Cheap Cheap Lobster!

Lobster prices are falling all across Australia thanks to the tension between China and the lucky country. Prices are now down as much as 50% of its peak when times are good!

Perfect idea to have Lobster to celebrate this Christmas!!

How to Make Crispy Noodle

Heat up cooking oil in the wok. Dip a chopstick into the oil to test its temperature, if you see bubble around the chopstick then the oil is hot enough.

Throw in the egg noodle into the boiling hot oil. Spread it around with a chopstick.

Home Made Penang Asam Laksa

 

Soak the laksa noodle.

Onions, pineapple, cucumber, cabbage & chilli.

Garnished with cut chilli, mint and shrimp paste.

Seong Garden Cafe

Still on the town of Air Itam in Penang, Seong Garden Cafe at Jalan Air Itam comes to life at night with the street converted into a night market and open air food court!

The street in front of a row of shops is transformed into a night market in the evening.

Penang iconic dish - Char Koay Teow!

Penang Hokkien Mee - Prawn Noodle Soup

En En Coffee Shop

Further up along the same side of Air Itam Road is En En Coffee Shop. This time there is no private car park nor your personal valet service. We have no choice but parked across the road and have to risk my life crossing the four lanes busy traffic.

The busy Air Itam Road

Belacan Chicken

Hokkien Char

Sar Hor Fan

Western Cottage

Along the busy Air Itam Road is this house being converted into a restaurant selling what I would call Asian style Western Food.

Limited parking spaces are available within the front yard of the 'house' with your private valet minus the smart uniform and tips. Yes, parking is free if you manage to get one there is.

Oriental Sauce Chicken Chop    -    RM11.80

Chicken Bolognese                   -    RM15.80

Mushroom Sauce Chicken Chop -    RM11.80

Chicken Maryland                     -    RM16.80

Garlic Bread                             -    RM4.80

Mushroom Soup                       -    RM5.80

Chef Salad Bowl                       -    RM5.80

Orange Juice                            -    RM5.90

Flower Mulan Nyonya Cage

Locate at the junction of Burmah Road and Bangkok Lane in Penang, it is very easily to miss this exotic restaurant thanks to its over decorated entrance with flowers and traditional Chinese ornaments. I always thought that it was a florist until I was brought to this place one day to have lunch.

This restaurant has a very unique ambiance with lots of flower decoration and a fusion theme of interior decoration.

Nyonya fragrant blue rice, one of its kind!

One of the must have in nyonya cuisine, fried chicken.

Pork in soya sause

猪杂汤 Another nyonya signature dish!

Finally, the ultimate indulgence in the hot tropical climate. Nyonya Durian Cheese Cake!!!

How To Cook Smooth Creamy Porridge

There are mainly two type of Chinese porridge in terms of their texture. The first one is the Teochew style where the rice is still in its solid form in a pool of soup. The second type is the smooth creamy paste like porridge where you would commonly find in Dim Sum restaurants; this is the Cantonese type of porridge. Personally I prefer the latter.

Cooking the porridge is the easy part; the portion of water vs. rice is 5:1; in other words, add 5 cups of water into each cup of rice. Bring it to a boil. Next, prepare the ingredients that go into the porridge, I'm going to use fish fillet in this instance.

The Barramundi fillets are marinated with soya sauce, salt and Chinese cooking wine. This will be tossed into the pot probably just 5 to 10 minutes before the porridge is ready. The fish fillet will be cooked very fast so there is no point to put it in too soon.

Then comes the secret of creating the silky smooth creamy porridge that we are after. You have to blend the porridge with a hand stick blender. Refer video below:

There you have it! Cantonese style porridge garnished with scramble egg on top for a cold winter morning.

Bon Appétit!

Happy Father's Day

Like many other major celebrations of the year, we decided to dine out today to celebrate Father's Day. Of course it has to be father's choice so I chose to have roast pork and duck for dinner.

Went to Chin's Noodle House at Leeming Forum for dinner in this stormy, and rainy night. Outside temperature was 11 degrees when we reached there at 5.30pm and the sky was already dark due to winter right now here in Perth, Australia.

In contrast to the cold and windy outdoor, we felt very cosy indeed inside the restaurant. I could hear instrumental music played with mainly Jacky Cheung's songs in the background. The irony was that we were the only Asian among the Aussie customers in the restaurant at that time.

Combination vegetable and beancurd claypot.

Roast Pork & Roast Duck Combo

The food was great, environment was soothing with beautiful music in the background and the bonus was cut fruits for dessert on the house. 

A great meal doesn't have to be expensive. It is already a blessing as long as you could enjoy a wonderful dinner with your family in a relax atmosphere. 

Spencer Village - Asian Food Court

I was particularly delighted to discover this place called Spencer Village in Thornlie, Perth a while back ago. That day we were driving around visiting display homes in Piara Waters. Thanks to my daughter who couldn’t stop playing in the neighbourhood playground, it was fast getting dark and my stomach has started protesting that it needed food pretty soon. So I dragged my reluctant daughter into our car and head off to Spencer Village which is the nearest we could find from that place. You see finding food after dark in Australian suburbs is a challenge, it is something that is very different from Asia.

I’ve heard of this place before and most people have positive comment about its food. So we decided to give it a try. Hawker stalls and little food courts are something that I have grown up with and it is quite unusual for me that there are so few of this type of places in Perth. So it is a big thing for us to be able to find this place.

The first impression was definitely a good one. We saw the car park in front of the place was almost fully occupied, that means good business and most importantly good food! I managed to find one parking spot at the back and we walked straight in to start our food hunt. Upon entering the building, it was as though we have been teleported back to Asia in one of those Star Trek high tech devices. Almost the entire space was filled with Asians, the ambience was noisy and chaotic, exactly what you would experience in any Asian cities. I saw familiar names like Laksa, Char Koay Teow and Roti Prata.

We ordered a Unagi Rice and Fried Hor Fun Cantonese style. As you can see in the photos below, both came in very big portions. If you get bored with Perth lifestyle at night and would like to go for supper just like you normally do in Asia, then Spencer Village is the place. And the food is really value for money. But if you have high expectation in terms of taste and quality of food, then this may not be a place for you. I’m more for taste and that’s why I’ve only visited the place once and have never gone back so far. I may go again in some nights when I miss experience the Asian ambience while in Australia!

Spencer Village Main Entrance

Malacca and KL Food Stalls

Spencer Village Interior

Stall selling Indonesian food

Hong Kong and Japanese food stalls

Roti Prata stall

Cantonese Fried Hor Fun

Unagi Rice

Penang - Asia's No.1 Street Food City

CNNgo has compiled a list of Asia's 10 Greatest Street Food Cities and guess what, Penang came out on top of the other nine! The list is as follow:

1) Penang, Malaysia

2) Taipei, Taiwan

3) Bangkok, Thailand

4) Fukuoka, Japan

5) Hanoi, Vietnam

6) Singapore

7) Seoul, Korea

8) Xi'an, China

9) Manila, The Phillipines

10) Phnom Penh, Cambodia

And the top 10 list of Penang street food goes like this:

1) Penang Assam Laksa

2) Hokkien Mee

3) Wonton Mee

4) Nasi Kandar

5) Rojak  

6) Lor Bak

7) Curry Mee

8) Char Kway Teow

9) Koay Chiap

10) Ice Kacang

Whenever you are in Penang, don't forget to get a copy of Penang Street Food Brochure from airport, major shopping malls and hotels. Happy food hunting while in Penang!