CRIZ BON APPETITE

I did mention earlier in my Chinese New Year reunion dinner post that my family has a special dipping sauce for our steamboat instead of the usual hoisin sauce, chopped garlic with bird’s eyes chilies in soy sauce or bottled chili sauce that most family would have as condiments. Let me share with you this simple and appetizing SWEET & CRUNCHY DIPPING SAUCE recipe for almost any meat or seafood dishes.

INGREDIENTS:
250gms red sweet sauce (紅甜醬/tim zheong)
1 thumb size young ginger (slice thinly and cut into strips)
100gms chicken fat/skin/lard (cut into 2” strips)
oil

PREPARATION:
1. Heat up 4 tablespoon of oil in a wok in high fire.
2. Lower the fire to medium and put the chicken fat. Slowly sauté the fat until crispy brown. Scoop up and place on a kitchen towel to seep the excess oil. When cool, cut into smaller chunks.
3. Heat up the remaining oil and sauté the ginger strips until golden brown.
4. Put in the sweet sauce and sauté for about 3 minutes under low fire.
5. Put in the chunks of fat and stir evenly.
6. Scoop and serve.

Note: You can scoop up some of the oil if there is too much. It’s advisable to prepare this sauce 2-3 hours before serving as the oil would harden (due to the fat/lard) and turn white under cold environment. If this happen, just microwave the sauce in high mode for 30 seconds. Best consume within 2-3 days without needing to refrigerate.

(Serves: 10 and above)

YOU CAN CHECK HERE FOR MORE RECIPES.

Instead of the usual stock for hot pot (steamboat) during this Chinese New Year reunion dinner, I had decided to opt for herbal stock. The ginseng enriched stock was a refreshing experience for my family. Are you aware that ginseng could help in stimulating the physical and mental activity of a tired or weak body? On top of that, it’s ideal for defending the body system from the effects of prolonged physical strain as well as a stimulant for the endocrine glands which would include the sex glands. Did I just say that? Haha! Anyway, it’s good for the general health of everyone.

The amazing part of brewing this stock would be that it’s concentrated. You could easily store in small containers and deep freeze it for your future cooking. The stock would be almost gelatin like with no preservative or seasoning. All you need to do is to add half a container of water to a container of stock and put in some pepper and salt to taste. It’s just as simple as that. Let me show you how you could create this HERBAL STOCK for your favorite hot pot. It’s mild anyway for the consumption of all ages.

INGREDIENTS:

Stock:
2kg pork bones (big bones/tua kut)
3 whole chicken bones
50gms ginseng roots (人參鬚/Panax schinseng roots)
20 sweetened dates
10 liter water

Serving:
Dried Chinese wolfberry (枸杞/kay chee/gouci/goji berry)
Pepper
Salt

PREPARATION:
1. Bring to boil 12 liters of water in a 20L pot.
2. Wash all the bones clean with salt and slowly put all of them into the big pot of boiling water. Add in the ginseng roots and dates. Lower the fire, close the pot partly with a lid and let it simmer for about 6-8 hours. Filter out all the bones and you would get about 6-7 liters of stock left.
3. Scoop the required amount of stock for your hot pot into a new pot. Add in half that amount of hot water (2:1). Add in some dried Chinese wolfberry (about less than 1 tablespoon will do as too much will make the soup turn sour). Bring to boil and sprinkle some pepper and salt to taste. NOTE: Try to be lighter in salt usage as some of the hot pot ingredients such as the meatballs and fish balls have salt in them. Thus the longer the hot pot boils, the saltier it will get. Anyway, I will be sharing the dipping sauce recipe next to allow you to adjust to your taste bud.

Recommended Vegetables for Hot Pot:
Crown daisy chrysanthemum leaves (tang oh/茼蒿) and other vegetables such as Chinese Cabbage (菜心/choy sum), cabbage, spring onions (tied up), young corn, mushrooms, etc. Please take note that the usage of too much Enoki mushrooms might cause the soup base to be sour.

Recommended Add-in for Hot Pot:
All types of meat and fish balls which would be available at your location, either fresh or frozen, chicken fillet slices and seafood of any kind such as crab, clam, mussel, squid, cuttlefish, prawn or fish.

Simple Alternative Soup with the stock:
– Chicken fillet slices, white fungus and ginkgo nuts.
– Chicken fillet slices, lotus seed and lily bulb (百合/bai he/ pak hup).
– Chicken with chopped water chestnut balls, cabbage and rice vermicelli.
– Pork dumpling (sui kow/水餃), Chinese cabbage (菜心/choy sum) and wonton noodles.

(Serves: 10 and above)

YOU CAN CHECK HERE FOR MORE RECIPES.

As you can see, I have been rather busy during this year’s Chinese New Year. There were just too many projects to handle prior to the forth coming long stretch of holidays in which some of my Chinese based suppliers would be closed for business for almost 2 weeks. On top of that, I was mostly in the kitchen preparing some feasting goodies prior to the reunion dinner. Those included a few of my own recipes which included my delicious concoction of oysters and scallops and 30 liters of home brewed Herbal Tea to serve my guests during their visits on a humid day.

