vkeong loves good food, travel and photography!
Archive for September, 2006
Fried Cempedak
Sep 5th
These are some fried cempedak my mom made recently. It was cempedak season last few months (June – August) but the fruit is still vastly available in markets now. My favorite part of fried cempedak is its crispy skin :drool: Once fried, the cempedak seeds will be edible, but I still prefer not to eat them lol. The cempedak fruits tasted incredibly sweet, so sweet that it seemed unbeliveable.. good value for RM10 eh?
[tag]Fried cempedak[/tag] is great for breakfast, tea break or desserts. Best taken while still hot, because the skin will become soft when after it cooled down.
“Sweet Paradise” Dim Sum Restaurant @ Butterworth
Sep 3rd
Heeding recommendations from my colleagues, I decided to try a restaurant in Butterworth hailed to serve dim sum better than Penang island. The exact location of the restaurant was unclear to me so I spent half an hour looking for it. Prior to that I only knew it was behind HSBC and the police station..
“Sweet Paradise” 超全 [tag]Dim Sum[/tag] Restaurant is located opposite Pasar Sri Bandar in Bagan Baru, Butterworth. For a dim sum restaurant it is certainly huge, able to accomodate at least 60-70 people at any time.
One will need to get their dim sum from a counter which is manned by a guy who looks so alike to Jackie Chan’s son.. Jaycee. He had posed but I was too busy taking other pictures, and when I really wanted to take his photo, he was too shy already lol. Nice guy la, re-heated my dim sum when I asked him to 
Besides steamed dim sum, pastries and fried dim sum are up for grabs. The egg tarts certainly looked nice and crispy :drool:
Almost all the dim sum served had prawns in them.. From the top, L-R: Minced meat/vegetable on dried seaweed, Har Kao, 3 different siu mai in a small bowl, Minced meat wrapped in dried seaweed, Seafood tofu topped siumai and clams. FYI the clam shells were not re-used, because they really contained clam flesh. Among all, what I liked most was the Har Kao, the prawns were really juicy and fresh, definitely the best I have tasted so far. The bill was surprisingly cheap, RM22 inclusive of a pot of tea.
“Master Kang” Sizzling Beef Ramen
Sep 1st
“[tag]Master Kang[/tag]” 康師傅 is the top selling [tag]instant noodles[/tag] brand in China. Because of the heated instant noodle war in Taiwan and China, packaging is very important to attract consumers. I admit I am one of the suckers who fell for it lol. When I first saw it being sold in Jusco Equine Park, I thought it was solely sold there. So, I grabbed 2 of them quickly even though a pack costs RM3.90. Turns out that Giant also sells them, but in a dark secluded corner.. no wonder I never seen them before… 
Anyway, its nicely designed wrapper and size definitely put our local instant noodle brands to shame. Cup noodles with Mawi’s face and a big ‘Slrrrrrp’ printed on them? No thanks 
There are 3 packets of ingredients for preparing the noodle, in clockwise: Noodle paste, dried vegetables and soup cube. Didn’t realize it provides soup too, so it was kinda surprising.
The instructions are printed on the cover and they were very detailed. Too bad for those who cannot read Chinese though.. there are no English instructions. Anyway I will attempt to explain the instructions step-by-step:
- Retrieve the 3 packets of ingredients.
- Add in the dried vegetables and hot water.
- Put the noodle paste on top of the cover to make it warm.
- Pour the water out from the other end.
- Add in the noodle paste and mix well.
- Place soup cube in another bowl and pour hot water over it (until about 3-quarter full)
The soup had egg, seaweed, carrot and a few slices of mushroom. I poured a bit too much water so it tasted quite bland.
The noodle paste given was just nice for the noodles’ proportion. It didn’t taste saltish or had the “a lot of ajinomoto” feel Usually when eating instant noodles , I would take small bites because they finish so quickly. But with Master Kang’s noodles, I took big mouthfuls and it was really satisfying lol.
“Wong Chow” Dim Sum Restaurant
Sep 1st
Public holidays and Saturdays mean dim sum day haha! “Wong Chow” 皇座 is another popular dim sum restaurant in Taman Betek, Bukit Mertajam. It is one of the 3 Hong Kong dim sum restaurants I mentioned before. As you can see from this photo taken on National Day it was very crowded, proving its popularity among BM people. One is always bound to meet some friends having a breakfast here like I did yesterday, bumped into Sean Woei and Ah Liang
皇座 if translated to English bears the meaning of ‘Royal Seat’. But it doesn’t mean we can get royal service here lol, the workers are always so busy that you need to get your own dim sum sometimes. Besides serving dim sum, there are some stalls serving hawker food like wantan mee and curry mee too.
Actually the dim sum are not outstanding, just normal stuff.. they used to be quite nice a few years back though (or is it because I have became more choosy? lol) Siang Leng and I had a pretty light meal, we only ordered 5 baskets of siu mai and chicken siu long bao 小笼包. A meal like this including 2 iced milo cost us RM15, quite expensive.. not sure if they raised the price due to public holiday. Tomorrow I will be bringing my parents to another restaurant in Butterworth for dim sum again lol (it’s Saturday 
)
GPS Coordinates: N5 21.479 E100 26.898
