Spicy Prawns with Curry Leaves and Chicken Floss

"Zhung Sik Ngau Lau"

Deep Fried Chicken with Orange Sauce

Claypot Tofu

Mango Pudding with Mint Chocolate Wanton

Yum

          

With Klang housing an incredibly WTF amount of Bah Kut Teh places. I've been going to one place all the time in Taman Rashna.

What used to be a quaint little coffee shop with gas stoves worn out tables and seats, patrons sitting with their legs spread wide apart while they sipped on their tea...

....is now this place which filled my car with "noises-of-awe".

Looks like business is still gosh darn good. The new Restoran Fong Keow now boasts 3 shop lots, private rooms,  some funky deco, and free wi-fi!

It's a big change from the usual carefree-"feel" I get from Bah Kut Teh shops, we wondered if they still served Bah Kut Teh (ignoring the huge sign outside) Thank goodness there is a huge wall telling us that still do a long with some other suggestions for dishes.

"Wah! Newly renovated. Must try something new!"

Restoran Fong Keow's Fried Spring Rolls "Zhao Foo Chuk Kuen"

 Fresh Juicy Spring Rolls (tho i must add that I think it should be aptly addressed as "Zhao Foo Chuk Kuen)" similar to those found in lobak.

Restoran Fong Keow's Fried Spring Rolls "Zhao Foo Chuk Kuen" Upclose shot with Chilli Sauce

At RM12 per plate (a lil' pricey), four rolls served with a sweet chilli sauce ads a diff zing to having just plain meat and soup in bah kut teh.

Restoran Fong Keow's Steamed Tofu

The other side dish was nothing too fancy taste wise. The sauce that went along with it was a lil' too thick (but i like thick sauces) Steamed Tofu Served (RM5.00) with fried shallots, onions, spring onions and chilli.

Authentic Klang Bah Kut Teh from Fong Keow at only RM10.00 per head. I've been eating there since my first driving trip to Klang.

Restoran Fong Keow's Traditional Bah Kut Teh

Restoran Fong Keow's Traditional Bah Kut Teh Upclose shot of the Tender Juicy Meat

Juicy meat, None of that No Claypot crap, Orgasmic soup. Since we were there an hour before closing time we got the most flavour filled part of the pot. The soup just kept getting better with EVERY REFILL! Additional Tau Foo Pok cost RM1.00 and Golden Mushrooms at RM5.00 (a lil bit exp for the mushrooms)

(Remember how good the soup tasted Yen and Ying?? I just recalled we forgot the YAU ZHAR GUAI!)

Restoran Fong Keow (Pottery) Bah Kut Teh, 53 Jln Batai Laut, Taman Intan, Klang

Opens 8am-3pm/5pm-9pm from Monday to Friday & 8am to 9.30 pm on Weekends and Public Holidays. Click the following for map: View Larger Map

          

The first thing I want to blog about though, is FOOD. mwahaha.

Dad has been in awfully generous mood lately and the family is lucky to indulge in a number of pleasantries including Dim Sum.

Try the ala cart'e Dim Sum at Oriental Pavilion, Jaya 33. In short, Almost all their fried stuff are sumptuously crispyand tasty. Their steamed stuff is so-so. Don't try the Wo-tip (bland) but do go for the Fried Yam (Woo Kok)

Enjoy the food porn

Har Gau (Prawn Dumplings) - Juicy with just the right thickness of dumpling 'skin'

Fish Balls - with diced spring onions and carrots - Just like any other fish ball

Siew Mai

Lou Mai Kai - This is not too bad

Pei Tan Sau Yuk Chuk

Siew Yuk - OOOO this was really good!

Zhao Woo Kok - Savory and crispy!

Char Siew Pau - I've had better

Zhao Foo Chook - Like I said, all the fried stuff are really good here

Har Chee Cheong Fun - Meh.

Zhao Salad Har Gau - My fav dish! Looks really yellowish though.

Wo Tip - This really needs more improvement, It was like eating plain bread. Tasteless.

          

Tucked nearly at the very end of Jalan Penchala, PJ Old Town. Lookout for the makeshift corner house opposite the stalls area shaded by tall trees and airy openings.

