Duck Rice

We recently found this place that sells wonderful duck rice. It's an old corner coffee shop at the end of Cheong Fatt Tze Road facing Carnavon Street. We've been here 3 times already and Ed has managed to 'bond' with the uncle. In our last visit, we got to know from the uncle that he has been selling his duck rice here for over 25 years. Uncle also sells Char siew, Siew Bak (Pork) and chicken.


Place is quite small but there is always a queue of people lining up ordering to pack. Unlike most duck meat i have eaten that tasted so dry and tasteless, I found the duck meat here to be very tasty (strong spice taste), juicy and tender. We had a chance to watch the uncle slicing open the duck's stomach area which was stuffed with ginger, garlic and other unknown ingredients which I could not tell/see what it was. But boy you should have seen the amount of juice that came squirting out from the stomach area while the uncle was slicing it open. No wonder the meat was so juicy!!


Now with the pork, I enjoyed the pork meat (Siew Bak) which was juicy, salty and it did not have that pork taste which I hate. Halfway eating, it got me missing the pork I had in Philippines!. The Char Siew was so so for me. It was basically sweet for me and rather black on the outer layer.


What I liked here was that they served a special black sauce to eat together with the duck meat. This sauce tasted sweet and salty, almost like Hoisin sauce. The chili sauce served tasted like those from the chicken rice shops with garlic in it. Rice here was plain white rice with some black gravy poured on it. I must say we both shall certainly be visiting this uncle often. Thumbs up for this Duck Rice shop.

Ritz Cakes and Pastries

Rits Cakes and Pastries located in Prima Tanjung, I have heard of this cake shop before and have tasted their cream puffs before. So one Sunday afternoon, dropped by the shop for dessert. Brought my parents along to try out the cakes. Mum was the one excited with the cakes that she ended up doing the ordering.

Cake number 1: San Marcos
It had cream in between the cake slices and topped with caramelized sugar. It tasted abit like a cake version of Creme Brulee. It wasn't so sweet which was good.


Cake number 2: Mocha Hazelnut
It had a very strong coffee taste. Had cofee cream in between the cake slices and topped with cream, chopped hazelnuts and some melted chocolate fudge. It was pretty alright.


Cake Number 3: Baked Cheese cake
Now this was a good one. It was really rich in taste and was not so sweet with a pinch of sourness. Texture wise it was smooth and compact. A must have if your a cheese cake lover.


Cake Number 4: Lemon Meringue
After all the sweet tasting cakes, this cake brought some sourness to our mouths. The cake was soft a fluffy and had lemon like cream in between the cake slices. The meringue on top was not so sweet which was good (usually I find meringues abit too sweet)

All the above cakes only cost RM 5.80 per slice. Quite reasonable price. As a conclusion, I found the cakes (excluding the baked cheese cake) abit too spongee. As you can see the 3 cakes I had all had sponge cake in between the cream. Found the sponge cake abit too dry and tasteless. The taste seems to come only from the cream they use to make the different flavours of each cake.

Besides the cakes, we also tried the Almond Biscotti, which I did not manage to take a snap shot of. It is priced RM 9.90 per packet. It was damn good. It was loaded with almond nuts in it, really crispy and was not so sweet. A must try if your a biscotti fan. Good munching food while watching a movie. But I bet the Biscotti would be finished even before you reach 15 minutes of the movie.

Restaurant Teppan Yaki Junction, Tanjung Tokong

Situated just next to Island Plaza, this restaurant sells quite good teppanyaki food. This place is not new, it has been here for a number of years already and it's one of the few restaurants to get an A for kitchen cleanliness.

There is quite a number of choices to choose from the menu. You can have the set meals or ala-carte. Each Set Meals prices ranges between 14 and above. You can choose to have chicken, beef, fish, lamb, seafood or even if you want to eat both seafood and meat, they do have combo sets. Each set meal comes with a bowl of Miso soup, a slice of tofu topped with minced chicken, vegetable-cabbage, carrots, bean sprout, onions; a bowl of garlic rice and your given slices of fried crispy garlic.

Tofu

Miso Soup

Fried Garlic slices

The meats ready to get cooked

Cooking the beef slices

This time round I ordered myself Lamb in peanut sauce. Combination sounds weird but it was really good. Lamb was sliced thinly which made it so tender and soft. The peanut sauce was excellent- like peanut butter. Had lot of onions in it which I willingly ate up all as it tasted so good.

