Best Ever Nasi Lemak Spots In Malaysia

Nasi lemak or the "fatty rice" is the most commonly found food in Malaysia. Good nasi lemak must carry the fragrant from banana leaf which blends very well with the soft and fluffy, coconut milk-infused rice. Coupled with the fiery hot and oily sambal...hmmm, it's the most sinful food for any weight watcher out there.  
There are many good nasi lemak spot in Klang Valley, below are the few good ones which I have tried.

R.A. Nasi Lemak  
15 Jalan Raja Abdullah, Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 012-244 4911. Open: 6am to 11am (Monday to Sunday), 4pm to 12am (Monday to Friday).)
The rice is steamed in the traditional wooden barrel, making each grain fluffy and separate. You can choose have your basic package with the thick sambal and usual condiments of peanuts, ikan bilis, hard boiled egg  or add extras from a selection of accompanying dishes, including its famously crunchy "kerisik"(fried coconut). 

Village Park Restaurant

5 Jalan SS21/37, Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03-7710 7860. Open: 7am to 8pm.

Village Park’s nasi lemak is extra special with fluffy rice grains and a rich coconut taste, thanks to the special way they steam the rice over coconut milk and pandan leaves within a traditional wooden tub. Basic nasi lemak costs RM2+ but if you’re feeling indulgent, try their chicken rendang, fried chicken and sambal udang which are hot-sellers. The shop sometime closed as early as 4pm when they finished selling their nasi lemak.

Nasi Lemak Outside Central Market 

Central Market (Monday to Friday).Morning only

The nasi lemak is sold on a white coloured van. Only for take-away. Standard set with slices of cucumber, fried ikan bilis(anchovies) and fried egg costs at RM2.20 per packet. The serving is huge when compared to other nasi lemak bungkus. 

There are some other favorite nasi lemak spot s which are popular among KL city folks, eg Nasi Lemak Tangling at Lake Garden, Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa at Kg Bahru. Anyway, i found them so-so only. Perhaps these few outlets have other better side dishes. As for me, I normally love it plain. 

There are also many outside Klang Valley. While I haven't been revisiting these places for years, I have better paused here till I pay a visit to these spot for their nasi lemak again...

Feel Like Christmas

Dad, Mom and Babe Talk - What Animal Are You?

Mom: Daddy, you want some water?

Dad: (Shake his head)

Babe: Mom, daddy is a camel.

Mom: What makes you say so?

Babe: Because camel can go without water, you told me that before..and mom, you are a fish.

Mom: Why do you say so?

Babe: Because the fish cannot survive without water.

Daddy: Then Elgin must be a pig, only know eat and sleep.

Mom: Yes, daddy's right.

Babe: No...mom is a pig-fish, coz you are good at eating, sleeping and also drinking water!

Korean Pancake

After trying the Korean pancake, I started to fall in love with it. This is my own experiment of a Korean pancake recipe. Frankly, I didn't take the exact measurement of flour and water....simply based on my "instinct". It should be equal portion of flour and water. The batter should be in pancake-like consistency.

Frankly, the taste is quite good, a bit like fried oyster. If only you dare try out this recipe which was based on my own "guesstimation":-

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour mix with 1 cup of water
• 3 to 4 stalks of green onions/scallions, cut into 2 inches length
• 3 to 4 sprigs of cilantro/Chinese celery (this herb goes well with seafood), chopped
• Salt according to taste
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon of chilli powder
• 1 cup of shrimps
• 1 egg, beat and mix with some soy sauce and pepper
  
• A flat pan with some oil for frying
  

Method:

1.  Mix the flour with water and salt to the consistency of a batter for pancake.
2. Season with some chilli powder and sesame oil
3. Mix the batter with chopped cilantro and green onions.
4. Heat up some oil in the pan, pour in the pancake mixture to cover the entire pan.
5. Place the shrimps evenly on top of the batter.
6. Pour the egg mixture on top, add a little more oil.
7. Flip over the pancake and continue frying till the other side is set.
   

Seaweed & Chicken Ham Roll

I believe sandwich is the most convenient breakfast idea.It can be a hazardous or healthy snack, depend on what lies in it... 

This sandwich roll can be prepared in a jiffy. 

Simply top the bread with a layer of cooked ham, seaweed and a cucumber stick with some mayo or thousand island sauce. Just roll it like a sushi. Wrap with cling film.