I wait an average 10-15 minutes during peak hours for my noodles. The hand made noodles are made fresh on the spot and served with your usual Pan Mee bits: anchovies, sliced mushrooms, fried Onion bits and vege (don't ask me what I hate cooked vege)

Each bowl goes for RM4.50 . If you're into a slightly slimier glide of this hand-peeled noodle this is the noodle for you. Texture wise... so so. It is the best around this area but I really won't say the best I've ever had.

Google map? Here it is
View Pan Mee At Jalan Penchala in a larger map

          

Good fishball noodles used to be available around Jalan Doraisamy, until Asian Heritage Row came about. (I have yet the whereabouts of that stall). Thus I settle for this little corner in San Peng, KL. Hup Lik near the Dato' Onn School in San Peng, Kuala Lumpur. Right across the "Rukun Tetangga" shack in the area.

The place is always packed, but it should not take you more than 10 minutes to get seated. The place is more of a come andgo rest stop for families looking for a quick breakfast or household maidens taking a rest after excursions in the nearby market.

Talk to the two guys manning the store closest to the beverage counter to introduce yourself to...

The fishball noodles (as most Malaysians would know) served the standard Chinese way, Either in piping hot clear soup or and the typical option of having yellow noodles, kuey teoh, or mee hoon. I usually have mine dried as noodles, or served with soup for the other two types of noodles.

Here's your standard serving of RM4.00 each, for noodles, four fishballs and one fish paste wanton.

Honestly the noodles are more of the chaperon that comes with the real stars of the show. The Fishballs and Fish Paste Wanton.

Whenever I eat with frieds, I top up with another minimum 10 fishballs and 10 pcs of fishpaste wanton (RM8.00 per bowl in that combination)

Great tasting fishballs have a smooth surface on them, pierces easily through a chopstick without much effort and without the fishball breaking into two,  when put in the mouth can be delicately tossed around with the tongue with a slight bounce and doesn't have an overpowering fishy smell with a slightly saltish taste.

Fish paste wanton (yu pei wan ton) are abit of a rare find. You'd prolly find them as one of the meats in your concotion of steamboat (certainly not the best way to eat them). The fish paste used in the process of making fish balls is flattened into a thin layer. The core of the wanton is a mash of minced pork wrapped up with the flattened fish paste and simmered in the same way the fishballs are. The result is a slightly translucent wanton with the taste of pork and fishpaste all into one.

Compressing it with the tongue will cause the pork centre to slip out of the fishpaste wrapping leaving a slimy feel on the tongue which is quickly replaced by a soul seizing flavour. Yum.

So far so good and plenty of good comments about the fish ball noodles for the many people that I've brought here. Remember to go before noon because that's when they all sell out.

The best way to get there is through the Loke Yew roundabout. Driving into Jalan Gelang. Take the slip road in between Jalan Yew and Jalan Loke Yew, take the turing into Jalan Gelang about 50 metres down the road. You'll be able to see the side of the shop on your left before approaching the side gate of SMK Dato' Onn. It's hard to miss with all the amount of people in the place.

Now go eat!

          

I would say, in the start I got conned by mom to play an instrument none of my older cousins were playing so I would be just that bit more 'special'. I never really understood my teachers because I was a young little 'banana' who would just nod her head at the end of every sentence spoken to her in Cantonese or Mandarin.

I was also forced to play by having mom using the cane to thwap my poor fingers when i refused two hours of practice a week.

Until I found the best teacher, who really cultivated my love for the string instrument...that I now play a whole range of classical string based intruments.. WHEE!

So today...mom found the notes to one of my favourite Gu Zheng pieces! I was so upset that I had lost A WHOLE FILE of my notes but when this one resurfaced, I made sure that I have this recorded so at least I can pen it down next time!

The Title of the piece is 王昭君 (wang zhao jun) One of the famous "Four Beauties of China". According to other legend and folklore, she commits suicide after her husband's death as her only resort in order to avoid marrying his son.

          

Lydia: What do you want to eat tonight?

April: I dunno. I've been having so much good food, I have no idea what to eat.

I had so much food, not only can I feel the muffin spillover effect around my pants, but I felt the cosmic collision of flavours in the organ embedded beyond my solar plexus.

We chanced upon Dain Ti Hill, nestled in the corner of the top shopping floor in Pavillion. We dumped the initial plan to have Thai, Korean, Turkish or whatever there was to celebrate a moment here:

The place looked like a Chinese restaurant that fettered with a Shanghai night club. The Neon Blues coming together with the Reds to orchestrate a  play of violet and gold illuminations thoughout the place.(Though this made it hard for me to take pics without a filter!)