This year was one of the rarest celebration moments in my family as it so happen that the Chinese New Year which fell on 14 February 2010 coincided with Valentine’s Day. It’s a FIVE-IN-ONE CELEBRATION for the Lai Family! The celebration included the reunion dinner to usher in the Tiger year, my brother’s birthday on the eve, Valentine’s Day, my brother’s lunar birthday as well as his wedding anniversary which fell on Valentine’s Day. It was indeed a fun-filled celebration.

This year’s reunion dinner dishes were somewhat unique compared to the previous ones. In fact, other than the purchases of different types of meat and fish balls, the steamboat stock was another new creation for the family. It was ginseng roots based herbal stock for the first time in our steamboat reunion dinner history. Simple as it may look but it took more than 8 hours of low fire simmering and tedious filtering just to cook this up. Our steamboat side dishes this year was rather simple as we had other extra dishes as well. They included lots of crown daisy chrysanthemum leaves (tang oh/茼蒿), cabbages, wolfberry, prawns, silver pomfret (tao tay fish), chicken drumstick fillet, hair moss fish balls, vegetable fish balls, squid balls, large meatballs, 3 different types of wolf herring (sai to/ikan parang/西刀) fish balls, prawn & pork dumpling (sui kow/水餃), seafood tofu, Fuzhou fish balls (福州魚丸/Hock Chew fish ball – stuffed with minced meat), fish dumplings (魚餃/hoo keow/thin fish batter skin stuffed with minced meat) and fried chopped garlic as garnishing. The whole experience was rejuvenating after so many days of tiring preparations.

What would be new to most families would be our unique dipping sauce. It’s definitely not any hoisin sauce, chopped garlic with bird’s eyes chilies in soy sauce or bottled chili sauce but a concoction of red sweet sauce (甜醬), ginger and chicken fat. The fragrant gingery sauce with each bite of meat, seafood or balls would surely make you yearn for more.

As it was rare to have my brother’s birthday on such an auspicious gathering, we totally ignored on the fat and cholesterol intakes. LOL! I ordered one of my favorite Korean food – Jokbal (족발 – RM77), glazed pig feet meat slices. I believed that Sa Rang Chae Korean Restaurant is the sole restaurant in Penang to have this wonderfully cooked dish. It caught my brother’s attention immediately as I saw him applying nonstop the accompanied sweet and/or salty sauces onto the accompanied lettuce endlessly. Cool! At least he’s happy. Err… what happened to your diet plan bro? 😛

Now comes the interesting part of the suspense since my last post on reserving some of my home cooked Hokkien Mee stock and chili paste for this new recipe. What would a birthday be without any birthday noodles? Let me introduce you to my latest fusion recipe – Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodles! The delicious dish had yellow noodles carefully stir fried in thick prawn stock, dried shrimps, meat, prawns, fish cake and flowering Chinese cabbage (chye sim/chai sim/菜心) with deep fried crab stick strips and fried shallots as garnishing. You can adjust your level of spiciness by adding more of the chili paste. Everybody, inclusive my two teenage nieces could not stop having this dish as it had a unique seafood fragrant. The more you take this, the more you want it for every meal!

I will not touch on the recipes here but I will share the recipes in the next few posts. Wishing everyone one a happy and prosperous Chinese New Year! Do drive carefully if you are traveling! Check out for more update here soon.

With the Chinese New Year just barely two weeks away from now, you might wonder what the heck I was doing coming out with a recipe for a local noodle dish when I can easily get it from any of the hawker stalls outside at barely $1 (RM3). Well, I have a surprise fusion recipe in store during this coming reunion dinner cooking in which I would require the stock from this dish. LOL! Anyway, coming out with the home cooked, non-MSG stock has been quite an achievement as it involved months of collections – prawn shells. It may sound crazy for many but these prawn shells would be the main secret behind the thick, tasty and aromatic flavors of the PENANG HOKKIEN PRAWN MEE (檳城福建蝦麵) recipe which I would be sharing with you today. For those who would like to have a simpler recipe, this recipe would not suit you as it involved lots of processes and it can be real time consuming. After all, great tasting food would not be easy to prepare right? 😛

INGREDIENTS:

Chili Paste:
10 tbsp chili boh (about 35 deseeded, soaked dried chilies – blended in 3-4 tbsp water)
15 shallots (blended)
6 cloves garlic (blended)

Stock:
2kg pork bones (big bones/tua kut)
2-3kg prawn shells (blended)
2pc rock sugar (ping pong ball size)

Garnishing:
500gms pork
1kg prawns
6 eggs (hard boiled)
300gms bean sprouts (remove roots if possible)
Some fried shallots
5-6 stalks of morning glory (kangkung – optional)
300gms pork ribs/trotters (optional)
150gms pork fat (cubed & fried until crunchy – optional)

Others:
1kg yellow noodles (chow mien)
1pkt rice vermicelli (bee hoon)
1pkt instant noodles (optional)
Water
Salt
Pepper
Rock sugar
Soy sauce
Oil

PREPARATION:

