Simply Penang @ 1 Utama

A few days before CNY, my Dad was back from Dubai. Coincidentally, the Part 2 of Red Cliff was out. Initially Z and I decided to watch together but Dad said he wanted to join as well, he being one who loves Chinese historical and martial arts kinda movie. Seeing that we managed to convince him to give us a movie treat, it was a daughter-father outing that Saturday.



Red Cliff 1 was quite an entertaining movie, I especially love the war formation using the 'ba gua' which I found it ingenius though it may just be a make-up story and not what truly happened in history. Red Cliff 2 was equally entertaining, perhaps it's one of the very very few Mandarin speaking movie that I enjoyed most. The plot is exciting and the character of Zhu Geliang (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro), war strategist (we would call him a 'Genius' in modern times) is just ingenius especially the part where he managed to collect 100,000 arrows without a sweat! To sum it up, it's definitely a must watch movie of the year!


Penang Famous Char Koay Teow- RM9.50

Sorry a little bit of digression up there. I can't recall if we had lunch first or movie first. Anyway, Dad suggested having something local as the poor man's been deprived of Malaysian food for far too long. We headed to Simply Penang, located in quite a hidden corner, somewhere near gemstore Lavin NY, owned, managed and operated by Dad's old classmate.

The restaurant seemed to be enjoying brisk business so food must be up to par, you think?


Thai Famous Tom Yam Noodle- RM9.90


Penang Famous Assam Laksa- RM8.90


Fish Ball Soup (10 pcs)- RM5.50


Simple Penang Cendol- RM4.00

To be fair, the service was commendable but the food wasn't that great. Z complained about her Assam Laksa- the noodles were splitted, so it's like eating on a million pieces of noodle rather than slurping on a long strand. She didn't quite enjoy her dish and left it after half a bowl. I had the Tom Yam Noodle. While I would like to applaud them for a big serving (to justify the price), it was a case of 'give more noodles but scrimp on the seafood'. I think there were only 2 pcs of prawns and fish fillet, while my favourite squid was not in sight! I didn't finish mine too.

Dad's CKT was ok I suppose though I doubt it can be as good as streetside stalls given that the ultimate factor to produce a plate of delectable CKT is the WOK HEI! Is it Penang style to put grated coconut on top? The cendol was equally dismissable, too little Gula Melaka! Oh maybe they would have given more if it was Gula Pinang? Perhaps the only consolation to the lunch affair was the bowl of fish balls which pass in terms of springyness and taste.

Luckily it was Z's treat or else I would have broken my resolution #5. Till then, all resolutions remain unbroken :)



Simply Penang
F237, 1st Floor, Promenade,
One Utama.
Tel: 03-77290026

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

CNY Set Meals

Chinese New Year is a festival celebrated with much fanfare for any Chinese family, regardless of poor or rich. The rich will have 10-course meals with dishes fit for a king, while the poor make do with lap ngap and lap cheong and abit of soy sauce over white rice (a rare luxury). How does the middle-class feast? The middle-class indulge in a little bit of the rich but will still behave like the poor- choosing dishes that are worth the money.

For most of us falling into the middle-class category, CNY Set Meals is the way to go for that CNY feasting experience without burning a big hole in the pocket. After all, there are many restaurants that offer set meals ranging from RM199-RM999, enough to feed a table of 10.



Ours is the RM398 package from Mun Cheong Restaurant, a relatively established and well-known restaurant famed for hosting wedding dinners in the quaint little town of Ipoh.



The obligatory CNY appetizer- Yee Sang. Ingredients that I love most? The crackers and salmon!



What irritates me most of the time during lou sang is how brash some people are. They just don't give a damn about 'lou-ing' it properly. Most of the time you'll find the aftermath of a lou sang is a very messy table! Honestly? I don't really care about saying all the wishes when 'lou-ing'.



Some abalone slices, brocollies, mushrooms and fatt choi (black moss?) dish. I wish to think it's authentic abalone though... most of the time when they're sliced like this, it gives me an impression that they're just another artificial abalone made to look and taste like real abalone.



So, authenticity of abalone here is questionable.



I think this what the Malays will call "Ikan Tiga Rasa" or in English "Three-Flavour Fish"- onion, red and green capsicum.



Some veges with bonuses that come in the form of cashew nuts!



