are freshly made here- A shop lot turned making/cooking curry puff place. To my surprise they had a variety of curry puffs flavors. Gone were those days of just plain old chicken curry puffs. Here they sold5 types of puffs; chicken curry puffs, tuna puffs, sardine puffs, yam puffs and lamb puffs. Prices were reasonable with the size.

So how was it....well too oily for one thing.
- Chicken puff was abit spicy for my chilly standard.
- Tuna puff was not so wow. had alot of onions and no curry flavour. tasted more like the ayam brand tuna mayonaise.
- Yam puff previously was weird for me. Maybe I'm not a yam fan. It was abit sweet.
- Sardine puffs- have to try one day on a sardine lover as I hate sardines.
- Lamb Puff- they had no more, bummer I wanted to try that!

Power Puff shop lot

The variety of power puffs

Size of a Power Puff

Chicken curry Power Puff

Tuna Power Puff. Sorry bad picture taken here.

Mizi Bistro at First World Park

This was my second visit to this place. On my first visit I chatted to one of the owners. He looked so familiar so I told him and to my surprise he is the same owner of the restaurant at Prangin Mall called La Gourmet. Mizi Bistro is a second branch.

I asked, “Why is it called Mizi Bistro instead of La Gourmet since it’s a second branch?”
He replies, “Well cos the concept of Mizi Bistro is that we serve alcohol and place is set to be like a Bistro place. (They have their own liqueur license)

On my first visit there, I had the Chicken Parmagianni served with some pasta. The dish had abit too much of herbs especially in the pasta, too much rosemary and thyme. Kinda overdosed on the herbs that it left me with smelly burp the whole night. I did get the picture of the dish, but it’s in a friend’s camera.

But never mind, on my second visit last Sunday, I was equipped with my own camera. Came in with my parents and my grandma. We all had the set lunch. Prices are reasonable here, RM 16.90++ for a drink, a soup, main course and desert. You get to choose your drinks, soup and main dish from the variety of dishes in the menu. However meat section and seafood section was excluded here. But still quite a lot of choices.

So mum had Chicken Stroganoff, Dad and Grandma has fish and I had Chicken Nelson.

Soup we all had Mushroom soup as it was one of their specialties there and was highly recommended by the waiter.

Drinks came first, and then a basket of bread slices with cold butter cuts followed by the mushroom soup. Soup was superbly good, rich, creamy and thick. Had full of tiny mushroom bits in it which made the soup thick. Two thumbs up for this. However to those non mushroom lovers you may not like it as it has a very strong mushroom taste and smell.

Then came Grandmas Fish dish. I forgot the name of the dish as it had some weird name to it which starts with a G. There was a gravy on the fish and topped with a lot of pickled capers. Taste was good but on a salty side. Need to cut down on the salt for this dish.

Then came mum’s dish, Chicken Stroganoff…Chicken breast slices with Pasta and cream. It was good. They had little peppercorn seeds in the pasta which I sort of ‘stole’ from my mum. Love those….Mum was satisfied with her dish.

Then came my dad’s fish dish. I think it was some Fish with white cream sauce topped with a banana fritter. The white cream sauce was good, but the fish had a very strong ‘fishy’ taste which sort of put me off. This happens when you use Dory Fish fillets. But dad still liked it and was not fussy with the fishy-ness.

Then came my dish later on. Service was a bit slow here, but can’t blame them cos they were running on a full house for lunch. I ordered the Chicken Nelson. Something I was eyeing on my first trip. Its chicken drumstick stuffed with cheese and crabstick. It looked good but taste wise was tasteless. Chef did not put any/enough herbs in the chicken. I could taste the strong chicken taste. The batter on the other hand was a bit too hard. Well big disappointment for me…had to sprinkle pepper and salt on the chicken and curi-ed abit of mum’s cream sauce and peppercorns to give my dish taste. Thumbs down for this dish.