1. Wash all the bones clean with salt and slowly put all of them into a big pot of boiling water (about 20 cups). Lower the fire, close the pot with a lid and let it simmer for about 2 hours. Filter out all the bones and you would get about 15 cups of stock.
2. Heat up about 7-8 tablespoon of oil in a wok and sauté the blended garlic and shallots (do leave 1 tbsp of the blended shallots for the cooking of stock) for about 5 minutes under low fire. Add in the chili boh and sauté until fragrant. Add in a pinch of salt. It would take about 15 minutes. Scoop and put aside the chili paste while leaving about half a tablespoon in the wok.
3. Heat up the wok again with additional 1 tablespoon of oil and put in all the prawns. Stir fry until all the prawns are curled up beautifully. Scoop and leave aside. You may slice these prawns into halves or leave it as it is. I left a few of the prawns with the tails intact just for photography presentation purposes.
4. Using the same wok again, heat up 4 tablespoon of oil. Put in the blended prawn shells (drain the shells as dry as possible while keeping the remaining juice for the stock). Saute the shells until you get that thick aromatic prawn smell. By then, the shells would be in bright crystal orange color. Pour in the remaining juice from earlier plus another 3-4 cups of water. Let it simmer under low fire for about 2 hours.
5. While waiting for the prawn stock to be ready, heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in a soup pot and sauté the reserved 1 tablespoon of blended shallots for about a minute. Put in about half to one tablespoon of the cooked chili paste (depends on your spicy level). Mixed well and add in the bone stock. Bring to boil and add in the pork pieces/pork ribs/trotters. Lower the fire to simmer further.
6. By then, your prawn stock would be almost ready. Slowly and carefully sieve the prawn stock (leaving out all the shells) into the pork stock pot. Bring to boil while adding in 2-3 tablespoon of soy sauce, rock sugar, a sprinkle or two of pepper and salt to taste. Remove the foam on the surface while retaining some of the floating oil. The oil would keep the soup at a high boiling point.
7. Lower the fire and check if the pork ribs/trotters and cooked meat are tender. Scoop up in separate bowls. Sliced the meat thinly. Leave all aside for garnishing later.
8. Cut the hard boiled eggs into halves, quarters or rings to your liking.
9. Heat up a wok of water and blanch the bean sprouts and morning glory (1.5” length) separately. Make sure you drain the excess water well. Set both aside.
10. Soak the rice vermicelli (bee hoon) for about half an hour (or according to the directions on the pack). Blanch to soften it. Drain well. Do the same for the yellow noodles (if possible get the higher quality ones which would be thinner and would not have the “lye water” after taste). Instant noodles too can be an option.
11. To serve, place some bean sprouts and morning glory at the base of a deep and roomy bowl. Add in your preferred noodles then top with some prawns, sliced meat, pork ribs and egg. Pour some boiling soup over the noodles and garnish with some fried shallots and chili paste for that extra spiciness. Some may even want to garnish the noodles with some crunchy pork lard but I opted that out for health reasons.

Secret Notes:
1. The secret for a good tasting bowl of Hokkien Mee stock lies in the species of prawns used in the cooking. There are hundreds of species in the world and the most suitable one would be the Green Shell Prawns (Cheh Kak Hae, almost similar to the Australian Fenneropenaeus indicus species but with a slightly darker grey-green body) found commonly in the water of this region. Tiger prawns (Marsupenaeus japonicus, Penaeus esculentus or P. semisulcatus depending on your region) should not be used as these species have an overpowering shellfish taste which would not be suitable for the stock.
2. Some people may use a small piece of shrimp paste (belacan to pep up the taste of the stock). I did not use it due to the product being not easily obtainable internationally. Moreover, the raw ingredients used for my home cooked version of the stock were already sufficient enough.
3. For the sweetness and color of the stock, most people would use palm sugar (gula Melaka). For my case, I prefer the usage of rock sugar for a more natural and milder sweetness. After all, the soy sauce would have the required faded brown color for the stock
4. Another secret to thicken the stock would be by using some finely pounded bread rusk, a sort of unsweetened dry bread normally used with meat to bind them well. I did not use this method as my stock was already almost gelatin-like with the large amount of bones used.
5. Chicken bones may be use to substitute the pork bones but it would not give you the thick and meaty flavor required for the stock.
6. Roasted pork pieces, fish cakes, fish balls, pork intestine (粉腸), pork skin and baby kailan (Chinese broccoli or kale) may be added if you need a richer bowl of Hokkien Mee.

(Serves: 10 and above)

YOU CAN CHECK HERE FOR MORE RECIPES.

환영! 환영! Welcome! Welcome! What? I’m in Korea now? Well, not exactly as this was at one of the Korean restaurants in Penang which a few of us had visited not long ago. Carrying the name Sa Rang Chae (사랑채/舍廊居), the food served here was in fact one of the best I had tasted so far. Moreover, the price was very reasonable considering that everything came in large portion. Without much ado, let’s jump into the menu and see what would be the food that would make you drool for more.

