Tao - A Japanese Feast

Like I said, I will post about the restaurant that I went with my family during my Penang trip. I think I should call that a Penang trip cause I was in Penang 90% of the time. I missed Penang foods a lot you know.....

Anyway the restaurants I went were all very classy this time around. No longer squatting at the road side while eating a bowl of wan tan mee. I never do that anyway. But Penang has developed so much that I was ooh-aah-ing for the first few days, and my friend got annoyed by that.
The restaurant Tao is located in E-Gate, don't really know how to describe it cause I was there only a few times.

It is a Japanese buffet and the best thing is they serve you per order, and drinks are included! These means they only cook the foods per order and drinks are mostly juices and japanese tea! I think you'll have to look on your own and compare it to the rest of the fishes in the sea. The front banner.
I think this running water have something to do with fengshui..... But it does looks like the person from the other side of the wall was peeing over the wall into the vase?
Very zen style. All the wall was decorated with bamboo.
Scallops! Yummy, but not as fresh and big as those from Aus
Sashimi!!!! My fav!!!! They are very good actually. Ordered heaps of them
Can't remember what is that. Could be Salmon Teriyaki
Prawn Tempura
Grilled Eel. The waiter was very friendly and help us heaps. We were suppose to finish the rice, but being a clever and calculative Chinese, we don't want to eat the rice and reduce the stomach space for other good foods. Although they weren't allow to take the dishes if we havent finish ALL the foods, one of them just quietly sneak that away!
Some tofu dishes, can't remember what it is called, something start with "A"
Tempura prawn sushi!
Something pipi. Can't remember, it has been awhile and my memory is as bad as the next goldfish
Some fried udon. I don't really like them cause I was bloated by then.
Deep fried mantis prawn. Likie!
Lamb Chop. That's very yummy. Only my dad and I ate them, cause others don't like the taste. And how my dad and I enjoyed that!

I think we ordered almost all the dishes that they can offer from Tao. Okay, except all the sushi. We are not suppose to eat rice in these restaurants. You might wonder how much this restaurant costed?

RM49 per person. How cheap!!!!!! I gained 1 extra kg after that night...... But I would love to go back to this restaurant next time when I am in Penang. Maybe this time I will go to the one in mainland Penang cause they said the mainland branch have better foods and decoration. I am not sure.

Taste of Belachan

Just a short entry to tell you my whereabouts. It has been awhile since I bloggged. I was pretty buggered from my trip back to Aus and I was busy with getting all the documents together for my permanent residency application.

I actually travelled for 24 hours from Malaysia to Melbourne. That's crazy hour of travelling, it sounded like I am staying in UK, where travelling for such amount of time is considered to be normal. How can I go from 8 hours of flight to 24 hours? Okay, let make them into a list!

2.00 pm (Malaysian time) - Reach Penang Airport
3.00 pm - Flight took off from Penang
4.00 pm - Reach LCCT Airport in KL
10.00 pm - Fly back to Aus (after 6 hours of transit)
5.00 am - Reached Gold Coast (7 am Aussie time)
1.00 pm - Fly back to Melb (after 6 hours of transit)
3.00 pm - Reach Melbourne (pretty buggered, and doped)

There you go, 24 hours. When I touch down Melbourne, it was pretty dark already. Thank god my uncle came and fetch me. I actually slept in Coolangatta Airport, on the benches and hugging all my luggages. I might be sleeping with a big mouth opened, and if there were flies, I could have shallowed heaps of them!

Now I am working my ass of to get all the documents ready. Body check, academic transcript, completion letter, etc etc. Thank to my cousin who fixed the internet connection, so now I can use the internet from my computer!

I guess I should stop ranting about what happened. Now that I am back in Melbourne, with coldness surrounding me, I should be please and be grateful.

When I was in Penang, I also had a lot of belachan foods!!!! Belachan Water Spinach, Belachan Chicken and Belachan Mantis Prawn!!!! So below is the picture of Belachan Chicken. The picture did not do its justice, of course the taste and smell are way better than what its appearance over here. I took it from my home, after my dad brought them back from the hawker stall. Oh btw, I will be writing about another good restaurant that I had back in Penang. It is called Tao, at somewhere I can't remember. It is a Japanese restaurant, although it has a so called Chinese name. I will talk about it soon!
Till then!

-lex-

Seafoods at Teluk Kumbar

I probably should say that I could not live up to my promise... I did say that I will not over-indulge when I am back in Penang. But I did. Now I am an all-rounded person, with a big round tummy, all thanks to the foods in Penang and a hyper persuasive mother.