Lamb in peanut sauce

The next dish I tried was the beef cooked in butter. It was loaded with a lot of garlic - cooked and topped with garlic sauce. I can say the main ingredient for this was just garlic. So to those garlic haters, you best stay away from this dish. But to those who love garlic, this dish was good.

Beef in butter sauce

Then I also tried the Chicken Terriyaki which my grandma ordered. It was normal in taste. Found it rather sweet though as it was just cooked in teppanyaki sauce. No onions and garlic involved. It did not look that interesting.

Chicken Teriyaki

Once our meats were cooked and served, next off they cooked the vegetables. In went the cabbage, carrots, onions and bean sprouts . with a little 'char char' here and there and a dash of salt and pepper, it was ready and served. Now this is my interesting moment about this, when the vegetables are still hot, they topped it up with thin slices of fish, almost tissue like texture on top of the vegetables. I don't know why it happens but these fish slices starts moving around almost as if they were alive. I guess it's due to the heat. This would only last for about a minute. Mange to get a video of it. Just see how it wiggles!!!

Then as an extra order, I ordered myself a Cawan Mushi. It was good and smooth. Had a huge prawn in it. No wonder it was priced RM 4.00.

Cawan Mushi

Sauces
Left: Peanut sauce; Right: some vinegar sauce

See the fish slices wiggle away almost as if alive

Thai Food Hawker at Prima Tanjung

Last Saturday Ed took me to the food court at Prima Tanjung to try out the Thai Food for lunch. It is just a hawker stall in this food court which sells all sorts of rice with a dish. With so many to choose from I decided on Belachan Fried Rice. Excellent decision, the Belachan Rice was good- good meaning it had that belachan taste. Reason why I stress on this is that some belachan fried rice taste more like normal fried rice which does not add up to the name of the dish- well if you know what I’m trying to say.

Ed on the other hand ordered his favourite rice with minced meat and egg. It had loads of basil leaves cooked together with the minced chicken. So the basil taste was really intense here. Ed loved it - well he’s a basil leaf person so anything goes with him when there is Basil. I took a spoon to try the minced chicken, it was pretty good.

Pineapple Rice (RM 4.50)
Mixed Vegetables with rice (RM 4.00)
Sweet Sour Vegetables with rice (RM 4.50)
Tom Yam Fried Rice (RM 4.00)
Sweet Pork Rice (RM 4.00)
Kailan with roast pork (RM 4.00)
Meat and mushroom with rice (RM 4.00)
Long beans with roast pork and rice (RM 4.00)
Seafood/chicken padprik rice (RM 4.50)
Rice with minced meat and egg (RM 4.50)
Egg with minced meat and rice (RM 2.50)
Seafood glass noodle (RM 5.00)
Som tam (RM 4.00)
Tom Yam mee (RM 4.00)

Cherry Blosoom

Cherry Blossom

Situated in Sungai Ara this house turned Restaurant sells Thai food. Last Friday had a department dinner there with my colleagues. Six tables were booked and this is what we had to eat.

Pandan Chicken
It was pretty good and tasty. Chicken meat was at least reasonably in size. It was served with a special sauce, but I preferred it plain to get that marinated taste.

Pandan Chicken

Steamed Fish
Fish was steamed in sour and spicy gravy which tasted abit like Tom Yam. It was alright for me. Had a lot of cilantro leaves, lemon grass and ginger bits in it.

Steamed Fish

Kerabu Mango
This was way too plain for me. It didn’t quite have that kerabu intensity taste in it. It tasted more like Mango slices mixed with vinegar and sugar with loads of chilli padi and bits of onion slices. Disappointment!

Kerabu Mango

Otak Otak
Cute presentation. Taste was good. Wasn’t too spicy for me either which made me enjoy it more. Had a lot of huge prawns and squid in it which went fast on the table. Wish I had more of this to eat that night… kinda think of it, this dish reminded me of a Thai restaurant in Jitra called Reung Reang

Otak Otak

Tanghoon with Prawns
This dish was a total failure for the chef here at Cherry Blossom. It was tasteless and it didn’t look appetizing to eat either.

Tanghoon with Prawns

Basil Chicken
Abit on a spicy side. Presentation of the dish was abit plain as the chicken just looked so soaked and soggy on the plate. Had a bit of the basil taste in it but I didn’t quite like it as the chicken slices did not have taste after you put it in your mouth…what I mean here, it was not well marinated or if I’m not surprised NOT marinated at all. Anyways I am not much of a breast meat eater.