Prawns for New Year is always auspicious.



Just like my wish to my Dad on CNY- To have big prawns and big fish!



Thai Style Fried Chicken with Shredded Mango. Tasted nothing out of the ordinary.



Lotus leaf rice. Geez, it's my least favourite dish in any chinese restaurant dinners.



And the el cheapo dessert. Whatever happened to pan fried Shanghainese pan cake or slow boiled red bean with dried mandarin skin kinda desserts?

Oh I forgot. It's a CNY Set Meal after all where everything has to be cheap and fast and worth the money.


Mun Cheong Restaurant
511, Jalan Pasir Puteh,
31650 Ipoh,
Perak.

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

Eat, ate, eaten in Ipoh!

[Continuation post of CNY in Ipoh...]

Ipoh, they say is a factory that manufactures leng luis which I cannot deny (*ahem, shamelessly points self) but more distinctively is a land of good food. I shall not harp on the obvious as it is already a very well known and accepted fact :)

Even Wikipedia says so.



We brought HB to our favourite Kai See Hor Fun (Shredded Chicken Hor Fun) stall which is run and managed by E's music teacher at Lok Wee Kui coffeeshop, just opposite the famous Salted Chicken. I've blogged about this here. Seriously, this is one bowl of kai see hor fun that I will not be sick of. It's just so darn good, I love the added shrimp oil for the extra flavour and colour! It was so good I had a regular bowl on Chor 2 and a big serving on Chor 3 before embarking home...



One of the must have in Ipoh would be the big fat juicy beansprouts, known only to be grown and available in Ipoh due to the natural limestone water. HB isn't a big fan of beansprouts but he gave his 2 thumbs up!



At the same coffeeshop, HB and Z had the Chee Cheong Fun in just sesame oil and a little soy sauce with some fried shallots and preserved green chillis. We have always grown up to love this version of the CCF as it is 1) simple 2) delicious 3) delicious 4) delicious 5) erm, delicious???

The only place where I found this style of CCF served is in Petaling Street, blogged previously here.





At the same coffeeshop again, we ordered some fried wantan, fu pei, meatballs, fishballs and fishcakes. It was nothing worth boasting, maybe because when we eat at Lok Wee Kui, we only go for the kai see hor fun and nothing else. For these 'liu', we'd prefer the ones at Dai Shu Geok. I miss the fried 'liu' so much!



Another famous item on the list is Ipoh White Coffee. We went to the place where Ipoh White Coffee was born, somewhere along Jalan Bukit Timah where all the famous coffeeshops are located- Sin Yuan Loong, Nam Heong and Kong Heng. We went to Nam Heong as Sin Yuan Loong was closed. There were 4 of us but only 3 white coffees and a herbal drink. Guess who didn't have the white coffee despite telling us that Wikipedia said Ipoh White Coffee is famous? ;)



Ipoh Char Kuey Teow to satisfy our CKT cravings!



And a bowl of assorted Yong Tou Foo to have a try on alittle bit of this and alittle bit of that ;) Oooh, note that the fishballs are not in conventional 'ball' size but flattened! Looks abit like those black white pieces in Go (a board game). The YTF taste pretty good, with the fish paste fresh and springy.



Quite miserly, right? An eggtart into 4 quarters. Nah, we were too full to have one ourselves. Tastewise, it's decent but my favourite would still be the ones from Hong Kee @ Cockman Street which is rumoured to have 40+ layers of pastry. Unbeatable. Yum yumm.

Just when we thought it was impossible to get anyone to snap a picture for us (there was an absolutely crazy crowd, packed like sardines, busy waiters... HB assured us that someone will be able to take a picture for us, he can ALWAYS get one.



So, yeah a kind hearted soul snapped a picture of us thanks to the persuasive power of a famous blogger :)

Read HB's take on Nam Heong Coffeeshop, from a Sibu boy point-of-view.

Chinese New Year '09

Red packets lining up

Meant to write on the first 3 days of CNY sooner but laziness got the better of me, as usual :D


Test shot using the tripod

CNY this year was no different from the previous years, the CNY Day 1 tradition prevails:
1) Serving tea,
2) Say some auspicious wishes,
3) Get ang pao, and
4) Mission accomplished!


Here's wishing you...

