CRIZ BON APPETITE

Most people would just visit the many “branded” shops in Penang for buying some local products back home. Thus, with so much of publicity and advertising charges incurred by the companies, the products would be rather expensive. There is this shop called Hock Lok Siew Biscuit Trading within the heart of Georgetown itself that produces quality local products and market them at a cheaper price. In fact, they are the main shop that supplied 40%-50% of their products to the food industry. Here are some of their products (about 40% shown) available throughout the year.

Since today is Malaysia’s Independence Day as well as the 1st day of the 8th Month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, it also marked the start of the Mid Autmn Festival. Traditionally, on this day, many Chinese households would gather family members and friends to celebrate this festival outdoor while admiring the bright mid-autumn harvest moon. Children would be playing with colorful lanterns lighted with candle (nowadays battery operated too). Moon cakes and biscuits would be in abundance as desserts.

The shop would also produce such tasty delicacies during this festival. They have many paste fillings such as red bean, green bean, coconut, lotus seed, durian, red plum, pandan lotus, green tea, mixed nuts, and also mixed nuts with ham. All would be priced between RM4.00 and RM7.00. You will have the option to add in a salted egg by paying only RM1.00 extra per egg yolk. If you feel that one big moon cake would be too sweet for you to consume, they do have the mini size moon cakes (red bean and lotus seed paste only) at RM4.00 per box. That’s for two red bean paste and two lotus seed paste mini moon cakes. It’s a great bargain. All the moon cakes come with a simple yet great plastic box to present as a gift to your family and friends.

On top of that, they do have moon biscuits (Gong Zai Pheang) for sale too. The plain, melon seed, red bean, lotus seed and coconut moon biscuit would be available throughout the year while the durian paste moon biscuit are seasonal. Prices ranged between RM4.00 and RM7.00 for 10 pieces or per 500grams.

If you are coming from Trader’s Hotel along Jalan Magazine, keep to your left and drive on until you have reach the second traffic light. Turn into the first road on your left (Jalan Gurdwara) and then the first left turning into Lebuh Noordin. The shop is just somewhere in the middle on your right within a row of heritage houses. By the way, please give them a call prior to going as some of the products might be available only at certain time of the day.

Do you want to win something for all the hard work you have put in for your websites or blogs? Here is the opportunity for you to win RM100 worth of food vouchers for your next visit to Fun Tea Garden. The rules are rather simple. Just blog about the Dim Sum shop in Penang and leave your name and post link in the Mister Linky’s attached and the panel of judges will get back to you if you are a winner. There will be THREE RM100 worth of vouchers to be won. The closing date for the contest is on 31 AUGUST 2008.

GREAT NEWS: Effective 4 August 2008, Fun Tea Garden would be extending its business hours to 12 hours a day, from 12.00 midnight until 12.00 noon.

RULES & REGULATIONS:

1. This contest is open to all non-Muslim Malaysian bloggers, especially those around Penang area.
2. You will need to pay a visit to the Fun Tea Garden Dim Sum shop (address and location map as in the link above) anytime between 12.00 midnight and 12.00noon daily and shoot whatever photos you deemed right and blog about it. You can print and use the voucher above to claim your 10% discount. Make sure you write your NAME, EMAIL and BLOG ADDRESS behind your printout.
3. Sign in your NAME and POST LINK CORRECTLY in the Mister Linky’s attached once you have posted the review for easy tracking.
4. The review can be in either ENGLISH or MANDARIN.
5. Photographs must be originals. Anyone found to have copied from others would be disqualified.
6. There are no restrictions to how many websites/blogs reviews you can submit but ONLY ONE would be awarded the prize.
7. Closing date will be before midnight on 31 AUGUST 2008.
8. Results would be announced here on 8 SEPTEMBER 2008.
9. All winners would be contacted by email.
10. The organizer and sponsor reserved the right to publish any photos submitted for contest publicity purposes.
11. The panel of judges’ decisions would be final and no correspondences would be entertained.

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Since Aeon Jusco Bandar Perda had already opened since 22 August 2008, we decided to pay the place a visit for some Big Apple donuts. LOL! But on the way there, we ended up at one of my favorite restaurants there when I was working in the Bukit Minyak Industrial Area. Look Yuen Restaurant has been serving many of the workers as well as residents there for years. It’s almost always packed during lunch and dinner hours. In fact, this is the only restaurant that has its kitchen stationed upstairs in another shoplot. It was interesting to see how they transfer food from upstairs using the mini automated elevators.

The first dish served was their house specialty – Steamed Glass Noodle (Tang Hoon) with Homemade Fish Balls (RM5). The simple combination of sauce, big onions and spring onions went well with the noodles. The fish balls were fresh and springy.

Next was another of their specialties, the Honeyed Fried Chicken (RM7). Choice pieces of chicken were fried to perfection. The meat was well marinated and was very tender to my liking.

As usual, I love to try out every restaurant’s Spicy Buttered Prawns (RM14). Eight big fresh and juicy prawns were served. It was very yummy and the best part was that it was not over oily at all. I would recommend this dish as it’s worth the amount to have fresh prawns that cost barely RM2 each.

As for the pricing, RM29.60 inclusive of rice and drinks was not expensive at all. Since some are you are not familiar with the road to get to the restaurant, I will show you the easiest route here. If you coming from the Penang Bridge, keep towards your right and turn into the North-South Highway towards AutoCity / Ipoh / Kuala Lumpur. After you have passed the Juru Rest Area, keep to your left and turn left into Jalan Juru (Turn right and you will reach AutoCity). When you reach a traffic light at a “T” junction, turn left Jalan Bukit Tengah which will lead you to Bukit Mertajam town. Drive on. I will show you how to get there next as highlighted in the red box.

