Toasted Garlic Bread

Toasted Garlic Bread

Many moons ago, my dear colleague, Stephanie Chua
complain that buying ready made Garlic Butter is very expensive.
Upon hearing it, I taught her how to make Garlic Butter.
Once you have made the Garlic Butter, you just spread on
any bread and just toast it....very very very simple.




5 slices of white bread
30 g of butter (room temperature)
1 tbsp of garlic powder

(Note : If you don't like garlic powder,
you can use fresh chopped garlic
and mix it with some salt)



Mix the butter with the garlic powder until well.



Spread the garlic butter over the bread evenly
and toast in the over until brown.
I turn the temperature to 190 Degree Celcius
for 15 minutes.



While the bread was toasting, you can smell the
garlic aroma....so nice smell lingering inside my kitchen.
Yeap! Yeap!...I can't wait to bite it.........




A Joyous Deepavali


MOS Burger @ Sunnybank, Brisbane

There's something about MOS burgers and I.


Although I can't remember the days when they were in Malaysia, I do remember asking my friend to fetch me to a place that sells some when I was down in Singapore and not to mention grabbing a couple of them at the subway stations in Taipei as a snack.


Its the same urge as wanting to eat McDonalds overseas so you can have a pork patty in it because the ones in Malaysia are pork free.


So it surprised me that it took me so long to visit them (considering they have been open since April this year).

IMG_1660

After the initial rush of patrons when they first opened, the place was considerably much quiet on a Friday night with plenty of seats. With MOS burgers, your first choice is to go for the rice burgers, after all that is one of the key differences between them and the other fast food options.

Instead of bread, you get rice, not to mention a variety of asian fillings.

IMG_1654

Despite all that, the Wife chose the Fish Fillet Burger. Familiar? Think Fillet o Fish. Yeah, that one, looks the same, tastes the same but not the same.

IMG_1657

There was no way I was going to order anything but a rice burger. The okonomiyaki rice burger was delicious. With bonito flakes, familiar sauce and all, the only complaint is size. Looking to fill yourself? You need two. The other rice burger had the familiar filling of beef slices but be warned, it get can a bit stringy causing a bit of a mess.


Prices are average, around the AUD10 mark if you have 2 burgers only or alternatively a burger set with drink and chips.

Address and contact details:

MOS Burger on Urbanspoon

Verdict: 4 stars out of 5 stars. I am biased, always loved MOS and will always love MOS.

Bak Kut Teh @ Restoran Sekinchan.

Pandamaran town is filled with seafood and Bak Kut Teh restaurants at every nooks and corners.

Ah Na Hong Bak Bak Kut Teh located along Jalan Young, Pandamaran is a village house converted into BKT stall in the morning and at night it transforms into a seafood restaurant.

When we arrived at lunch time there wasn't much good choice BKT meat left.

As we were famished we ordered whatever that was available-hoong bak (braised pork belly in good grade soy sauce), alkaline rice cake, BKT with sai kuat (lean pork bone) and pig intestines.


Parking is OK.



BKT filled with sai kuat (pork drumstick) and pig's intestine-smooth and lean and the herbal soup was clear and flavorsome.
Hong Bak ( braised pork belly in sweet good grade soy sauce), tofu and an egg-even though it does not look presentable-the braised ingredients were fragrant and the cubed alkaline rice cake were a good combination with it.Wong Tai Miu-a local vegetable shoots-stir fried with garlic and anchovies-smooth, g! reen, sl ippery and leafy-aids in digestion.

Total bill:Rm29/
Location: off Jalan Young,
Pandamaran, Port Klang.


Porto Romano @ Intermark

Porto Romano's latest outpost is an elegant space sequestered in an improbable location: The Intermark's basement food court.

The menu here is vast, filled with crowd-pleasing favorites such as seafood risotto. Creamy & al dente, with sufficient squid, mussels & prawns to curb complaints.

Lobster-stuffed ravioli. Kids might enjoy this, since it packs a wallop of flavor. But the subtler crustacean nuances are lost in the tangy tomato-&-lemon gravy.