No matter which Korean restaurant you would pop in, there would always be those mini plates of side dishes and sauce served individually for each diner. There were so many on our table that I had lost count of how many plates in total. LOL! To name some, we had some kimchi, fried tofu in spicy sauce, mixed vegetable strips in mayo, stir fired aubergine (eggplant/brinjal), crunchy anchovies with peanuts, spicy mixed vegetable strips, stir-fry spinach and braised pumpkin cubes. That’s quite a lot for starter but I loved every single plate of the side dishes especially the tofu and pumpkin.

The first dish of the day was the Modeum BBQ Set 1 (모듬 – RM150) with choice pieces of beef rib meat, pork rib meat, pork belly, chicken, flower crab, prawns, squids and clams. Boy! I would say I could not stop myself from eating those well marinated pieces of meat and seafood. What was my favorite? BBQ pork belly of course! 😛 To cut down on the oiliness of the meat, a wrap of either lettuce or sesame leaves (깻잎/ kkaennip/Korean perilla leaves) with a dash of the accompanied sauce would be great.

Before we had even finished taking the BBQ, some cold cuts of Jokbal (족발 – RM70) were already waiting for us at the next table. These were actually glazed pig feet meat slices. I was really impressed on the evenly sliced thickness on each piece. The chef was indeed good in his cutting skills. Taken with the accompanied spicy and salty sauce which had some fried dry baby shrimps, the mildly fatty meat just melted into my mouth. It was indeed heavenly good. In fact, the only available size dish was large enough for 8-10 pax.

Along the way came the Japchae (잡채 – RM30), a rather large plate of stir fry glass noodles (당면/dangmyeon/冬粉/tang hoon) with shredded meat, prawns and vegetables. It was garnished with some sliced eggs, chilies and toasted sesame seeds. The base of the sauce had some sweet soy taste and what I like most was the springy texture on the glass noodles.

The next dish was Haemultang (해물탕 – RM80, smaller size available – RM60), a pot spicy hot seafood stew. There were so many types of seafood and vegetables within the pot which included mussels, octopus, squid, prawns, flower crab, scallops, clams, enoki mushroom, some bean curd slices, sliced red chilies, green chilies, bird’s eye chilies and red chili paste. This pot of goodness was indeed a fiery pot rather than a spicy pot. However, I loved the dish quite a lot too. The sweetness of the soup from all the ingredients thereafter was superb. It was like having a concentrated “prawn noodles aka Hokkien Mee” with some additional blended red chilies. Thumbs up for this dish!

One look at the color of our next dish which was Ojingeo Samgyeopsal Bokkeum (오징어 삼겹설 볶음 – RM30) would surely give you another sweaty sensation. Yup! The next dish was indeed hot and spicy. It consisted of squid strips and pork belly slices nicely stir fried in their in-house spicy sauce. Hot as it may seemed in the beginning, we managed to finish off the whole plate as the squid strips were really succulent and the pork belly meat was amazingly tender. I would advise you to get a bowl of rice to go with this dish to cut down on the spiciness. This would be another great dish for those spicy food eaters.

Next on the list was a spicy fish dish known as Agwijjim (어귀찜 – RM80, smaller size available – RM60). Agwi is actually an ugly looking blackmouth angler (sometimes known as monkfish) which was originated from the city of Masan, South Gyeongsang Province. The texture of flesh is somewhat between the softness of a dory fish and the firmness of a giant grouper. The fish was cooked with soybean sprouts with its rich taste and spiciness coming some chili powder, chopped garlic, chopped scallions, soy sauce and a hint of fermented soy beans. This large portioned dish was presented on a bed of lettuce and sprinkled with some toasted sesame.

We all loved the next dish which was the Maewoon Kalbi Tang (매운갈비탕 – RM30, smaller size available – RM20). It was actually pork ribs stewed in a hot pot of spicy broth with some glass noodles (冬粉/tang hoon), radish, carrot, potatoes, non glutinous rice cake (garaeddeok/가래떡 or sometimes known as just ddeok/떡), red dates, and chilies of all kinds. Towards the end when all the already thickened broth got absorbed into the springy textured glass noodles, this dish was at its peak. This would be a great dish to opt for if you do not want to have rice.

If you still yearn for more hot and spicy Korean dishes, you can always try out their Dakgalbi (닭갈비 – RM50). It had some choice pieces of grilled chicken, slowly simmered with some cabbages, carrots, onions, scallions, sweet potatoes, chilies in some honey sweet and chili spicy broth with a hint of rice wine. I simply loved those juicy and chili spiced up pieces of chicken.

You could also have some Soju (소주/燒酒/Korean Gin – RM25/bottle) to flow down the hot and spicy food. Do check with the restaurant on which brands to recommend. What we had was the Chamisul (참 이슬 meaning “real dew”), a popular soju produced by Jinro (진로 /眞露), the largest manufacturer of soju, based in South Korea.

Overall, we had a great time trying out the good food over in this restaurant. It was the best I had in years. I must take this opportunity to thanks Mr. Kevin Kim and his beautiful wife, Mdm. Lim Soo Yeon for bringing such great Korean food to Penang. You might want to pay them a visit to check out on their ongoing promotions or even book a place for your coming Chinese New Year reunion dinner.