Basil Chicken

Seafood Tom Yam
This was rocket fuel for everyone. I only ate the prawn and stayed away from the torture of drinking down the soup. I guess it was good for everyone.

Seafood Tom Yam

Deep Fried Kangkung
Thumbs up for this dish. It was lovely!!!! Kang Kung batter was tasty and fried really crispy. Wish I had more of this also.

Deep Fried Kangkung

Dessert - Tham tim krop
Now this was a major disappointment, the coconut they used was already off-bad. Had that sour gassy taste. We complained and the boss came but they did not replace the dessert with something else…ugh!!

Chu Char at Cafe Larut

Cafe Larut

The husband busy cooking

Last weekend tried out this chu char place at this coffee shop called Cafe Larut. It is at the corner of Larut Road and Bawasah Road. There were a number of tables waiting to be served when we arrived. Since we were new to this place, little did we know that it was going to take us 1 1/2 hours to wait for our food. Yea you read that right....1 1/2 hours. Basically husband and wife were running the whole business. Wife does the ordering and serving while husband prepares ingredients and cooks.

Pork Leg with Mango sauce

Anyways, what was famous here was their Pork Leg with Mango sauce. So we ordered to try. It was good. Pork leg is steamed first before it's being deep fried. Then a special mango sauce is prepared with slices of unripe mangoes and cucumber in it which is then topped over the deep fried pork leg. Lovely!!! Pork leg is crispy on the outside and soft and juicy in the inside. Oh how I wished I was served a bigger portion. After sharing it out with my family, didn't get to eat much.

Fish Curry

Then we ordered the fish curry (ikan pari fish). Curry taste was different to the normal assam tumis fish curry. We were all trying to figure out what was the "different taste" here. ... got two possibilities, had abit of coconut milk and cooked with coriander leaves... not too sure...anyways it was good.

Sambal Kacang Botol

For vegetable, we ordered Sambal Kacang Botol. It was good too. Sambal had a lot of belachan.

Claypot Tofu (Japanese Tofu)

The last dish we ordered claypot tofu. This was so-so for me. Nothing wow to talk about.

So what I can say about this place, if you are willing to wait for your food, do try out their deep fried pork leg with Mango sauce.

Cleaned up pork leg

So cute....don't you think?

Recipe for Serimuka- Nyonya dessert

Another one of my cooking seesions. This time it's about how to make Serimuka.

Ingredients
The Glutinous rice layer
300 g glutinous rice (pulut rice)
200ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 Pandan leave
The top green layer
3 medium size eggs
200ml coconut milk
140g castor sugar
100ml + 5 teaspoon of pandan juice
4 teaspoon of corn flour
2 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of wheat flour

Pandan Leave (Pandanus leave)- I juiced the leaves to get the Pandan juice.

To make the glutinous rice layer: Before planning to make this kuih, you have the soak your glutinous rice for about 3 hours or overnight in water. After that drain the water out and place in a metal container measuring 20 cm (8 inch) in diameter. Pour in the coconut milk and salt and give it a mix before placing the container in the steamer. Add in the pandan leave and steam the rice for about 20-30 minutes. Once done take out the pandan leave, give the rice a stir using a fork. With a banana leave or an aluminium foil, use your hand and flatten the rice as much as possible in the container. This is to get the rice compact. Once done steam the compact rice again for another 15 minutes and put it aside once done.

Steaming the Glutinous Rice

Flattening the steamed glutinous rice with my hand

To make the top green layer: Mix the egg, coconut milk and sugar in a metal bowl using a wooden ladel. Then add in the pandan juice, corn flour and wheat flour in. Mix until all combined. With a strainer, pour the mixture in another bowl so that the green layer texture will be smooth when steamed. Place the mixture in the steamer and constantly stir the mixture until it starts to get abit thick. Slowly pour the green layer in on top of the flattened glutinous rice and steam for another 25 minutes under a low fire. Try not to open the cover while steaming as it may pro long your steaming time to a longer duration.

Mix the egg, coconut milk and sugar in a metal bowl using a wooden ladel. Then add in the pandan juice

Add in the corn flour and wheat flour

Place the mixture in the steamer and constantly stir the mixture until it starts to get abit thick

Slowly pour the green layer in on top of the flattened glutinous rice and steam for another 25 minutes under a low fire

Once cooked, place it aside to cool down before cutting it into diamond shapes.

Serimuka taste came out good but I failed with the texture of it as my glutinous was abit to soft. After cutting, the serimuka looks abit out of shape and soft. Those who ate this gave me a score of 8/10. Not too bad for a beginner.