Verves In Composition

My morning starts with a cup of coffee. And because I’m high on it now, I’d like to share the best cup instant coffee known to a Malaysian produced for Thai commercial retail consumption.

I had my first cup of ‘Khao Shong’ when a Thai lady opened up a store and tempted me with a cup off coffee when I walked in zombified. It was an instant pick up and everyone who I’ve brought there to sample that cup of coffee never failed to agree with me ‘How absolutely friggin great that milky coffee was’

When the lady affectionately known as ‘auntie’ to me decided to move to a most inconvenient place in Selayang, I was desperate to know her secret to that piquant perk-up. I sneaked over to the counter striking up conversations about Thailand and lo-behold. Jars and jars of KHAO SHONG COFFEE!

Thus in my recent trip to Bangkok, I went ahead to buy a couple of packets of Khao Shong.

Oh yes I’d even camwhore with a packet of coffee.

There is just something about it’s rich commercial aroma. Flavorful, not too strong with a aroma that hits your senses to the very end of tasting. Remind me to fix you with a cup if you can drop by my humble abode.

Anyone teased, tempted or dare I say tormented to have a cup yet?

I love, love, love Carbonara! Almost broke and just too lazy to drive out for Italian food, I actually cooked my own version of the creamy delight (and also packed some up to deliver to Mabel). Off I go shopping for…

• Fettuccine
• Whipped Cream
• Air Flown Wild White Mushrooms
• New Zealand Cheddar Cheese (Parmesan Cheese too expensive ler)
• Streaky Bacon
• White Wine
• Chopped Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Butter
• Ground Black Pepper
• Sage
• Thyme

Soak them wild mushrooms with Sage and Thyme while cleaning them up, slice, clean and soak once again in the bath of herbs.

Drain the water, add more Sage and Thyme and sauté the mushrooms over high heat with a dash of olive oil and white wine.

Don’t forget to cook the streaky bacon with some butter over in another pan. When done, chop them up into mini bits.

Throw in the whipped cream, melt the cheese over the pan, add some more butter and the bacon bits in with the mushrooms. Add a tablespoon of chopped garlic and sprinkles of ground black pepper.

After sauce is think enough, leave over fire to cool. Sauce will thicken further while cooling. Serve with pasta of choice

Cheesy, Creamy the finest ingredients and with a dash of alcohol. Yum, Yum. Anyone jealous yet? Btw, Mabel literally drank all the sauce.

Laine and I are such bloody coffee addicts… one of our favorite hang outs would have to be the Starbucks outlet in Leisure Mall cause we’re really ‘tight’ with the baristas there Which other girls except us get personally invited to check out the new Christmas goodies and blends? Lucky lucky us!

My name can be so misleading to make people think I’m into the hype of Christmas by ‘April’. I’m such a camwhore even when I’m having my coffee.

Laine is such a good friend. For two nights in a row, she has willingly surrendered herself to being ‘kidnapped’ by me to get sugar and caffeine intoxicated. ON PURPOSE.

This is our favorite Barista! Auntie Cheong Mabel! Just look at her ‘syiok syiok‘ with all that cream! *Licks lips* Mabel loves me so much, she did this on purpose…

But I love her for it… *feels so loved* Here are the other things worth trying! Toffee Nut Latte especially on a breezy rainy night along with a Chicken Cranberry Sandwich for munchies!

So the next time you’re about Starbucks in Leisure Mall, look round the corner for Lainecinno and Aprilcinno (OMG THE NAMES WE GIVE OURSELVES WHEN WE ARE HIGH ON COFFEE) then do something in the Spirit of Xmas, (refer to last photo for gift suggestions).

What’s a girl to do when she’s all alone in the Town of Lukut with nothing to eat?

I’d really just google up what’s the signature dish there on my phone and then enjoy the feast all by myself! MWHAHAHAHA! Unfortunate that the phone number for the restaurant was unavailable so I had to go and hunt down the place myself. Hmmpfh.
Luck, the townspeople and my inbuilt navigational sense brought me to Lucky Seafood Restaurant.