It’s easy to find the restaurant as it’s directly opposite Penang Chinese Girls’ High School (Peng Hwa High School/檳華女子中學) and at a ground floor corner lot within the New Bob Centre along Jalan Gottlieb. If you are still unsure about the venue, drive all the way along Jalan Burma passed Adventist Hospital (on your left) and 1-Stop Midlands Park Centre (on your right) until you see the Jalan Burma/Jalan Gottlieb traffic lights. Turn left and drive on until you see Goodall Food Court. Slow down and turn left into the service road after the food court. Prominent landmark would be the 7-11 shop. Parking can be quite scare during certain period of time. There’s always the underground car park within the New Bob Centre for your parking convenience.

Name: SA RANG CHAE KOREAN RESTAURANT
Address: 11-G-1&2, Jalan Gottlieb (New Bob Centre), 10350 Penang.
Contact: 604-226 3587, 012-468 6700 (Mdm. Lim Soo Yeon/Mr. Kim)
Business Hours: 12.00noon-3.00pm, 6.00pm-10.30pm (Closed Monday Lunch)
GPS: 5.432084, 100.301914

RATING:
Ambience: 8/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 8/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 9/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7.5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 9/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Organizer:
CK Lam & hubby

Attendees:
Lingzie
Huat Koay
Albert Yap
Criz Lai & Johnny Tan
Steven Goh
NKOTB

Note: I was rather surprised that this outlet was closed within a short period of time. You could still try them out at Kuta Bali Food Court, Paya Terubong, Air Itam, Penang or sometimes at some night markets.

Visitors to Penang would often go for the authentic type of Chee Cheong Fun where there would be some generous topping of sweet sauce, fragrant prawn paste (heko), chili paste and toasted sesame seeds such as the famous stall at Genting Café, Green Lane, Penang. In the era of fusion food, a new breed has emerged at Star City Food Court, located at the outskirt of Georgetown area.

How would you fancy a plate of Seafood Fried Chee Cheong Fun (RM2.50 for 3 rolls)? Basically the Chee Cheong Fun looked like any normal ones you can get from the streets but this version had some surimi crab sticks and fresh prawns wrapped in them. Upon each order, these pre-prepared rolls would be dipped into batter and deep fried until golden brown. Prior to serving, you have an option of two sauces such as mayonnaise and KL rojak sauce. I opted for mayonnaise sauce on these cut pieces of fried chee cheong fun and had some crushed toasted peanuts sprinkled on them. I’m sure children would love this version well although I did not find much attraction in them compared to my favorite authentic ones.

On top of the above as well as the plain version which would cost you RM2 for 3 rolls, there was also something else to bite on – Toasted Stuffed Bean Curd Puff (RM1.80 each). Each piece of the large bean curd puff would be stuffed with shredded jicama and cucumber prior to being toasted in an oven. Again, there would be two options. This time, I opted for the KL rojak sauce. The surface of the puff was crisp while the interior confined the moist from the shredded vegetables. The slices of the bean curd puff were then topped with the KL rojak sauce and garnished with crushed toasted peanuts as well. This combination tasted not bad, except that I found that the KL rojak sauce to be a bit milder in spiciness and rich prawn paste flavor as those found in some of the famous rojak stalls we have in Penang.

Overall, I found only one unique food that ought to be mentioned here from this food court. The rest of the food from the hawker stalls were just average and nothing to brag about. If you are adventurous to try them out, drive all the way from the Penang Ferry Terminal along Pengkalan Weld until you have reach the Pengkalan Weld/Gat Lebuh Macallum traffic lights. Turn left into Gat Lebuh Macallum and drive all the way until you see Harbour Trade Centre on you left. Turn right and drive on and you would see the food court at the junction of Gat Lebuh Macallum/Gat Lebuh Cecil 1 on your right. Parking space would be quite ample here except on Thursday night when there would be a pasar malam (night market) there.

Name: FRIED CHEE CHEONG FUN @ STAR CITY FOOD COURT
Address: Gat Lebuh Cecil 1, 10300 Penang, West Malaysia.
Business Hours: 5.30pm-11.30pm (Closed on Alternate Tuesday)
GPS: 5.404303, 100.334164

RATING:
Ambience: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 6/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 6/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 7/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

More than two years of food blogging was nothing to brag about. In fact, it’s not the experience that I had acquired through time that pushed me to withstand the pressure and pleasure to get the best detail on the greatest places for dining. It’s the support and encouragement from you, my fellow floggers and readers. The friendship, the communication, the interpersonal skills and most of all the mini gatherings and reviews we had together indeed fostered our relationships even closer. We are like a big family now and hope to remain so for years to come. Even the responses and comments from readers (although I saw quite a large number of silent stalkers :P) surely kept Criz Bon Appetite moving even more diligently to bring the best place to eat to you. One thing I have noticed, Penangites are always in search of great food. It’s even obvious when it’s free as I had posted up in my anniversary giveaway. Within a mere two weeks, almost RM3,000 of free food vouchers had been sent out through snail mails from Northern up to Central Malaysia.