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Preparing Lanterns Illuminating All-Night-Long

As with previous years, I always go back to my hometown to celebrate this Festival with my family. Lantern festival or popularly known as the mid-autumn/mooncake festival is one of the greatest celebration amongst the Chinese community in Malaysia. Don't ask me what's lantern got to do with this festival. As far as I can remember a Chinese friend of mine mentioned that the people in their country only "play" lantern during the 15th day of the first lunar month*Chap Goh Meh* and not during the mid autumn festival. Anyway, this is what make this multi-racial country unique as I saw some of our non-Chinese neighbourhood kids also joined the cheer by playing lanterns.
I reckon it is easier to instill a culture or tradition amongst the new aged generations by associating festivals with food or things that they like. Undoubtedly, this is one of my favourite festival..hehehe..just the thought of all my favourite mooncakes will make me drool!!

Since young, we enjoyed lighting up lanterns and hang them up on branches of the trees in our garden. Ever since Ikea came to operate their biz in Malaysia, we had this great tip which we would recommend for anyone who enjoy lighting up lanterns as much as we do. There was both joy and pain in the process of lighting the lantern up. While there are LED lanterns in the market today, we still prefer the small colourful paper lanterns with the warm candle light. Once upon a time we kids were very frustrated when our little paper lanterns got burnt or when the candle easily burned out. All night long we will be very busy watching the lights and to get the candle replaced when the light went off. This was really no fun. When we were not careful enough, the whole lantern get burned. Thank God.. this is no longer an issue now that we have discovered the cheap unscented aromatherapy candles from Ikea which are great replacement for the traditional candle sticks. Below is the tip of preparing a lantern which the light is long-lasting up to 6 hours:-

My cousin's homemade jelly mooncakes

Yam paste mooncake from Dim Sum shop at Nilai

Play Dough Recipe

My name is. Elgin i love to play playdoh so i go make the playdoh.

The Ingredients are 3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, a glass of water, 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and a tablespoon of cooking oil. If want the playdoh to have colour put food colouring.

Play Play With Play Dough

Playdough is one of Elgin's favourite games. He received a set when he was 4-year old. The problem with play is it sticks to surface of table when dried up. I would have a hard time cleaning up. Eventually the playdough will harden and Elgin would start bugging me to buy him new ones again. It was rather costly to get the child proof type as I was afraid he was tempted to put it into the mouth since the colors looked temptingly edible. So eventually I decided to make a playdough with safe ingredients myself.

Found some "recipes" for making playdough using flour. Basically 3 main ingredients are needed. Flour, salt, oil and baking powder. Then you just have to mix it with enough water and "cook" it using microwave. The salt, oil and baking powder function as preservatives together it will make the playdough stay fresh, soft and pliable for at least 2 weeks. In fact, we can keep the unused playdough in an airtight container and keep in the fridge for longer than a month. I was so glad that I finally discovered a safe and cost-saving solution. This is a perfect game for him as he can play alone.

Elgin loves to shape the playdough into all sorts of things he sees and the common ones are food items, animals or kitchen utensils. As he always observed me preparing food or making buns in the kitchen. His favourite shapes are rolled buns, plates and cups.

The playdough that I prepared is always plain as I do not want him to stain the table. When he was six, I sent him to art class and he started to learn using water colour to paint the playdough. One day when I reached home, Elgin showed me all his shaped playdough completed with paints which he placed on the table to dry up. I was so astonished to see that at this tender age, he already had a wild imagination.

Curiously, I point at the shaped dough one by one and ask him, "what is this babe?"

Take a look at the pictures below.

According to Elgin, it is (clockwise from top left to right)

A bell

A mug

A hammer

A hat

A snail

Need a close up? This second pic was taken with a flash light and from a different angle. What are you imagining about?

Baked Seafood Pasta

I love to play play with food. This recipe is similar to macaroni cheese baked. Except that you add in some seafood to call it seafood pasta. You can replace seafood with any other ingredients available from your kitchen. eg. ham, bacon, sausages, mixed frozen vegetables or even any left over cold meat. For a more extravagant treat, just replace shrimps with Lobsters and crabs and you can call it "seafood au gratin". Simple recipe and quick to make. Cheese lovers will love it !

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups of colourful shell pasta (i mixed shell pasta with fetucine)
2. 1/2 can Campbell Cream of Chicken and Mushroom soup mixed with equal amount of water
3. Some seafood:shrimps, calamanri slices, white fish fillets, crab sticks and etc
4. 1 beaten egg
5. 1 onion, sliced
6. Few cloves of garlic, chopped
7. 1 capsicum, cut into cubes
8. 2 tomatoes, cut into cubes
9. 1 cup milk
10. 50 g of Edam cheese/cheddar cheese/any other strong flavoured cheese
11. Some parmesan powder or mozarella cheese slice (basically you just add any cheeses and amount according to your own preference- you can call it 3-cheese pasta if you add 3 varieties)
12. Chopped fresh parsley /basil/ cilantro/oregano (whatever herbs you preferred, dried mixed herbs are okay too)

Methods:

1. Cook pasta in boiling salted water till tender, drained.
2. Heat up a little oil in the pan, fry onion and garlic till fragant, add in pasta and the vege and stir fried for 5 min.
3. Transfer all the ingredients including the seafood into a baking dish.
4. Pour in the egg mixture with Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup and enough milk to cover the pasta.
5. Stir well with the mozarella cheese slices
6. Top with more cheeses
7. Sprinkle the top with mixed herbs
8. Bake covered for 15 min at 220 degree celcius. Then another 15 min uncovered to brown the cheese topping.