I really expected a ‘pao’ like white colored fluff the size of the Kajang ‘Tai Pao’s with all its goodies inside soaking the walls of the dough inside. Instead, my Curry Chicken King Bun was the size of a bald human head (maybe even bigger!) baked to a shiny glossy golden brown on the outside.

The attendant then snipped the bun right down the middle unfolding fluffy petals of bread like a blossom, uwrapped the foil and plastic to unveil a bowl of SPICY HOT CURRY CHICKEN! JUST LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BUGGER!….Unlike you, it was unlikely of me to really care, cause I was just drawn into the moment of teasing aromatic curry! It was so biggg…I was using a ladle instead of a spoon to slurp it all up. This was the SMALL bun…i wonder how big is the BIG bun? Retailing at abt RM20 per bun, this is something you should indulge in, or take away for a party at home.
Shame I didn’t get to taste their CRAB bun though.. needs 2 to 3 days to prepare it! (since they have to catch it and all) SO SOMEONE PLEASE GO THERE AND TELL ME IF IT’S WORTH MY TRIP FOR JUST THE CRAB BUN!Lucky for you the nice auntie handed me a card with all the details!Phone: 06-651 2392
Address: Lucky Seafood Restoran,
No 4366, Taman Aman, Jalan Besar,
71010 Lukut, Port Dickson, Negeri Seremban.

Take the trunk road from Port Dickson to Seremban, you won’t miss it’s big red signboard.

Seremban Bound: Left side of road, Port Dickson bound: Right side of the road

Was in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan for a work trip and I heard that the Chinese food there was fantastic.

A kind man in the pawn shop told me that a good place for prawns would be in Koh Teng Restaurant which isn’t hard to find since Bahau is a small place…which had
ONE OF THE BEST PRAWN DISHES I’VE EVER TASTED!

FRESH, HUGE TIGER PRAWNS SWIMMING IN A SAUCE THAT IS SO DELICIOUSLY INDESCRIBABLE!!!!

I really really can’t put into words on the magnetic fusion of the taste but you have got to try it for yourself!

Oui. I cleaned it up.

One thing though, this dish is steeply priced at RM21.00 per prawn so that whole dish of two prawns alone was RM42.00. (koff koff) But go pay for it just to try it!

With Lydia still craving for her fix of Fried Sotong and me yearning to learn the roads in Kuantan, we drove into the then unknown territories of Padang Lalang (well,… unknown to us). Since it is an industrial area, Padang Lalang looks like the kind of place that is so well suited for filming the local industrial horror stories at night.

We were about to turn back when I noticed a small road sign. Following 3 of the same signs later led us to a brightly lit corner behind a seafood processing factory cars all parked until it backed up into the main road.

Your typical seafood restaurant, Malaysian Chinese style. Fumbling with our limited Cantonese food vocabulary we just requested for several recommendations including Lydia’s much craved for Fried Sotong.

These were served as CHUNKS deep fried to a golden hue. You don’t usually get chunky squid served like that in Kuala Lumpur.
The second dish that arrived was a steaming metal dish of fried mee hoon with about 2 1/2 crabs.

Nothing really fancy or different about this, but it’s got really fresh crab meat that you can dig into The final dish were some prawns with hints of oyster sauce, green pepper, shallots and black sauce. I really can’t recall the proper name of the way these prawns were done, but they were pretty good. The whole dining experience only cost us barely RM50.00 so it was quite worth it for a meal for two.Here’s what Lydia’s own thoughts. That’s probably cause she’s gotten her craving for fried sotong ;P

Not too long ago, I took a short road trip down to Kuantan with Lydia on a hunt for good weekend food.

With no maps and only names of restaurants scribbled down in a pocket notepad, we arrived for lunch in surprise to see much of Kuantan shops closed or barely occupied by patrons.