Well, don’t thank me for that. I’m only the postman. If not for the wonderful sponsors who wished to share out the best there are in Penang/Butterworth, you won’t have the privilege to try out their wonderful culinary skills. Let’s officially thank them for promoting Penang’s best to the dining community. They are Fun Tea Garden Dim Sum, Ki Xiang Klang Bak Kut Teh, Village Café Tom Yam Fish Head Noodles, I Mum Mum Pan Mee, Ivy’s Kitchen Nyonya Cuisine, Kowloon Hainan Chicken Rice and Magazine Road Tang Yuan. Let’s hope there would be more sponsors around next year since there were some late requests during the end of the project. I sincerely hope that those who had received their free vouchers had a great dining experience. 🙂

Last Friday night was the ending of the giveaways and saw a memorable anniversary celebration for close friends and floggers at Fun Tea Garden for the “eat-until-you-drop” dim sum and noodles party. Everyone was indeed stuffed until the brim by trying out almost everything from the restaurant. Well, that’s another few inches to the waistline. LOL! In fact, the whole atmosphere was filled with the laughs of the wackiest floggers and shutterbugs around town. Jokes can be heard at every table while ghost stories at another. I hope Steven Goh did not have bad dreams that night for the story telling. Haha! It was indeed a fun filling event for many including our new flogger-to-be in town, Lay Min and friend, Kok Ann, who drove all the way from Butterworth to attend this function. You would be surprised that the oldies and the newbies can click really well that night. Won’t it be great if we were to have more of such happy moments? Gals and guys… plan more in 2010! Hehe!

Since I was the host for the night, shooting great shots was quite impossible. Why not let the rest of the attendees show you how great the food was that night? Here’s a glimpse of some of the food we had.

The celebration ended with a large anniversary Marble Cheese Cake from Jenni Homemade Cakes, courtesy of Carrie, Mary and CW Chan. It was a bonus for all of us and also a few more pounds gained. Haha!

Here’s the group photo of the attendees with the boss of Fun Tea Garden, Mr. Danny, courtesy of CW Chan who has also bought a new RM3.1K Lumix camera on that night to provide better shots for his readers in the future. Thanks for de“virgin”ized your camera for that night. LOL!

Not in photo: NKOTB & hubby

ATTENDEES:
Criz Lai
Alan & Amanda
NKOTB & hubby
Little Inbox & hubby
Eunice, Siew Ying & Kelvin
Lay Min & Kok Ann
Jason & Gill
CW Chan
Steven Goh
Mary Teo
Carrie Soon
Jian Ming

Note: This place has ceased operation in mid 2010.

Most of the time, major hotels within the Pearl of Island, Penang, would only hold buffet during weekends and special occasions. With the opening of Hardwicke House BBQ & Buffet Restaurant barely few months back, you can now have the opportunity to have buffet any day during lunch and dinner.

What is the difference between the food served at Hardwicke House and hotels? Well, practically none. Both of them have the same style of serving dishes from appetizers, salads, meat dishes to desserts but Hardwicke excels one step ahead with the availability of fresh seafood and meat grill DAILY for dinners at RM38++ per pax. Lunch would be at RM18++ minus the grill menus. Let us have a peek at what style of food would be available on a typical dinner evening.

As starters, we had Cream of Asparagus with some dinner rolls accompanied with butter cubes and some jars of crispy papadam and some crackers.

The salad section was quite impressive. Other than the usual salad greens, there were also some corn kernels, kidney beans, cherry tomatoes, button mushrooms, olives, raisins, cherries, pea sprouts (豆苗,dou miao) and swirl pasta for us to mix and match to our own liking. As for dressing, there were quite many choices such as mayonnaise, creamy French, vinaigrette, coleslaw, creamy Italian, thousand island and of course some mustard too.

The main buffet spread for the night consisted mainly of some local, Indian and Western cuisines. We had fried rice, fried noodles, cabbage poriel, brinjal sambal, dhal, lamb rogan josh, chicken curry, roast beef, baked cured salmon with cheese, chicken lor bak (chicken rolls), crispy Vietnam prawn roll and spaghetti and beef Bolognese sauce. This was not a bad spread for those lamb and beef lovers.

As for the grill section which would only be available for those dinner patrons, the options would be more. There would be roast lamb leg, steaks, sausages, prawns, squids, fish, clams and of course there would also be tandoori chicken. You can also choose what you want as side dishes such as mash potatoes, baby carrots and corn kernels. On top of that, you can choose whichever gravy you would like to have such as BBQ sauce, mushroom sauce or even black pepper sauce.

Sweet tooth lovers would surely love their desserts section. On top of their many options such as homemade cakes, tarts, mousse, jelly, fruits, brewed coffee and tea, there are also many flavors of ice cream with your choice of toppings such as strawberry, caramel and chocolate.