You will pass by two traffic lights (the 2nd traffic light will lead you to Aeon Jusco Bandar Perda). Drive on but keep to your left until you will see an overhead bridge to Permatang Pauh. DO NOT GO OVER THE OVERHEAD BRIDGE! Turn left into Jalan Kerjasama (about 50m before the overhead bridge) and right into Lorong Kerjasama 1. You can actually see the restaurant at the far end with huge signboards at the junction of Tingkat Kerjasama 4.

If you are planning to pay a visit to Aeon Jusco Bandar Perda, there’s a U-turn further up under the overhead bridge. When you reach the first traffic light, just turn left into Jalan Kebun Sireh. You will see the Jusco signboard from a far. When you reach another traffic light at Jalan Padang Lalang, turn left until you reach another traffic light. Turn right and drive on and you will see Bandar Perda on your left. Aeon Jusco Bandar Perda is just inside the township.

I could not believe my ears when I heard that Klang alone has over 300 stalls and shops selling Bak Kut Teh. No wonder Klang is believed to be the home of Bak Kut Teh. When I was in Klang, I thought I could revisit Fei Kay for their yummy Dry Bak Kut Teh. At the same time, I was also tempted to try out another famous stall known as “Under The Klang Bridge” Restaurant. In the end, I went for the new taste. I was expecting that all Bak Kut Teh stalls in Klang would have the dry version but I was wrong. This restaurant served only the soup version. Fortunately, the dish turned out to be marvelous. The soup was thick with the proper ingredients and was extremely tasty.

We also order a plate of Oil Vegetables to compliment our meaty dish. The differences between the vegetables (Cameron Lettuce) and the one served in Penang was that Klang style garnished the boiled vegetables with garlic oil and fried onions, whereas Penang style would be with fried lard in oil with meat floss.

The steamed rice was also different. It’s cooked with pork oil and garnished with fried garlic or fried onions, somewhat like the Hainanese style chicken rice. Penang style would be plain white rice or dark soy sauce rice with dried shrimps. Anyway, the rice was real fragrant and tasty to be taken with the Bak Kut Teh.

After enjoying the meal without noticing about how famous this shop had got itself into, I saw some newspaper cuttings on the wall showing how much Liang Wen Tao love this place. Uncle Liang, a Hong Kong Food Critic and Gourmet Secret Agent food presenter and author of many cookbooks had visited the restaurant twice for their Bak Kut Teh within the last 10 years. If a famous TVB person like him would revisit the restaurant, it must be real good then. By the way, the restaurant has been operating for the last 3 decades and ranked top 10 in Malaysia. Here’s the proof of his review in the local China Post.

As for the pricing, I won’t say it’s expensive as the 3 of us consumed RM22.20 worth of dishes with an extra helping of the oil rice. We brought our own tea leaves too since they were charging only 40sen per person for utilizing their hot water kettles. Here’s the price list:

Restoran Seng Huat Bak Kut Teh is also popularly known as the Restaurant “Under the Klang Bridge”. It is a corner lot the same stretch as the Klang KTM station. To get to the restaurant, you have to drive into Jalan Jambatan Kota and turn right into Jalan Dato Hamzah. When you see a “Y” junction, turn left into Jalan Tengku Diaudin. When you see a Bomba on your left, turn into the lane and you will also see the Klang District Police Headquarters on your left. Just drive forward while following the curve and you will see a pedestrian overhead bridge on your left. The restaurant is just next to the bridge along Jalan Besar.

Many people assumed that only Penang has the best Prawn Mee (Hokkien Mee). Well, not necessary true as I had one good one during my trip down to Setapak town in Kuala Lumpur. This stall has been there for some time and remained the favorite of the town folks. Each bowl of the yummy noodles came with a large portion of yellow noodles (options to add in bee hoon), bean sprouts, 4 medium sized prawns, 3 meaty pieces of pork ribs and garnished with lots of fried onions. The soup base is thick and has a mild taste of rock sugar. Each bowl cost us RM7.50 which I do not think was real expensive for the quality and amount served.

It is not hard to find the little shop as it is located along Jalan Pahang between Jalan Chan Chin Mooi and Lorong Chow Thye. Diagonally opposite on the right was the former Galeria building and on the left is SRJK (C) Chong Hwa.

If you are a coffee lover, you should not miss out the stall along the outskirt of Tanjung Tokong. This is one of the best stalls which served good thick and creamy local Hainanese coffee. You can have it either iced or hot. The great thing is that you only pay as you would as in any local coffee shops.

On top of the aromatic coffee, you can also savor their famous “Roti Kiap” aka Toasted Bread with Coconut Jam (Kaya) and Butter. It comes with many versions. You can spread it on top of the toasted bread, in between the bread or even taken with hard boiled eggs. A great choice for tea time.

The kaya is homemade to perfection as you can taste the richness of the eggs in it. You can buy back the kaya in a small plactic container (RM3.00) or in a big one (RM4.00).

If you are driving from town towards Tanjung Tokong, you will pass by the traffic light with Island Plaza on your right. Drive further until you reach another traffic light (Tari Burger is on your left). Drive further and you will reach a curve with another traffic light. Keep to your right and turn right into the road. Turn right again and you will see some stalls. Wang’s Café is just at the corner.