As or dessert, it was free flow of ice cream with condiments such as chocolate rice, chocolate fudge/strawberry/mango sauce. Even though my dish was disappointing, I think I’ll still go back to this place to try out other dishes. I have faith with the chef and the workers there are very friendly. There’s quite a lot of write up on this restaurant from other bloggers so I recommend you to try it out and judge for yourself.

Mizi Bistro

Superbly good Mushroom Soup

Grandma's Fish dish. See those little round bijis. That's the pickled capers. Dish was too salty.

Chicken Stroganoff

Fish with white sauceChicken Nelson

Saturday Night

It was just the two of us on Saturday night, so we did not have anything planned. So what we did was we went to Island Plaza to window shop and cari makan at Ed's fav Japanese Hawker place.

Island Plaza was miserable. Alot of shops closed down. Only attraction there left to shop is Metrojaya, MNG, Esprit, Nike and CK. Walked for while in Metrojaya then we left for dinner.

Headed to the Golden Sands Bayview Food Court. It's just next to Penang Chinese Swimming Club. What we both like to eat there is the Japanese Food and the Mushroom Soup. However to the recent order I had, the standard of the Mushroom soup has deteriorated. Was very watery and abit tasteless. So off it goes from my list.

The Japanese Food on the other hand, you should have seen the treatment Ed got when the Aunty and Uncle saw him. They were so excited to see Ed…it was so funny. Ed always orders his usual set which is the Teriyaki Chicken set. Somehow I feel the Aunty puts more rice for Ed. Every time I tell Ed why rice so much, he denies it and says normal portions ‘I did not ask for tambah’…hmmm do I sense some conspiracy here. As for me, I ordered the California Roll and a bowl of Potato Salad. I love both these dishes. Potato Salad is to die for, literally. It’s so so good. But to my dear friend Ros, she wouldn’t like it as it has chunks of ONIONS!! Yummy, this la is what makes it so good. Then I had Ed’s Miso soup as I don’t really encourage him to have Miso soup due to the content of salt. But this one is alright. Not as salty as the ones you get. Well good cheap food…where else can you get all this for only RM 15.

The Stall

Miso Soup

Teriyaki Chciken..can you see the amount of rice!!!

California Roll

Potato Salad

After dinner, it was still early so we decided to head to Ed’s fav street, Chulia Street and perhaps get some “Ham Chim Peng”. However on our way there we saw Ian’s car parked along Hutton Lane. Ed gave him a call and next thing; we were sitting at this place called ‘Kiss a Koyotei Café’ with Ian and a few other friends. Yes you read that right….it’s one weird name. It’s directly opposite the First World car park entrance along Hutton Lane. What was interesting about this place was that the waitresses were dress in some kind of “maid uniform”. What a turn on for guys who have fantasies about this.

The place was cozy in a way. I only looked at the drinks menu and ordered a Mojito Mint Ice Coffee (I Think) and Ed had Iced coffee. Drink prices were reasonable. Both our drinks cost RM 5.30 each.

Girl 1: Can we smoke here?

Guy: Yes can we have an ash tray?

Waitress: yes you can smoke but in about 1 minutes time

Girl 1 & Guy: Huh? 1 minute time….

Waitress: Yes only at 10.30pm onwards customer’s are allowed to smoke

This is some kind of practice for this café….When the clock turned 10.30pm the lights were dimmed, music got abit louder and the TV started playing music videos. The place was transformed to a pub like. It was unusual. But thanks to that, place got smoky and my just washed hair was covered with smoke smell…argghhh!

Front of Kiss a Koyotei Cafe

Waitress dressed in a maid like uniform

Waitress serving us drinks. Cute outfit aint it?

The group of friends

Left: Mojito Mint Iced coffee ; Right: Ice Coffee

Makan Buddies, Ian and Ed

Kim Gary & The Golden Compass

Friday night, we met up with Jennifer and Amit together with Jean and Ros. Had dinner at Kim Gary. A place which Ed does not fancy to eat, but we were ok with it. Main agenda was to meet up with the newly enganged couple.

