vkeong loves good food, travel and photography!
Archive for April, 2007
Zui Xiang Lou Restaurant (revisit)
Apr 30th
More food to show from Zui Xiang Lou we had celebrating my father’s retirement last weekend!
Cold plate aka [tag]Five Seasons[/tag]. There were baby octopus, signature tofu, sweet and sour chicken, salad prawn and scrambled eggs with [tag]shark’s fin[/tag] in the center. Five Seasons is a very common dish you will see in wedding dinners. All tasted great except the baby octopus. Looking at the baby octopus reminded me of those in Sushi King, and I think they were trying to emulate the taste too.
This bowl of [tag]shark fin soup[/tag] is so big that the 7 of us had 2 servings each. As you can see the shark fins given are really a lot, and thick too! It’s very worth the RM40 we paid for.
Zui Xiang Lou’s [tag]Buddha’s delight[/tag] (lo han jai) is very good, one of the best we’ve had in Bukit Mertajam.
Another repeat order, the fried mee tiao.. nothing worth writing home about.
Zui Xiang Lou Restaurant
Lot 1431 Jalan Kulim,
Bukit Mertajam
GPS Coordinates: N5 21.022 E100 28.660
Tel: +60 4 538 8732
Tho Yuen Chicken Rice
Apr 24th
A few weeks ago on 8tv’s HoChak program, they introduced a [tag]dim sum[/tag] [tag]restaurant[/tag] in [tag]Penang[/tag]. I didn’t watch that episode but according to my sister the dim sum shown was really good. Anyway [tag]Tho Yuen[/tag] was the restaurant being featured and it’s located in [tag]Campbell Street[/tag]. Another restaurant, Tai Tong which is also famous for dim sum is just a few steps away in Cintra Street.
I finally found the place after driving aimlessly around Penang Road for an hour. And because I started going there quite late in the morning, it was already noon when I reached the restaurant. Needless to say, the dim sum was already finished.
So we settled for the [tag]chicken rice[/tag] and a basket (steel?) of dim sum. The chicken rice tasted not bad, but I can think of many places that are nicer. The best thing is the chicken soup, which was really delicious. I wonder if they put any MSG lol.
This is the only dim sum left that noon. Next time I gotta be early.. planning to go during this weekend! Anyone wants to tag along? lol
Starview Restaurant
Apr 21st
To celebrate my mom’s birthday, we went to Starview [tag]Restaurant[/tag] in [tag]Perai[/tag] last weekend. We have been to this restaurant before and found most of the dishes quite unique.
Crab sauce fried noodles, tastes like ‘sang mien’ but is much more flavorful. Very nice.
My father and I love ostrich meat, the texture is very similar to beef and more tender. Besides, ostrich meat is healthier because its lower in cholesterol, fat and calorie, making it the best alternative for beef.
This was what I specifically ordered, braised mutton in claypot at only RM10.
One of the best salad prawns I’ve had so far. They are deep fried with sesame seeds and laid on cut honeydews with generous amount of mayonnaise as dressing. Another variation of this dish is using steamed prawns, but I like deep fried one better.
This is a super nice dish. The fish is sliced into boneless pieces carefully, deep fried and then layered with delicious garlic and butter sauce.
Lastly, a specialty of Starview Restaurant – Peking Duck ala Starview. The specialty of this dish lies in the method of eating it. As seen, there are 4 ingredients in this dish: duck meat with jellyfish, duck skin on prawn crackers, Peking sweet sauce and egg wrappers. Basically just put all ingredients in the wrapper and eat it like popiah.
It’s kinda amazing how they create the patterns on the egg wrappers. Although special, this dish only tastes mediocre at best to me. Because the jellyfish pieces are actually pickled, which gave a weird taste to the duck meat. For those interested, Starview Restaurant can be found beside Pacific hypermarket along Chinatown.
Starview Restaurant (Prai)
Megamal Pinang – China Town,
13600, Prai, Penang , Malaysia
Phone: 604 3971221, 3971222
Fax: 604 3971220
Lang Tengah Trip Last Part
Apr 18th
Well I thought I had a lot of photos to share but too bad that wasn’t the case. I guess I didn’t really take as many photos as I thought I did after all. All of them were already shown in my previous posts lol. I had a good (not great) time in [tag]Lang Tengah[/tag]. It was a new experience for me because I have been wondering how does it feel to be snorkeling. The feeling of having fishes swimming around you while looking at beautiful corals is just wonderful. It’s like you and the fishes share the same living space. Earlier, I already typed a long post describing the itineraries of my trip but it was lost. Thanks to Window’s blue screen of death, sigh. Anyway I will share some of my thoughts on my trip:
- Surprisingly, Kuala [tag]Terengganu[/tag] is much more developed than I expected. A pity I didn’t get to try the famous nasi dagang and buy authentic Terengganu lekor.
- Boat rides here are very wavy, be prepared to bring along sour plums. I like snorkeling a lot but the seasickness spoiled my mood and I had to get out of the water after a while only.
- Visitors to the marine park in Pulau Pinang are not allowed to use the fins. So don’t bother bringing them along. I am still quite unhappy about this because the staff at Redang Lang Resort didn’t tell us about this, even when they saw us carrying the fins.
- Quite disappointed that I only spent like half an hour at the marine park. Among the places we snorkeled, the marine park had the most fishes and most beautiful corals. Too bad the weather turned bad and there was a high tide, forcing us to leave.
- The BBQ dinner held on the 2nd day was not really a BBQ after all. The kitchen staff barbecued aluminum foil wrapped stingrays for the guests. And there weren’t enough for everyone. I didn’t get to try any
- My friends spotted baby sharks a few times, and I didn’t get to see any..
I will definitely return for another visit, but perhaps to Redang or Perhentian instead. Since there’s Fireflyz now, I think that will happen pretty much anytime soon 
Oh yeah if you are wondering, that’s me in the photo lol. Walking alone.. Siang Leng secretly snapped it, quite nice I’d say 
And finally, the photo I love the most. The silly boy and silly girl in Lang Tengah Island.