Once they heard of what I wanted to eat, there we go, our next destination. I have been eating all those good foods and I should say I am indulging every single bit of it! Oh well, since I will only be in Penang for 3 months, and next Monday I will be flying back to Melbourne. So it is understandable that people will try to shove as much foods as possible into a tiny opening at the front of my face called mouth.

I did not go anywhere other than mainland Penang. I don't need to, cause this trip is suppose to be my Makan Trip, and my Home Trip. Most of the day it was so hot, I was scared of going out during day time! So I normally go out for dinner, and sometime being cheated to attend a Drink-All-You-Want feast with my friends....

Anyway, talking about the seafoods restaurant, it is a beach front restaurant. Once I said beach front restaurant, you might think it will be very classy and all those expensive stuffs. As a matter of fact, it is not classy and not at all expensive. I think for 5 persons, it only costed us about RM50. Which is about rm10 per person, with the seafoods, it is Al-CHEAPO!

Normally we get to sit on the beach and eat our seafoods, but since that day it was a raining day, all of us have to squat below a shelter. I did check whether the shop is still open, thinking it might be washed away by tsunami in 2004. After making sure the shop is still there, we hopped onto my brother in law's car and off we went!

The restaurant was behind an abandoned building, and it is very easy to miss that place. We missed that before and had to make a U-ie and drive superbly slow, making a row of cars driving slowly behind us, just to get into the driveway into the restaurant.

This is the front of the restaurant, it is a very small house aka restaurant with tables and chair all around the beach. The blue boxes are where they keep the seafoods, not in a very classy aquarium for the fishes. Remember, this is not a classy restaurant, but their foods are way better than those that charged us through our nose.

This is Sambal Kangkung aka Water spinach with sambal belacan sauce. My favorite!!!! Yummy.

Deep fried sotong, or squid!

This is Salad He-Koh, or Mantis Prawn Salad. Although it is very yummy, other people were saying it was a bit small.

Some kind of cockles. Can't remember the name of the cockles, but the sauce was very very good!

This is the last dishes, the CRAB!!!!!

Oh wait, I've forgotten to take the Satay's picture. That satay is very different from other satay, cause the satay was grilled with the spicy sauce! So yummy I could not remember to take it's picture.

Penang Foods - Bak Kut Teh

You guys might wonder why is this heck keep on writing on his blog when he suppose to be outside enjoying the every bit of Penang.
Reason: The Malaysian weather is just too crazy for me. So hot, I can melt once I step out of the house..... So most of you guys can see me hanging around my house most of the day, waiting for the sun to set. Yep, I am the next Dracula!!!!! Bwahahahahaha.

Okay, this time I am introducing you one of my favourites! Bak Kut Teh. Pork Bone Teh if I were to direct translate that. Basically it is a soupy dish that contained all kind of pork meats, pork bones, Chinese mushrooms, bean curd, and something I missed the most, deep fried dough! Back in Aus, I can still cook this dish whenever I like. But, I can never find good and fresh deep-fried dough.....

Yeah, I think once you guys hear about the word soupy, you might think that the heat had gone up to my head..... Normally after eating this dish, I will sweat like a pig. So normally I will eat that for tea, not lunch. Okay enough of crapping. The place that I went was located at Macalister Road, opposite to a hotel named Red Rock Hotel. Yep, once again, I did not take the name of the place down. Besides, the foods that I devoured were mostly from hawker centres, which mostly has no name...... So if you guys want to try this place out, make sure you pay attention when you drive from the city and reached the hawker centre called Hong Kong Dim Sum.
They have this traditional way of cleaning your cutlery. Hmm, not cutlery, maybe your chopsticks and spoons. The traditional way is by cleaning your "cutlery" with a bowl of hot water. Super hot, you will get burn if you are not well trained. Maybe if you go for dimsum anywhere you will still see this, but outside the dimsum restaurant you hardly see this way anymore.

The sumptuous feast. Maybe not sumptuous, but definitely mouthwatering one! The plate of yellow-ish cubes are the deep-fried dough I was talking about. You dip them into the soup and eat it when they are soaking wet with the soup! Very flavoursome.

Tada! This is the Bak Kut Teh! Filled with meats and a bit of veggie. But the soup is very herby, unlike the Singaporean style, which is mostly pepper...... That night we had 3 refills of the soup and we can still finished the whole claypot. I drank at least 2 bowls of the soup!

Next time maybe later today or tomorrow I will post more foods up. Maybe I will do the seafoods from Teluk Kumbar!