I wished my Dad in Mandarin this year, putting to use what I've learnt in Mandarin class afew days back. My wish to him was (translated to English because obviously I can't type in Mandarin), "Gong Xi Fa Chai, may you have plenty this year, big prawns and big fish to eat. May the stock market rise up and goes down as you please, everyday you'll have big prawns to eat."

If you translate in to Mandarin, it actually rhymes (though not a very good rhyme but whaddaheck, my Dad doesn't understand anyway! haha).

To my Mom, it was, "May you be healthy, wealthy and lucky!" I love rhymes :D


Obligatory Family Picture

After the neccessary procedures to get our ang pao, we had the obligatory family picture. This time around, it was much easier than engaging a neighbour to snap a photo for us as we have a tripod! And a dSLR! Big smiles :DDD


Dad and I

Later on, we headed back to Ipoh. Our special guest for this year (not that we have one every year) was Huai Bin, better known as sixthseal.com! He was family-less for CNY this year due to some last minute compulsory leave announcement and crazy airfares (even AirAsia couldn't help him), so Eiling invited him to have The Ultimate CNY with The Lim Family.


Q+A+2+A+7 = 21!!

... where he got coaxed to be the banker and had some tough times getting his returns on his investments ;) Nevertheless, I think he had a great time being the God of Prosperity, did you HB?


HB with EZY + Cousins


EZY + HB

But of course, being the gracious hosts that we are, we even brought HB to Mom's old classmates gathering (Read: Get more ang pao) but we were only treated to instant noodles, KFC, free flow of packet drinks and lucky for HB, free flow of Martell. The Martells were opened after what seemed like 30 years, according to the owner.

We left soon after filling our tummies knowing that there won't be any harvest that night :(

It should be made a Universal Rule that married adults hand out ang paos as soon as they detect unmarried children (sorry over 30 years old cannot). Now, who's with me?


sixthseal.com in action!

Well you know what they say, "If you have not try Ipoh food, then you have not been to Ipoh!" We brought this Sibu boy around town to savour the best of Ipoh food- Char Kuey Teow, Beansprouts, Kai See Hor Fun, White Coffee, Chee Cheong Fun... and even Chinese Restaurant Food! Another post on that later ;)


Best girlfriend, Yi Fang & I

On the 2nd day, the whole entourage tagged along to Yi Fang's place which is well known to be THE Place to hang out or have friends gathering/reunion because of the lush and spacious compound for a bunch of twenty-somethings to fool around. Cliche I know, everyone has grown up. The number of people turning up for such reunions decrease every year (according to statistics) due to the many of them being abroad and such.


Happy birthday to me... again!

To compensate for my sad birthday last year, Yi Fang made it all up for me by buying quite a few boxes (note the red boxes in a plastic bag behind us) of cakes and had me blow the candles like I turned 21 on that day. *sniff sniff* Thanks woman!


Ipoh friends, sisters, and a famous blogger

Before we bade farewell and what seem like forever before we see each other again, we had to take a group picture!! Well it's not always an everyday affair you get the best of 3 worlds together in a picture, eh?

We had initially planned to stay for a night in Ipoh but ended up extending our stay to 2 nights as some relatives had come down from JB. To end the trip on a sweet note for HB, we brought him to the famous Funny Mountain for some super good Tau Foo Fah.



Click here for HB's side of the story:
CNY in Ipoh
Ang pow collection for CNY

Because BLINGS rhymes with...

LINGS :)


http://lingsnblings.blogspot.com

This is a pimp for our online boutique :)


We are reviewed at Shopping Critique!

Everything is handmade by Eiling and I. So if you're interested to buy a gift for someone or to bling up your life, do head on to our site at http://lingsnblings.blogspot.com. If we know you personally (ie. online/offline friends) we'll even throw in a 10% discount for you! At the moment, we have a range of pendants and earrings in our collection. I am also making cufflinks and wine markers as well.

/ends pimp

CNY Re-NIU-on Dinner

During those olden days, maybe about 8-10 years ago when grandma was still much healthier and stronger (and when we were still living in Ipoh), my sisters and I would be anticipating for CNY Reunion Dinner. Every year, we would be looking forward for the Chinese festive season as we would get to meet and play with our cousins from KL (though things change when you get older, like now) and CNY would also mean Good Food. Grandma would head the kitchen section and whip up awesome CNY dishes such as the obligatory Steamed Chicken, Braised Sea Cucumber, Mushrooms, Prawns, Roasted Pork Belly etc. But as years passed, so did her age and her health, we started eating out.