When asking the friendly waiter what did they serve, we had a choice of Chinese/Japanese Fusion food. Interesting. We really do have enough of those Taiwanese fusion or Hong Kong fusion dines in K.L. and this restaurant after all is the first branch they've opened in M'sia from Taipei itself.

A salad of nuts, chunked up grape fruits and salad. It's something that tastes really fresh, with a mild zesty taste. Instead of expecting a sourish taste to the mix, there was a surprising bitterness possibly because of the grapefruit.

A sweet mustard cream sauce with cashews, peppers and deep fried chicken. If you like something like your usual sweet and sour dish with mustard notes towards the end of the taste, I recommend this

"Wong Kum Tau Foo" echoed Mr. captain as we ordered this dish. You've got your usual white tofu here. Braised with alot of Salted Egg Yolk. Gets abit gooey and filling the more you eat it. Two or Three ladles of this scooped on your dish is enough.

This topped the cake (although it ain't cake). The sauteed Imperial Beef in Imperial Sauce. It was sooo tender....not melt in your mouth tender but chewy tender. Caramelised Onions, lightly peppered on the top. The taste is well..imperial. A great 7.5 stars out of 10 beef dish.

Inclusive of a drink and rice the bill came up to about MYR90.00 a pretty decent price for a Chinese Style dinner. I'd like to go back and try the Emperor Rolls the have a full page on! Definitely going to let daddy know, he'd love the beef!

Off then to have hot chocolate and another slice of birthday cake, (Which I didn't blow candles off... I swear mom...honest) while waiting for Mei Ai's call. Didn't think she could make it with the heavy rain and her choir performance and all.

And here is a picture of me and Lydia. We've been celebrating every birthday together since we were 18! Hsu Pheen and Melissa must be really missing us now... but thanks very much to Lissa for this post on me

          

With the very Chinese blood flowing through our veins and by some natural call of nature to ‘Chink Genetics’ we with reflex started translating and analyzing the numbers as closely as an auditor buried in numbers.

We are buoyed in emotion with the rates of the latest Happy Line; and yet cringe at the sight of the accursed ‘dying’ number in it’s 014 prefix.

I kid you not. We later tried incredibly hard to think of numbers to completely nullify the abating number that could mean suffering, expiring and ultimately just dying. Maybe if we had a number along the lines of '-545454' (won't die, won't die, won't die) that should do the trick!

Then there were those other numbers we hoped we weren’t unlucky enough to get addressed with. Fortunate for you if you know Chinese; it’s really much funnier at the sound and intonation it carries (I will however translate the bit)

114 1146 – everyday die everyday die and fall/drop

114 1124 – everyday die, everyday easy to die

535 4444 – don’t live; don’t die, die die die

246 4114 – easy die, drop and die, everyday die

Don’t blame us for being a slave to ciphers of Chinese numbers, I figure we could have been brought up in an almost identical manner when it comes to unraveling “the secrets of digits” *Insert sound effect of heavy noise from timpani drums here*

My own family itself has acquired a taste of fine numbers that we are engrossed obsessed by it.We’re just so completely gripped by it, I could illustrate the following examples:

My own car number means:“Fortune and Prosperity would come my way”

Part of my mothers hand phone number means “prosperity will easily be acquired”

We never cut our food stuffs into four pieces…EVER.

My own mobile states “You live, you will prosper. You die, you will prosper. You live or die, still will fortune is still yours”

One of my important documents has the number “5558”; which although in complete Chinese means “I won’t ever never prosper”. Shocked by my unfortunate luck with numbers when I applied for that document, my auntie has so Bastardised it so accordingly so it reads “Five, five, five, fatt” or in other words… ‘”fai fai fai fatt” in essence would lead to…”Quick fortunes”

I mean...until we had to ROMANISE the bloody number. Legalise it to a half parentage of English. MY GOD.

So now, should I still stick to the Happy Line and pretend that I'm not the least bit bothered with the number ruling my life whenever i give my number away. Then on the other hand I could still save alot of money AND THEN prosper with a mobile line with good rates. Or just look for a way to debauch the number in a foreign language.

It must be that confounded superstitious Chinese New Year bug that's landing a couple of bites on me