Amelie Cafe Part II

Here is part II of Amelie Cafe.

If you have read my previous post on Amelie, this is the continuation of it after I visited the place again. Actually thinking back, I am pratically coming back here every weekend. If not, it is at least once in 2 weeks.

In my other visits, tried out a few of their pasta dishes. My most favourite one would be the Laksa Pasta. Laksa and pasta??? That was exactly the reaction of my friends that came with me that day when Laksa Pasta was on the today's special. Being the adventourous one, I ordered it and till today I am still craving for it. It is a two thumbs up for me. The dish is dry and not soupy. The pasta (Fettuncini pasta) is served with a thick lemak laksa gravy topped with a lot of fish meat. The smell...ahhh it was so frangrant and appetising. Loved it so much.

Laksa Pasta (Two thumbs up)- A must try

Tuna and Pineapple Pasta

If you are a tuna person, you would like this pasta dish. It is a creamy base pasta where you have the tuna, pineapple and cream mixed together with some herbs and cheese. It is alright for me with room for improvement as it is missing the "kick" or "Ommphness" in it. Maybe perhaps more cream and herbs to intensify the taste. Something was just missing in this.

Aglio Olio Pasta

It had bits of dried chilly and pork luncheon meat in it with olive oil taste to it. Not forgetting it had a very strong peppery taste to it. Something interesting to try out if you are not a creamy pasta person.

Bolognaise Pasta

A friend of mine had this, she was not satisfied with it...so I took a bit to try out. Taste wise, it was rather bland. The intensity of that tomato herby flavour taste was not there. Needs room for improvement.

Big Breakfast

This was ordered by my dad one morning when we went there for breakfast. It had two eggs (your choice of having it scrambled, half boiled or sunny side up), bacon slice, jam and two slices of wholemeal bread. Not forgetting some fruits on the side. Dad finished this up with a big smile on his face.

Yogurt fruit granola

This is a very healthy breakfast meal to take. It had granola (somekind of oat) mixed with fruits (watermelon, banana and starfruit), dried fig, almond, walnut and raisins topped with fresh plain yogurt. Really a healthy way to start your day.

Passion Fruit and Banana Yogurt Smoothie

This is my favourite. Another two thumbs up. It is very refreshing and good. Has that sourness yet sweet taste to it. Loved it.

Jackfruit Yogurt Smoothie

Jackfruit is my biggest enemy so I stayed away from trying this drink out. But my friend who ordered it said it was alright. It had that jackfruit smell and taste in it. Good for those jackfruit lovers...something interesting, who would have thought a "jackfruit yogurt smoothie" to drink.

So this is all I have to write about. Hope to try out more wonderfull dishes yet to be served from Amelie. Till then, do visit this lovely place. It is so cute and cozy. Come in the morning where it is not so hot.

Amelie Cafe (Armenian Street)
Tel: 012-4967838
Open from 10 am to 7pm (close on Monday)

GEM Restaurant

Tried out this place a month ago. It is an Indian Restaurant along Bishop Street (corner or King Street). They serve Northern and Southern Indian Cuisine. Came here only once and found that the food here is pretty pricey. Taste wise, I much prefer Karaikudi restaurant.

The interior

But anyways I shall just briefly explain the dishes I had at Gem. It may be a bit simple as I kinda lost my bill receipt which had the name of the dishes.

Dragon Chicken
It is boneless chicken cooked with a mixture of spices and topped with cashewnuts. It sort of had a spicy-sweet-tomato flavour to it.


Garlic Naan
This is always my favourite to have when at an Indian Restaurant. The nann here, had pieces of garlic but it was not strong in its garlic flavour. I would have liked it better if it had that greesy garlic buttery flavour on the naan.


Mutton Briyani
About 2 people can share the briyani rice here. Taste was good and so was the mutton.


Mutton Vindaloo
This was a bit spicy for me. It is mutton cooked with a variety of spices and served with a fiery hot vindaloo curry.


Kashmiri Pulao Rice
The rice (Basmati rice) was flavoured and had fruits in it...apple, sweet cheeries and raisins. It also had nuts, long beans and fried onions. It did not quite suit me as I found the apples and sweet cheeries were totally not a match for this rice dish.


Palaak Paneer
This has always been a favourite for me. Perhaps because I'm a cheese lover. Palak Paneer is a dish which has Goat's Cheese (Cottage Cheese) cooked in a rich creamy sauce which is actually creamy spinach puree. But as I first mentioned, this dish at Karaikudi taste better.


Yogurt
I've forgot what the name of this sauce is called. It's yogurt mixed with chopped onions and cucumber. Great to have it with meats and briyani rice.

Drinks we had Mango Lassi and Pineapple lassi. Lassi drink was nice and thick.

From left: Pineapple Lassi, Mango Lassi and plain water

The dishes on the table

So come try this place out if you want to.

