Valentine's Day dinner at Magnificent Fish and Chips Bar (Changkat BB)

This is the first time we celebrated Valentines on the exact date, was a bit reluctant to try due to the bad comments from other couples saying horrendous traffic jams, long wait times, bad service and the list goes on...

Last night we had our dinner at the Magnificent Fish and Chips Bar located at Changkat Bukit Bintang which I booked a table almost 2 weeks back. Good luck finding parking by the road side. We parked at Radius International Hotel, came out to be RM6.50... pretty much the normal hotel parking rate, maybe this is slightly cheaper...

There were not many people when we arrived, though we were 20 mins ate, took me almost an hour plus from Shah Alam, with a few wrong turns... normal KL traffic flow as it was drizzling all the way.

One thing to note that there is no non-smoking section. The menu is written on a green board hung on the wall, place is quite dim though but not bad :)


 
Almost half the patrons are foreigners!


Waitresses were helpful with recommendations, service was quick, plates cleared from the table whenever we finish. We ordered:

1. Starters - Smoked salmon on toast (RM26)
2. Main - Grilled Salmon and Roast Black Cod (RM38 and RM48 respectively)
3. Drinks - Frozen Margarita and Cappuccino (RM20 and RM8 respectively)

The Smoked salmon on toast is something special, it was served on top of salad dressed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Every mouth there is a fantastic combination of balsamic vinegar, wasabi and olive oil! Recommended!

 Other tables already got their Fish and Chip where as we waited another 10-15 mins for ours to arrive. Portions are fairly small... most probably we were served just a quarter or at most half of the cutlet! For that price we could actually buy the them twice the size and cook at home!

Anyway, we started with the cod, surprisingly it was pretty good! The cod is served with potato cubes and cream sauce (like cabonara). The cod is juicy and the potatoes cubes were fried with onions, combined them with the cream sauce, fantastic!

The grilled salmon was served with some kind of vegetable, one should be cucumber or zucchini, can't really make out what was the other yellow coloured one, but it tasted a bit bitter. This dish was somewhat a let down... Salmon tasted dry, most probably over grilled due to the thickness of the cutlet, pretty normal we would say. Try at your own risk :P

The frozen Margarita was strawberry flavoured, no comments, it's a Margarita. The cappuccino was good, we are coffee lovers! Forgot to ask what coffee beans were used but we liked it :)

The bill come out to be RM140 + 10% service = RM154
It was a good experience, will be back in future to try their famous battered fish and chips!

Thanks for reading.

If you have a GPS, here are the coordinates:
N 03° 08.865
E 101° 42.433

Melaka Food - must visit places

It has really been awhile since i posted, felt like there is dust and cob webs everywhere... Anyway, if you happen to be in Melaka, here are my list of recommended "makan" places:

Jeta Grooves - Melaka Raya

This is by far the best (nyonya) cendol (cendol, red beans, santan, gula Melaka) \we have ever tasted! The difference is this shop uses real Gula Melaka (Melaka brown sugar) and very fresh santan (coconut milk). It comes in a very small bowl (only RM2). One is usually not enough for me, but I had to control due to my slightly higher than normal cholesterol level...

Some other food you can try here are the Mee Siam (RM3), tau kua (bean curd) and Durian Cendol (must try for durian lovers - RM3). Their Kuih (desserts) are very "nyonya", original :)

Do drop me a comment if you have any good recommendations, we will be more than happy to give it a try :)

Updates in the location:

Ming Sate Hut - Near Holiday Inn/Dataran Pahlawan
There are quite a number of satay stall/shops in Melaka, some famous ones are located in Jonker Street. Previously the one that we frequented most is located opposite a school, we are not sure about the name of the shop and which street its on, we only know how to go there :P
Anyway, my uncle recommended me this one which is easier to find, cleaner and it actually tasted better! This shop also sells good fresh fruit juices :)

Well... nothing is cheap is Melaka nowadays... but good food is priceless (to us at least) :)

Will posting more soon

Singapore trip Oct 2009

If you are driving to Singapore... the most confusing thing that was noticed (at least to me) is the parking coupon system... even the locals there are unclear of what kind of coupons to use... either they have a monthly pass or they stay in a private residence...

Some info of the signboards can be found here:
HDB info web: car park signboard

There are 3 main coupons that is used, the usual ones (SGD1.00 and SGD2.00) can be bought from 7-11 or any other convenience store.

The special SGD10.00 24 hour parking coupon can only be bought at HDB branches...