Newly enganged couple. Wedding bells to ring mid next year

The only dish I like from there is the Fried Spagetthi 'Hong Kong Style' and their French Toast. For Ed I ordered for him a Stone Grill Pork Chop rice. Picture on the menu looked good, but Ed did not like it. Said the rice was too over cooked from the pipping hot stone grill bowl. I tried the rice, it didn't suit me. I didn't like the sauce it had.

Jean and Ros on the other hand had some Korean Noodle. Do not know how it tasted.

My french toast was still up to standard. Bread filling had peanut butter and coated with honey and butter...oh one thing bad about this..the bread is actually fried in hot oil.

French Toast

Fried Spaghetti 'Hong Kong' style. Thumbs up from me

Korean Noodles

Stone grill pork Chop Rice (not nice)

After the dinner, we decided to catch a movie. To our luck there were still seats available for the Golden Compass. Movie was good. Nicole Kidman acted as the villiant. She was so gorgeuos there. I love her eyes.

After the movie, Ed was hungry, so we headed to Gurney drive for supper. But Ed did the eating. He ordered his Wan Tan Mee and some deep fried chicken skin. We were back home at about 1 am all tired and sleepy.

The Verdict of Mum’s nude painting at A2 Gallery

The Violet painting was sold to a retired British couple staying in Penang (their second home)

Marblerella and Pink Lady still hangs elegantly on the wall.

The opening ceremony the other day was ok. Well I actually missed it. Reached the place 40 minutes later. But there were still some people around. I had my cousin Luke and Rosalind with me. I think Ed and Luke felt abit embarrassed when they stepped into the gallery.

Of all the paintings there I think my mum was the most daring one. The other paintings did not have a direct clear cut of a naked body.

The good news celebration

Upon celebrating my good news, parents decided to have some good food. What a better way to celebrate!!! Ed could not make it as he had to rush to service his car.

Mum chosed to eat at Chilly's...yay!!!!

Knowing that the portions are big we decided to share. But in the end we ordered Classic Nacho's, Brocolli Cheese, Beef Ribs, Quesidillas Exploasion and desert. Pigs uh???

Classic Nacho's .....I think TGIF was tastier, but I enjoyed it as I like eating the pickled chilly.

Classic Nachos

Then came the Brocolli Cheese soup. This is my favourite and recommended for those cheese lovers. Rich and creamy...ummmm love it!

Brocolli Cheese Soup

Then came the Beef Ribs and the Quesidillas Explosion. I felt that the beef ribs were abit small in it's portion. TGIF serves a bigger portion-more meat. But Chilly's beef ribs taste better than TGIF as it's tastier, juicy-er and tender.

BBQ Beef Ribs

Quesadillas Explosion was actually a super huge salad served with chicken meat and topped with some lime dressing. It was wonderfull. Let me recall what was in this salad, red beans, corn, cilantro, fried pasta, salad leaves, lotsa cheese, garlic bits, tomato, and chicken. This was also served with 6 stuffed Quesadillas. Wonderfull highly recommended for those salad eaters.

Quesadillas Explosion

Then for dessert we had this dessert below. I forgot the name of this!!!! but it's super good. The chocolate cake is served warm topped with vanilla ice cream and coated with chocolate fudge. When you dig in to the middle of the chocolate cake, chocolate fudge oozes out from the middle.....ohh la la....definately not for those weight watchers!!!

Dessert

After lunch, feeling thirsty we headed to Abu Siti lane for some good old coconut drink. This is not any roadside coconut drink you get served in a cup, this one the coconut uncle would pick the coconut and cut it open for you on the spot. It’s amazing that he never misses the coconut! Picture below tells it all with his sharp ‘parang’

After drinking up all the coconut water, the uncle would cut open the coconut and cut a slice of the husks as a spoon. This is used to scrape off the coconut flesh…cool eh!!
Me being a pig, I drank 2 ‘pandan’ coconuts and regretted later when my stomach was so stuffed with water…smart me!

See how the coconut is cut with the parang. Then it's served to you with a straw. You stand there and drink. No chairs or table provided

This is how you scrape the felsh out