Gem Restaurant
66 Bishop Street
10200 Georgetown Penang
Tel: 04-262 4070
Business Hours: 11am till midnight

Coffee Lane

A new coffee place which I tried out last weekend. Place is called Coffee Lane. It is along King Street in town.What caught my attention here was the different tools used to make the coffee drink. One of it would be the Syphon Brewing Coffee. Just imagine your in a science class now.
What looks like to be is a bunsen burner, a round glass flask, and a standing thong thing. It is all about heat and pressure.

Syphon Coffee

1. In the round glass flask, water is filled and placed under a bunsen fire. Before it starts boiling, another long glass flask, with a long glass stem, containing the ground coffee beans is being placed into the round glass flask.2. The fire starts and slowly you see the water boiling, then suddenly (some sort of pressure) the water is being pushed up through the glass stem of the long glass.

3. The water is then mixed together with the ground coffee beans when the person gives a stir. Then the fire is switched off.

4. Next thing you know you have your brewed coffee coming down back to the round glass flask. Pretty cool actually.

But if you have no idea what I am trying to say here, you can read another blog about this Syphon Coffee which illustrates more clearly.

Link: What2See online- Coffee Lane

The Syphon Coffee, is served black and it is up to you if you want sugar and milk in it.

Ice Cream Coffee

Now this is my favourite. In a glass filled with vanilla ice-cream, a drip coffee method using paper filter is placed on top of the cup. Of course there is ground coffee beans inside already. Hot water is then poured and slowly the water and ground coffee mixture drips down to the cup containing the ice cream. It takes less than 3 minutes to have the cup all filled up with the coffee mixture. Then you give it a stir, get the coffee and ice cream mixed up. It is sooooooo good. It is not so sweet (just nice) and has a nice slight bitter taste to it. Lovely. Two thumbs up for this.

Besides coffee, this place also serves food such as sandwiches, salad, noodles, cakes, cookies and some other light snacks. The day I came, they ran out of cakes. Owner said that they had no time to make their cakes (homemade), so since I just came from lunch, we ordered 2 cookies and Ti Nya Kuih.

Cookie flavour was Almond and Chocolate chip with nuts.

The Ti Nya Kuih having a pandan flavour was good. It was smooth and had a spongy texture to it. This was also homemade by the owners mother-in-law.

While chilling out here, I gave a peek at the other tables who had ordered food. The triple decker sandwich which two tables had ordered looked really good. The same goes to the salad they had. Guess in my next visit here I shall order it together with my fav coffee ice cream.

Coffee Lane
10-B King Street
Georgetown
10200 Penang

Tel : 04 2610625

Business Hours : 11 am - 8 pm (Closed on Thursday)

Tarbush

Tarbush, a place I have been twice in this month. A friend and myself, came across it one night while we were walking around at Batu Feringghi. This restaurant it located just next to The Ship. From the main road you would not have guessed there is a makan place. The place is blocked by the small shops in front. But you can look out for this huge signboard. See pic above. There is a lot of car park for customers so don't worry if you cannot find a place to park.

Tarbush serves Arabic and Lebanese Delicacies. It is something different for me. In my first visit here, came here with my girlfriends. Since it was our first time here and we were not familiar with this kinda food, we took awhile to decide what to order. In the end, we had to get the waiter to recommend us what dishes to order. It was exciting to have that feeling of not knowing how it was gonna taste like. How did it go??? Well let's say we left the place feeling all satisfied with our bulging tummies. Food was good that I had to bring my parents over to try in the second trip. So below are what I have tried so far.

In chinese restaurants, you will get peanuts served on every table. Here at Tarbush, they will serve you Lebanese bread with pickles. But I should warn you about the pickles. They are EXTREMELY saltish. Please do not take the whole piece into your mouth. I warn you.

Pickles

Lebanese bread

Appetizers

First of was something that I had ordered for myself. It was called Labneh. What made me order this was because the word cottage cheese caught my attention. But when it was served, I was so disapointed. Not that it was bad, but maybe just not what I expected it to be. On the menu it wrote "Cottage cheese drained through cheesecloth until thick and creamy then topped with dry mint leaves, olives and olive oil." I was thinking to myself it was gonna be something cheesey, saltish and cheesey-licious. But instead it was so sour and not saltish at all. It tasted more like a creamed up plain sour yogurt mixed with olive oil. I was confused, so very confused, how can this be an appetizer? Perhaps if it was a dip then it would have made sense. Anyways I shall not complain further as this cuisine is new to me.

Next appetizer was called Falafel. Falafel were actually patties formed from chickpeas combined with spring onions. It was deep fried and served with a sauce called Tahina which tasted like plain yogurt. It went well with the Falafel. The taste of the Falafel reminded me of the Indian Vadai minus the strong spice taste to it. Perhaps imagine a milder taste of a Vadai.