Korean Village

Went with my sis in law to look for her friend at Korean Village yesterday. This is a little Korean residential in Ampang. A popolar place to hunt for authentic Korean restaurants and stuff. My sis in law recommended to look for Korean-made ice creams which she claimed really delicious. As I was craving for the 3-in-1 Korean coffee beverage sticks which are not easily available. So thought it's a good idea to just hop into one of the Korean mart to get it . There are more than 4 groceries marts in just few rows of shoplots. We hopped into one shop which was situated at the corner to look for ice creams. I was fascinated with so many made-in-Korea stuff. I made the mistake for not comparing prices. Some items are sold without price label so it is always wise to check the price before paying. When we got into other shops later, we realised that the prices for the groceries sold in the corner shop seemed much dearer compared to other outlets in the intermediate lots. Also, goods at the smaller outlets are cheaper too. Despite these are all supermarts, the price from one shop to another may vary in a region of 10%-30%. For example one packet with 100 sticks of 3-in-1 coffee in one shop costs RM65 and in another shop only costs RM40. However when comparing with Jusco and Cold Storage, some of the Korean stuff here are relatively cheaper, according to my sis in law, some items are more cheaper here than paying it in Korea. For example my favourite Korean noodle (pic below) costs RM13.90 at Jusco but only sold at RM10.00 in one of the marts.

This is a watermelon shaped ice cream- are you tempting to get a bite?

The honey dew ice cream is creamily yummy with mildly sweet and refreshing honey dew flavour. It is a must-try! Bumped into one Middle East shop, the punget smell of the Middle East spices really kick your senses up. Met the eyes were many more unique items, for example this one "garlic shampoo" in the pic below. Dare to try?

It's soon passed noon time and our stomach started to rumble. So we decided to have our lunch at one of the Korean restaurants. I decided on Nak Won since I have not tried this one before. Ordered a set of BBQ Pork Ribs, Kimchi Pancake, and Bibimbap(pronounced as "Pibimpap"). The order exceeded RM35 and a bowl of steamed eggs (taste like chawan mushi) was given on the house. Later we realised we have ordered too much food for 3 person and have to get the waiter to bungkus half of the Kimchi pancake for take away. Total food bill came to RM66.00. Service charge was waived as we paid by cash.

This Bibimbap resembles our claypot rice with crunchy vegetables.

Look at the groceries I bagged home from 3 shops!Below is my favourite Korean coffee!

Bon Ga - Korean BBQ Restaurant, Mont Kiara

My parents in law and Elgin have never had Korean food before so we decided to take them to Korean Restaurant during the recent long holidays. The weather was rainy and gloomy therefore suitable to eat barbeque.

There are many Korean restaurants around this area and we stumbled upon this one since it looked like brand new. The atmosphere was cool and pleasant without the stench of smoky BBQ and oil smell. I have always love the floor sitting arrangement as it makes me feel like home.















As usual, an array of up to 10 types of sweet, sour and cold side dishes (Banchan) were served varied from cold vege salads tossed in sesame oil dressing, stir fried brinjals, cold starchy noodles, cold boiled beansprouts , long beans in chilly paste and etc. Of course, it is not an authentic Korean meal without the conventional side dish-kimchi . Our concern for the waitress is "oh my god..so many dishes and plates to be washed after a meal.."


The side dishes were very appetizing. I particularly like this one




Clockwise from left:
Samgye Tang (sounds like "sam kai tong" which is ginseng chicken soup) -RM30.00
Gimchi jeongol (kimchi soup) -RM35.00
Daeji galbi (BBQ pork ribs) - RM28.00
Haemul pajeon (seafood pancake) - RM35.00
Bibimbap(Vegetable mixed rice) - RM19.00
Samgyobsal (Pork belly meat) - RM25.00







Bokbunja - Made in Korea raspberry red wine, goes well with BBQ



















The ais kacang with mixed fruits dessert was on-the-house.










Same goes with icy Korean coffee..hmm..my favorite.









My mom in law always relates to Korean food as a tableful of fermented, cold and sour dishes. In fact, Korea has never been a country she wish to visit. This meal really changed her impression on Korean dishes. Bon Ga is located at the Mont Kiara, Solaris. It is visible from the main street towards Cold Storage direction.