This year was a little special though as grandma didn't join us for Reunion Dinner as she headed back to Ipoh much earlier and those residing in KL didn't want to join the CNY Traffic Jam Frenzy and decided to stay on till Chor 1 to go back. Mom took on the position of Head of Kitchen this year, a position I suppose noone wants to assume given the stressful nature of the job eventhough it comes by only once a year.



My aunty took on the task to prepare a homemade Yee Sang. I know it's nothing big to shout about since every household probably is doing the same (Read: Recession, Global Economic Downturn, Gloomy 2009, Unemployment, No Money) but 2 thumbs up for the effort as every ingredient is grated so finely it is almost as good as bought. I love the abundance of crackers and the vibrant color! It makes all the gloominess of the economy fade away even if it's just for a moment...



In total, we had about 10 courses. All at one sitting. Or rather all at once in a Big Pot. Yes, you're right, Mom made Pun Choy this year. I don't think there's a suitable translation for this in English but literally translated, it means Big Bowl of Goodies. It was quite a blood and sweat painstaking effort to prepare this as evidenced by my mom taking 2 days to prepare all these. There were the obligatory Steamed Chicken, Prawns, Vege, Roasted Pork Belly, Sea Cucumber, Pig Skin with Fish Paste, Mushrooms, Abalone and Scallops. Most of the ingredients were braised and then topped it off with the steamed items. The gravy at the bottom was excellent and bursting with flavours to go with the rice. Everyone loved the Pun Choy and it was done at a good budget too.



Two big pots of this were polished and we even had another pot to spare which was prepared to be taken back to Ipoh for grandma to savour. Finally we have someone to takeover the Head of Kitchen position for CNY though I am doubtful Mom will assume the post next year as it is really taxing and tiring to prepare a feast for 14 mouths.



We had 2 bottles of French red wine to go with the dinner- Chateau Haut-Carmaillet (Haut-Médoc 2000) and Vosne Romanée 1999. Red Wine is the new Chinese Tea for Chinese meals now :D After the feast, my dad led the older kids to a new experience of smoking cigar-illos. These kids (actually it's just my 2 cousin brothers who's in college now) were asked to give smoking a try right in front of their mother's face. My dad, who was quite a smoker back then quit smoking in 1999 proudly breaking his 10 year 'no-smoking policy' and had his first cigar puff. My cousin brothers followed suit (much to the disappointment of their mother who said, "No wonder you all like to come here. Every year got new things to try out.") Back then when colored hair was the in-thing but we weren't allow to dye our hair in school, we taught them about it by buying brushed on hair color and that CNY all of us had pink, blue, blonde and red hair- it was quite a traumatizing LaLa sight.



Now with a feast and a puff, what's next? A drink and a friendly pre-CNY card game of course! ;-) We had the Macallan 12 Yrs which I got free from my liquor supplier at work. Truth to be told, the 12 Yrs wasn't that awesome- we found it not too smooth and palatable due to it's rather spicy note. But well, beggers can't be choosers.



We also opened a bottle of Absolut Citron and Absolut Blue from the Absolut Dream Team collection. Eiling made us some cocktails using lemon, 7 up, Ribena and shaking them up with the Absolut Shaker. Drinks were on the house that night. We should have charged RM30 per drink, on par with Skybar haha.



While the kids were busy indulging in some money-making activities, Mothers United (MU) were busy decorating cupcakes for somebody's Quarter of a Century Old Birthday.



Yes, she is OLD. It wasn't even her actual birthday but fortunate for her, she claims to be born on the First Day of Lunar New Year (Chinese birthday I think?) and always demand for extra ang pao, hence our ang pao collection can never match hers eventhough we have the same number of relatives! Such is the unfairness of the world...

Anyway, mom made these cupcakes for her and I quite like the martini glass candle! Just perfect for an alcoholic like her on her birthday ;-D

The party ended just before 12am and we headed back to Ipoh the next day while also playing host to a special guest. More on how the first 3 days of CNY is spent on my next posts! For now, I am going to savour the remaining 4 days of holidays before crawling back to work.