Foods in Penang - I

I think I will dedicate this blog into foods for these few days. Cause I wanted to lure you guys into coming to Penang. Okay, the first stop has to be the one from a hawker centre in Tanjung Bungah. I can't recalled what is the hawker centre name, but it is opposite the Penang Chinese Swimming Club. I was the member over there before, and that place was pretty familiar to me, eventhough I lived in the city.

Okay, this place was introduced by my sister. There is this place that sell "ikan bakar - grilled fish". 不一样 ikan bakar. Yeah you hear me correct, it means Unique Grilled Fish.... The name itself was very catchy, so I went ahead with my sister. It turned out to be very nice! The sauce was really different from a normal grilled fish. The sauces had some deep-fried anchovies and dried shrimps as well. So since the 不一样 ikan bakar is so famous, we decided to name the place 不一样 Hawker Centre! Sorry guys, the picture of the grilled fish turned out to be pretty dark. I was quite new to my sister's camera. So you guys will have to settle for the 不一样 sotong or 不一样 grilled squid. The next thing I wanna introduce is Ambla Sumboi! Ambla is a fruit, a bit bitter to some people's taste. So they add dried plumes which makes it sourish! That's the drink I always order since I reach Penang 1 week ago. Yeah, I am in Penang for a week, although my mom is annoying me to the max, I am looking forward for more Penang foods!

Although the grilled fish is very good, others were only alrite. Satay, fried oyster omelette were so so only. I will post some of the good satay up next time. I will try to update this blog with heaps of foods next time. So I guess I shall make you guys drool for awhile, before the big Niagra falls come down! Hahahaha.

A normal (not unique) satay

Pretty normal fried oyster omelette

Ice kacang, or I don't know what it is called. Basically it is a cold dessert.

Job well done. I took heaps of pictures of other foods, they doesn't turn out nicely..... I was having Hokkien-Loh Mee actually. It is mixture of Loh Mee and Prawn Mee. Spicy and very sticky, ditch that dish a lot!

Till next time, please prepare your mouth for Niagra Fall!

Pipi

Okay, to make one thing clear. This title is Pipi. But it has nothing to do with cheeks. Pipi in Malay means cheeks. I am not going to talk about cheeks over here. This entry is about Australian Pipi (a bivalves which could be found in the sand, for Malaysian, they call it Lala(s).) It is pronounced as pee.pee, just like in Malay for cheek.

I better tell the whole story right here right now. Last Monday, it was Australian Day. So we thought of doing something more Australian. Not opening a barbie, or get ourselves drunk like babies. We headed to the beach!

It was Venus Bay. I will post that entry in my other blog Moomoolanders, when I grab those photos from Jon and Mel. Anyway, while we were in the beach, we were playing with waves and water, when Chun Yau found pipi which is alive and kicking!

Then I found another on the sand, and there goes the whole Pipi Expedition! All in all, we dug out about 2 bags full of pipi. After making sure we were not violating the law, we brought that 2 bags happily!!!! Mind you, they are completely FREE!!!!!Okay these are some of the photos of pipi and the menu made out of them! The big chef of that day was Yong, and I reckon he did a great job in cooking them!!!!!!

This is only one eighth of the pipi

Cooking those pipi. Yummm!

First dishes: Garlic Pipi with White Wine

Second Dishes: Tomato Pipi with Red Wine. Yum yum!!!

Third Dishes: My favorite, Belachan Pipi!!!!!

Jason getting ready to eat those pipi(s)

Me and Mel already started serving the pasta

Those pipi waste

Then here are some of the famous quotes of THAT day:

Yong: I was just complaining to Mel that I don't get to eat lala (pipi) since I came to Aus. Now I had plenty!
Mel: Are we going to finish those lalas?
Sookie: These are hell a lot of lalas...
Jason: If we want more free pipi, just go back to Venus Bay!
Jon: Are those black stuffs, shit?
Ammie: I can't be bother eating them anymore......
Me (Lex): I want more lalas!!!!! Yumm.

PS, None of us except Yong got diarrhoea after eating those pipi. This means they are safe to eat!

Steamy Fish

Yesterday I felt the sadness of animals in the zoo. Being looked at and pointed at. Being throwed at with rubbish and foods that is no good for them. That is what I felt last nite. Hahaha. Okay it is not as bad as what I have just described, but it is definitely awkward.

Felt like this, but I am wearing clothes. Definitely. Hahaha. Ps: Picture taken from other blog. Can't remember where I got them. But pretty funny!