If you think the beverages would not have the “boost” to energize you, there’s always the option to order some good old hot cup of “special” coffee. Of course these would not be covered under the buffet menu. They have Guatemala SHB Arabia, Kenia AA Arabia, Java WIB Robusta, Costarica Arabia SHB, Espresso Coffee Pod “Oro”, Decaffeinated Espresso Coffee Pod “Oro” to give you your favorite Espresso, Ice Berg, Regular Black, Cappucino, Flat White or even just a Latte.

Some people might want to have some wine to go with the meal. There would be many unique and established brand of wine for you to choose from the wine house. Some of the recommended would be the Friulvini Verduzzo IGT, a straw yellow colored wine with a pleasantly, amiable, slightly acidulous and full bodied which had a hint of fruity taste. This would go well with confectionery, salads and fruits. The next would be the Chilean Terranoble Sauvignon Blanc 2005. This slightly yellowish colored wine would be fresh, dry and well balanced for your consumption. It would be ideal to go with fish and seafood. There would also be the New Zealand produced Schubert Hardwicke Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, the deeply red colored wine would exhibit an intense nose of blackberries, plum, chocolate with notes of walnut and spice. This red wine would be great with your meaty meals.

There are many ongoing promotions from Hardwicke House this festive season. You might want to click and enlarge the photo below to view more on their December-January promotion.

For Christmas, check out their Christmas promotion too. It’s best that you call up to reserve your table to avoid disappointment.

If you are coming from town along Jalan Burma, drive all the way until you see a “Y” junction. Left would lead you to Pulau Tikus. Right would lead you to Gurney Drive. Turn left into Jalan Pangkor (keep to your right). Immediately after you see Gleneagles Medical Centre on your right, slow down. Turn right into the service road and you would see a purplish building (Northam Tower). Hardwicke House is just in front of the building. You would not miss the white colored colonial architectural building.

Name: HARDWICKE HOUSE BBQ & BUFFET RESTAURANT
Address: 67 Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, 10050 Penang, West Malaysia.
Business Hours: 12.00noon-2.30pm (lunch), 7.00pm-10.30pm (dinner)
Contact: 604-226 4998
GPS: 5.427643, 100.320806

RATING:
Ambience: 8/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 8/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8.5/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

There are so many hidden areas in Georgetown with many wonderful evening snacks and most of the time these little stalls by the roadside would go unnoticed by many. One such stall would be a little Laksa stall manned by a Chinese mother and her son along Cecil Street Ghaut (Gat Lebuh Cecil).

For those who love the sourness and sweetness of this version of Assam Laksa, this would be the right place. The Assam Laksa (RM2.20) here did not have the strong taste of tamarind (assam) but instead it had stronger blended pineapple sourness with some hints of Kaffir lime leaves. The color of the soup might not be as dark as others but it has the right sourness and sweetness for those people who like sourness in their food. With a spoonful or two of shrimp paste (hae ko), this bowl of Laksa would be enough to woo many ladies. 😛

What caught my attention most was not the Laksa but the little savory snacks the stall had. The rows of big sized golden colored Spring Rolls were tasty and crunchy. The secret… handmade poh piah skins instead of those frozen ones which can be found easily in supermarkets. Moreover, the simple filling of shredded jicama, carrot and sliced French beans gave the spring rolls the necessary original sweetness. It’s only 80sen each. It’s darn cheap, right? On top of that, you can just ask for some Laksa soup to dip these delicious snacks.

Another of the tasty product from the stall would be the Prawn & Bean Curd Fritter (also cheap at 80sen each). Normally, you would get fritters either with prawns or bean curd but here the lady combined both. Each flat but large sized and crunchy fritter contained bean sprouts, peeled white prawns, cubed bean curds, fried in an Indian like masala reddish colored flour. I prefer this version here compared to the Tan Jetty Prawn Fritters as I did have pesky little prawn skins and heads poking into my gums. A piece or two of the spring rolls plus a piece of the fritter plus a small bowl of dipping Laksa soup were enough to bloat my tummy up.

If you think the above two items would be a bit too much for your tea time, then you can opt for the Fried Chicken Wings (90sen for wing/drumlet). If your timing is good, you might even get hot, crispy and well marinated chicken to keep you drooling for more.

Other than those mentioned above, there would also be some crispy flour coated Fried Prawn Ball (3 for RM1) and Stuffed Crabsticks (60sen each). The Stuffed Crabstick would have some mayonnaise, a slice of sausage, crabstick, coated with Pato breadcrumbs and deep fried until golden.

You can have your little evening snacks served with chili sauce but it was too plain for me. I preferred mine dipped in Laksa soup. It’s free anyway with the fritters.

There are a lot of evening stalls selling snacks over here such as rojak, cold desserts, local kuih, mua chee, nasi lemak, curry puff and banana fritters sold here in the evening. The best time to pay a visit would be after 2.00pm each day.

Finding the Laksa stall would be real easy. As you are moving your way towards the Jelutong Expressway from Weld Quay, you would come to a traffic light (Weld Quay/Gat Lebuh Macallum). Immediately after the traffic light, you would see another traffic light (Weld Quay/Gat Lebuh Cecil). Turn left into Gat Lebuh Cecil and you would see the stall on your left at the junction of Gat Lebuh Cecil 1.