Tahina Sauce

Soup
Addas
Had tried out 3 types of soup here. First of was their recommended soup called Addas. It was made from yellow lentil mixed with cumin and coriander. Taste wise, it was good. Rich and flavourfull in taste.

Lamb Soup
Had a strong lamb taste to it somewhat similiar to an Ox Tail soup. Perhaps spices used were about the same. A friend of mine said it tasted "curry-ish".


Oxtail Soup
It was lovely. Had nice chunks of meat in it and strong cumin taste.


Salad called Tabouleh
A friend who did some research about the place before coming, ordered this salad dish called Tabouleh. It was a bowl full of chopped up parsley, tomatoes, cucumber and a touch of lemon juice. It had a very raw green taste to it. Some of my friends enjoyed it but for me, it was "tak boleh" for me. I could only take half a spoon of it.

Drink called Lemon Na Na
This drink was something unique. It 's lemon juice mixed together with blended mint leaves. It was very refreshing indeed. A must try if you are a mint leaf person.

Main course
Some of the main courses are more of a meat dish and anothers come with rice and meat. So I would recommend to share your main course so as to enjoy more dishes together. May I remind you that the dishes here are quite big in servings especially those which comes with rice. So sharing is good.

So first of, their recommended Mixed Grill whereby you have 3 types of meat and a stuffed lebanese bread. The 3 meats were called Shish Tawook, Shish Kebab and Lamb Cubes. Shish Tawook was made from boneless chicken breast marinated and grilled. The meat was tender and well marinated. Shish kebab on the other hand was minced season lamb grilled and shaped like a thumb. Absolutely delicious. The lamb cubes, or rather lamb chops, were wonderfully marinated and grilled. So very tasty. Wished I had more of it. The lebanese bread on the other hand, was stuffed with some minced lamb meat. It was so so only. Served together with this Mixed Grill was an interesting sauce which they call it Garlic Sauce. Imagine whipped cream that has a garlic taste to it....oohh wonderfull. Went so well with the meats.

Garlic Sauce

Second dish was called Dawood Basha which had meat balls cooked with tomato gravy. This reminded me of meatballs in a bolognaise sauce.

Dawood Basha

Third dish was called Maklouba Lamb. This portion was huge. About 3 people could share the rice actually. It is said to be a famous Middle Eastern home cooked rice with eggplant and lamb chunks. Rice taste was alright but the lamb chunks were wonderfull. So very tender and tasty. Oh watch out for those peanuts on the rice too. It's nice and crispy.

Fourth dish was a kebab dish called Nashif. This was tried in my second visit here. It had a similiar taste with the Shish Kebab but it came served with tomato gravy. Tomato gravy was intensived with a lot tomato puree and had a touch of chilly to it.

Fifth dish was another kebab dish called Kebab Kash Kash. Could not differentiate the taste as it all tasted similiar to the other kebabs. Only difference here was that it was served with juicy grilled tomatoes. So actually all the lamb kebab dishes all tasted the same, it is just how it is served with.

Sixth dish, it was called Arayes Lamb. Reminds me of the Mexican Quesadillas. It had minced meat, onion and tomato stuffed in traditional grilled Lebanese bread. Not forgetting it had melted cheese inside too...REAL cheese. It was nice to eat it together with the kebab meat and the garlic sauce.

Briyani Rice
This was ordered as a side dish. Tasted like any Briyani rice would taste like.

Dessert
A good meal it not complete without some desserts. So this was what I tried.

Mahallabia.
The name of it does sound a bit funny since there is the word labia in it. Well anyways, if you like Jasmine smell and flavour, you would love this dessert. It is a creamy milk pudding garnished with chopped pistachio which had a strong Jasmine smell and taste to it. It tasted nice and creamy, but I could not stand the Jasmine smell. Sort of gave me a headache. My mum loved this, if she could, she would have licked up the whole bowl clean.

Baklawa
This is a traditional and not-to-miss Middle Eastern dessert which is made from pastry that is filled with nuts. Exteremely sweet I must say that I could not eat the whole piece up. The sweetness really goes shooting up to your head. I wonder how some people can eat this. If it was not so sweet, it would have been nice as there were alot of mashed up nuts in it.

Arabic Coffee
This was served uniquely in a pipelike instrument. Coffee was really think, strong and had a strong cumin taste. It was not so good to enjoy. But an interesting masak masak way of drinking your coffee.


Arabic Tea
Tea was put in a cute tea pot kettle like shape. Inside there was a tea bag and some mint leaves in the hot water.


So a good place to try out if you are looking for something different. Prices here are a bit pricey but portions are big so it can be worth paying. I for one would sure be coming back to this place again for more meaty dishes.

Restaurant Tarbush
Lot 413, Sek 1, Jln Batu Feringghi,
Bandar Batu Feringghi,
11100 Penang
Tel: 04-8852558