“Maybe folks here eat at home…”

Circling around the commercial blocks near Berjaya Mall, we stumbled across a shop that was lit and the word ‘laksa’ just above the entrance. Aprons and posters and newspaper cuttings as testimony for us to take a gamble on our limited vacant stomach space to give it a go (of course we were hungry as well)

Meet our lunch, a fantastic bowl of Sg. Katong Curry Laksa.

I found my lunch tastefully presented for a coffee-shop styled meal with the fish cakes fanned out , half a slice of lime balanced on a hard boiled egg cut in the same manner, Cockles and shreds of chicken gathered in their own batches on one side.
Don’t request for your usual Yellow noodles or Bee Hoon mix or insist on it. Go for the laksa noodles which compliment the whole taste and texture for a different experience. Try it with and without squeezing the lime. I pinched some of Lydia’s bowl to taste it without lime, but personally it goes better with lime

What really differs about this laksa compared to your usual curry laksa is the texture of the gravy/soup. Instead of a homogenous mix of drippy soup, there is a delightfully sloppy mix of santan in it.

Although the Katong Laksa is a Singaporean brainchild, the one in Kuantan provides a Curry Laksa meal like no other. It’s not too salty, nor sweet like some oddly spiced Laksa(s). It’s all in the texture.

It was one of those days where I see something that looks really good on the supermarket shelf and I just HAD to buy it to cook something out of it. I don’t usually eat mushrooms.. I like to eat EXPENSIVE mushrooms.

I would have preferred Portobello mushrooms, but mom on the other line who I was seeking advice from in her economic defense.. “GET THE CHEAPER ONE”

Ok. So what we had was Swiss Mushrooms, Mozarella cheese, A bottle of merlot, minced meat, pepper, tomatoes, basil for seasoning, butter and olive oil (not shown in pic)

So, .. I sautee them mushrooms.

mixed them minced meat, basil, chopped peppers and tomatoes in to stir fry…

Stuff the mushroom caps with everything and top it with cheese..

Put it in the oven and DING! Stuffed mushroom caps!

Looks good.. tastes even better! I am a CULINARY GENIUS!
Hopefully I am able to reel in a few good men by dangling a plate like this infront of them. *fingers crossed*.

I recalled how much I do miss the enjoyment of watching costumed men and women take fictional characters in to the taste and enjoyment of a meal.  Until….’Pure Serendipidity’ is how I would put a tag for stumbling upon this restaurant.

 

Ashley and I were spending a little sister time together when ‘Wizard’s World’ neon lights and quirkyly dressed staff tempted us to come over. It’s impossible to miss this place on the 6th floor with it’s bright Disney like fonts beaming invitingly to go ahead for a go.

 

 

Vampires, serial killers and Gorillas helped us with the seating and as you get lead to your dungeon medeival styled tables, there is a main an actual 4D Haunted Adventure theatre at the back of the restaurant, Old lamps, a wall filled to the brim with Ghoulish masks, a ceiling that looks like it’s caught chicken pox and I absolutely loved the bubbling chemical jars.

And the menu leaves you spoilt for choice. They’ve got Pizzas named after Star signs so you can go according to Horoscopes if you’re feeling superstitious. Cocktail juices with spell binding names. Everything is just so dramatic!

I opted for a glass called ‘Gorgeous Spell’ A fusion of strawberry and something else which tasted like a tropical punch, and a ‘Carbonara Labryinth’ Ash decided to be less adventurous with a Hot Chocolate and a Turkey Pineapple Cheese Toastie

I must admit that I was afraid that being a food glutton that I was, I’d find myself too picky for the possibility of ‘what if it doesn’t taste good?’ BUT THE FOOD is surprisingly PRETTY GOOD. We did lick our platters clean.

 

AND WHILE YOU EAT THERE IS ENTERTAINMENT PROVIDED! THE CAPTAIN CAME TO OUR TABLE AND PERFORMED MAGIC TRICKS FOR US AS WE WAITED FOR OUR FOOD AND BEFORE WE FINISHED OFF OUR FOOD! I’d give the service a big thumbs up too!For a place that has only been open for two weeks! Both Ash and I agreed, the meal really made our day. Now that is good, fun dining.