Name: CECIL STREET GHAUT LAKSA & FRITTERS
Address: Gat Lebuh Cecil, 10300 Penang, West Malaysia.
Business Hours: 1.30pm-6.00pm (Closed Monday)
Contact: 016-498 6018 (Ah Boy)
GPS: 5.406025, 100.332189

RATING:
Ambience: 5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 6/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 7.5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 4/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Finally, a group of us floggers managed to attend the first Penang flogger’s wedding reception. Who could that be? It was none other than our beloved Steven Goh tying the knot with his beautiful wife, Kim Peng. The memorable event was held at The Forum Chinese Cuisine on 5 December 2009. Let us all wish the couple happy and prosperous days ahead with lots of bubbly “tiger” babies. Next year is the Year of the Metal Tiger in the Chinese Lunar Calendar and based on the Chinese Zodiac, such tigers are said to be lucky, lively and engaging with courageous attributes to protect his family against many evils. The Metal element gives the 2010 born tigers their sharpness in action and speed of thoughts, which would likely make them stand out in a crowd. With an inspiring assertiveness and competitive demeanor, they determine their goals and then do anything necessary to achieve them. Well Steven, you should know your 2010 planning now right? LOL!

Anyway, let us go right into food now as when there are floggers around food would be the main news. Hehe! Although there was a minor hiccup by the management of the restaurant in the serving of the dishes, it did not spoil the moods of the occasion. We had Braised Shark’s Fin Soup with Dried Scallops & Crab Meat served first. It was just a normal wedding banquet type of serving but what caught my attention was the usage of “glass noodle texture-like” shark’s fin and surimi (crab sticks). I guessed many sharks and decapod crustaceans were spared in this eco-friendly dish. LOL!

Next was the Deluxe Hot & Cold Dish Combination which consisted of hot steaming crystal skin “money bag” dumplings, stir fried prawns with cashew nuts and bell peppers, Minced pork and waxed sausage rolls and minced pork cutlet in plum sauce which tasted somewhat like our local “bak kua” minus the red rose wine flavor and coloring. It was an interesting combination.

Braised Chicken with Chest Nuts wrapped in Aluminum Foil followed. Although the roasted chicken was a bit bland in taste due to over steaming, the tender meat went well with the stuffing of chest nuts, mushrooms, waxed sausages and carrots with some mild seasonings. The best part lied in the gravy where it had a rich and flavorful chicken essence.

When it came to giving fresh and succulent large prawns, the restaurant had its best. The Deep Fried Prawns coated with Oats & Crispy Minced Egg was perfect. Some of us were caught savoring the delicious condiments instead.

We were then served with Stewed Assorted Mushroom with Broccoli in Oyster Sauce. Other than broccoli, straw mushrooms and Chinese mushrooms, there were another thinly sliced abalone-like texture ingredient. We were not too sure what that was but to me it tasted more like an edible sea snail meat.

As for the Steamed Grouper Fish “Teow Chew” Style, it was just a normal serving due to the mass production. Somehow ours was sort of “handicapped” (from the sign of the tilted head) and overcooked. The fish lost the firmness in texture. Moreover, a touch of more pickled sour plums and Shao Xing wine would make the dish more tasteful.

Steamed Lotus Leaf Rice with Waxed Sausage was served next. Simple as it may look, each grain of rice was well flavored with the taste from the lotus leaves.

The last course was of course dessert. We were served with Sweetened Honeydew Melon Cream with Sago. I suspected the cream came in powder form as the coloring was somewhat artificial. I surely preferred something more natural like blended honeydew instead.

Other than the free flowing wine, beer and cordial, we were each presented some gift by the couple – a piece of fruit cake and a silky pouch filled with a pair of heart-shape lollipops. From my observation, this memento pleased many of the guests. The elderly were happy with a little something to keep their coins, whereas the younger ones were happy with something to share with their friends and partner-to-be. After all, wedding is all about sharing the love together for eternity.

To Steven & Janice…
Your happiness begins
With your wonderful wedding day.
You’ll share everything together;
Through it all, your love will stay.
Congratulations to you,
As you begin your happy life.
May all good things be yours,
As new husband and new wife.

For those who had missed the memorable event, here’s a short video of the couple walking down the aisle.

The Forum Chinese Cuisine is located at Level 3 within Island Plaza, Penang. It won’t be hard to find the way as it’s just along Jalan Tanjung Tokong on your right.

Name: THE FORUM CHINESE CUISINE @ ISLAND PLAZA
Address: 803-01, 3rd Floor, Island Plaza, 118 Jalan Tokong, 10470 Penang.
Business Hours:
11.30am-3.00pm, 6.30pm-10.00pm (Monday-Saturday)
9.30am-3.00pm, 6.30pm-10.00pm (Sunday & Public Holiday)
Contact: 604-899 0088
GPS: 5.450371, 100.305946

RATING:
Ambience: 8/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 8/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 7/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

ATTENDEES:
Criz Lai
CK Lam
Alan & Amanda
NKOTB & hubby
CW Chan
Eunice & Siew Ying