After beating around the bush for so damn long. I should have told you guys what was humiliating and embarrassing me.

Wing Sze and I was cooking Chinese steamed fish yesterday, since the day before we brought ourselves two fishes from Midvalley. After cooking, we eat your dinner as usual, outside the common room. But yesterday Dee and Kara's friends came over to stay and party. I reckon Kara is the one who saw the fish first. She was so amazed, that she yelled out for everyone in the house to see our lovely little (big Red Fish) fish. Hahaha... Everyone was looking in awe and amaze by way we eat it. With heads and tails attached.... Dee was the one who looked with a big crotch-hole. It is good she did not break down and cry, since she is a vegetarians because she loves animals too damn much. Hahaha.

On the other hand, we tried to tell everyone that we Asians EAT the fish this way. It is much more fresher and nicer than eating them in flakes. But oh well, this is their culture. Never eat anything that had heads and tails in them.

Chinese steamed fish. I took this picture from another person's blog as well. If you want to know how to cook it, just click over the link.

Penang Chiak in WH33

Sorry guys for the hiatus, been busy being a maid to clean the whole damn house and moving from one house to another...... Can you believe, in this one and half years, I have moved 6 times.... SIX times. I can soon be a professional mover.

I have been looking forward for Saturday for the last 1 week. Really looking forward for the Penang Chiak by three of us, Penangites who still stuck in Moomooland: Jason, Wayne and me. So we make an excuse to cook and talk cock (crap). Besides Wayne is going away soon, so we might as well give him a small small farewell party or some sorts. We are definitely not going to party because the voting for Australian election was up. We were watching Star Wars instead of the Election.

The morning before, we were planning to have a swim. But, because of my cramps on my left leg, I need to abandon the plan and left Jason to swim alone in the big pool. My cramps could be due to the fact that I drove manual car after donkey years and my left leg was hanging in the air most of the time because I need to prepare to step the clutch..... Anyway I will talk about that next time!

So instead of swimming, we went to Midvalley to buy all those ingredients. There is no Laksa's noodles (the Assam Laksa's noodles) so we need to go with kuey teow instead (rice noodle). We have Wing Tse to join us, because she is our housemate and we can't just drop kick her aside right?! So she get to taste all the good Penang foods, which were cooked by three big Penang chefs. After we had the appetizer, which was Fake Shark Fin's soup, only I realised that we need to take the photos of our foods, and make everyone drools like waterfall coming out of their big-round-cave-look-a-like-mouth-that-could-contains-flies-instead-of-bats. Therefore these are the pictures for our lil-Penang-kia-makan-party!

The whole table, without Wayne's Char Kuey Teow. Look how clean is our table, I bloody clean it before the party. In normal days, it is full with stuffs from our local housemates.

Jason Chan's Asam Laksa (I know when people see Laksa, they will definitely think of Curry Laksa, but since Penang is a unique place, she have uniques name for all their foods. Unlike other places!)
Description: It is not as spicy as the one in Penang, but the taste really brings back memories! I miss the sourish and spicy foods!

My Fried Belachan Chicken. Sorry guys I didn't bother making them into the best formations. Cause I am actually drooling and I am a person who emphasised on the taste of the foods, not the presentation.
Description: The belachan taste is nice enough! A bit salty for some people's taste but I like heaps of belachan in it. I am the chef remember! Just follow the Law!!!!

Wayne aka Tee boh eh Char Kuey Teow Ah Pek is cooking one of the famous foods, Char Kuey Teow

His creations, with my photography skills after I am full and in good mood to take some good pictures. At that time, my Belachan chicken are all gone.
Description: Although there is no bean sprouts (Wayne just can't find the bean sprouts, but got scolded by us for being so smart to miss out the bean sprout section.... And there is no fish cakes. But it taste quite nice. I reckon he put enough of oils to make it shiny and oily.

I was busy putting the natta de coco into the cups with Jason drooling and looking desperately for water.

There you goes, this is my dessert drinks (Lychee punch). With a pinch of vodka!
Description: You can taste sweetness from the lychee, and some sour taste from the lemon. And most importantly the vodka taste is there!

Jason wanted to make an extra dessert as well, something like Grilled Peaches, that need heaps of sugar, and eggs.... So we drop that idea since all of us are so damn full, not Wayne though. Wing Tse who can't drink alcohol looks like a bit drunk after drinking the Lychee punch. But I reckon she is being bored. Because with 3 Penangites in the house, they HAVE TO speak Penang Hokkien with each other. This dialect is what brought us together in the first place.