Huat Kee Fish ball @ Jln Loke Yew

If you like fishball noodles like Ah Koong or Tang's House of Fish ball, you might want to try Fatt Kee (Cantonese pronunciation)/Huat Kee (Hokkien pronunciation) at Jalan Loke Yew :)

I am not that good in giving directions but here goes... I only know the federal highway route, drive all the way along the highway (you will eventually reach Mid-Valley and automatically linked to Jalan Syed Putra) until you reach a roundabout. Taking a left at the roundabout will bring you to Merdeka Square, on the right will be towards Sg. Wang, Lot 10, etc. After turning to the right, keep left and follow the road pass the traffic lights, it's illegal to keep right at the traffic lights. You will pass a temple (on your left), keep right and enter Jalan Kinabalu. Keep going straight and go under the underpass entering Jalan Loke Yew. Upon seeing a flyover, keep left and make a U-turn under the flyover. Be careful here as you will need to make a left turn about 15m from the U-turn. Fatt Kee is the corner shop on the left :)

This shop used to open during day time... maybe the boss is nearing his retirement therefore only opens from 6:00pm to 2:00am now :)

There is an air conditioned room which we prefer to eat in since the shop is just beside a busy main road and next to a flyover. We managed to snapshot the menu:

Also the mobile number and opening hours:

What is special here is the soup, the sweet as it's boiled with the Sai Dou fish's bones, and not much MSG added. We usually go for the dry kuey teow (hor fun) mee and kuey teow soup. The fish balls are bouncy and sweet and yet not artificially made:

So... if you happen to pass this area and wanted to eat something light and not too solid, you can give this place a try, enjoy :)

updates:
banner at night:

Snow lotus yeast enzyme (天山雪莲)

This is an enzyme drink was recommended by my wife's colleague, Ms. J. It contains most, if not all of the characteristics of any enzyme drink (the sourness, alcohol taste due to fermentation, etc). In addition to that, the Snow Lotus plant is said to contain medicinal properties and was used for centuries by medical practitioners in China and Tibet to cure diseases and enhance health. Most of the information on the net are available in Chinese (unfortunately I can't read Chinese) though.

One fine night on a rainy weekend, we followed Ms. J to Mr. A's house to have a look on how this enzyme is fermented and harvested from the so-called yeast of the Snow Lotus. We got some yeast from Mr. A and made it at home.

Some basic tools/instruments that you need for the entire process are listed below:
1. Big plastic bucket/container (for temporarily storing the enzyme)
2. Smaller plastic bucket (for mixing brown sugar with filtered water)
3. Plastic filters
4. Cloth coffee filter (for filtering diluted brown sugar)
5. Wooden/plastic spatula (for diluting brown sugar with filtered water)
6. Rice bowls
7. Glass container with plastic, screwed on cover (for fermentation)
8. A funnel (for pouring the enzyme into glass bottles)

Below are the ingredients and procedures (Mr. A already made one for us so what we did was to harvest and make a new one):
1. Pour out the fermented yeast (enzyme) into a clear plastic container by filtering the yeast and the enzyme

2. Clean the glass container

3. The ingredients should be mixed in the following proportions depending on the size of your glass container (note that there is no strict ruling that the ratios below have to be exact, you may adjust according to preference, e.g. if you accidentally added more than 3l of water, you can add more sugar and yeast to balance up again):

• 6 bowls of Snow Lotus yeast
• 2 bowls of brown sugar (Thai brown sugar cost around RM28 for 7kg, preferably use Indian brown sugar at RM21 for 7kg)
  
• 2.7-3 liters of filtered water

Mix 2 bowls of brown sugar with 3 liters of filtered water. The brown sugar is hard, the wooden spatula is for stirring and crushing the sugar while mixing:

The brown sugar solution will contain some dirt, pieces of cane, etc therefore a coffee filter is needed for extra filtering:

Upon finishing the above procedures, the last step is to close the lid. You need to close and tighten the lid once, open it then close and tighten in again. The fermentation process should take place is a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight for 4 days (e.g. you start on Sunday night 9pm, next harvesting day will be Thurday before 9pm) until the next harvest.

After every 5th harvest, you should rinse the yeast using filtered water. If you plan to stop the fermentation/harvesting for a short period (say you have holiday plans, etc), you can store the yeast in the refrigerator up to 3 months.


Things to note during the process are as per below:
1. The enzyme should not have any contact with metal
2. The bottle storing the enzyme should have a screwed on cap so that it can be allowed to breathe
3. Instruments should never have any contact with oil
4. The longer you ferment, the more sour the enzyme.


Things to note for consumers:
1. This drink can be taken before or after meals, more than once a day (Gastric patients should consume after meals)
2. Consumers that has coronary diseases and asthmatic patients should dilute the enzyme with water before drinking.
3. Not suitable for pregnant ladies but can be taken 3 months after labour
4. Enzyme should be drank 4 hours later after consuming tuber crops (such as potatoes)
5. This drink is some what "heaty" therefore drink lots of water. Coconut water helps as well.

Updates as of 23rd Aug 2010

Click for larger image :)



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