Insert of something we nibbled on: not from Porto Romano but Australia _ four flavors of macarons by Melbourne's Cacao Patisserie, a 2010 contest winner for the city's best macarons _ lamington (!), salted caramel, French vanilla & strawberry jam.

Back to Porto Romano: house cocktails with tropical twists _! Wallace Bay (Scotch whiskey, pimm's, limau kasturi) & Cowie Harbor (creme de banana, creme de cacao, coconut liquor).

Spanish beer is available: Estrella Damm, Barcelona's best.

Vina Canepa Classico Chardonnay, Chile (2009).


Porto Romano,
The Intermark, Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur.

Get Your Jelly On! Day 25 - Pink Clouds (Raspberry White Peach and Wine Jelly)

IMG_6208

One of the things I love about this challenge has been learning the different ways to work with gelling agents.


Through some research and books, I discovered this interesting way to create clouds and bubbles within the jelly.


IMG_6214


Relatively simple, you need to just make a variety of different coloured jelly, scrape them and combine them together with one jelly mixture.


IMG_6221


For this particular first time effort, I had a three flavour combination - raspberry, white peach, and white wine.


IMG_6222


The clear bits and the softer peach tones are slightly overpowered by the red raspberry colour but nevertheless, it is still rather pretty especially when it is sitting on my new handmade Bitossi bowl (I love the varying lavender shades of it).


Maybe one can go wild and add more colours but I can imagine it will look rather rojak! after s ome time.


Raspberry White Peach and Wine Jelly (Makes three moulds)


100ml white wine
4 tablespoons gelatine powder
4 tablespoons Raspberry Jelly powder (I used the Aeroplane brand)
200ml hot water
100ml white peach juice


Get ready three individual bowls. Make the white wine jelly by combining 1 tablespoon of softened gelatine powder and a little hot water to melt. Sieve and pour into a bowl. Freeze for 15 minutes. For the raspberry jelly, melt jelly powder with 100ml hot water. Combine 1 tablespoon of softened gelatine powder. Sieve and pour into a bowl. Freeze for 15 minutes to set. Soften 1 tablespoon gelatine powder. Add 1 tablespoon hot water to melt. Add to white peach juice and whisk to combine. Sieve and pour into a bowl. Freeze for 15 minutes.Remove set jelly from freezer. Scrape each jelly with a fork. Mix together all three flavours. Make remaining jelly with 100ml water and 1 tablespoon softened gelatine powder. Put a little of the scraped jelly in the mould. Pour clear jelly mixture to bind. Add more scraped jelly and jelly mixture until it reaches the top of mould. Repeat for second mould. Chill for at least 5 hours. Unmould and serve immediately.


Reminder:Support the cause by buying a Royal Selangor Nick Munro pewter mould as all proceeds go to breast cancer welfare association. Also, do remember to submit your suggestions to booliciouskl@gmail.com or leave a comment for the mould to win the Olympus camera VG-110. For more pictures, seethe Flickr setfor all the whole Royal Selangor Jellyriffic challenge. To view, all the jellies, see this link toth! e Royal Selangor website.



Weekend Dim Sum Buffet Brunch @ EEST, The Westin Kuala Lumpur

Since we have the Starwood card, we might as well put it to good use and try more restaurants under the Starwood Group. Since I was craving for dim sum, we decided to try EEST in The Westin Kuala Lumpur. We didn't make a reservation, luckily for us, we managed to secure the last table -- phew!

EEST serves Dim Sum Brunch on Saturday, Sunday & Public Holiday (11.30am to 2.30pm), whereby diners can order unlimited servings of dim sum from a special menu. This a la carte buffet is priced at RM98++ per person.

EEST is non-halal so you can expect to find some porky dishes here. The menu is divided into a few categories; Steam, Crisp, Garden, Chee Cheong Fun, EEST's Grain, EEST's Noodles and Sweet.

Restaurant interior


Nice water feature




We ordered from various categories at each time, but for the purpose of this blog post, I have rearranged the photos into each category.

Steam
We found some of the steamed dim sum to be rather disappointing as the skin has gone mushy, possibly from sitting on the steamer for far too long. Surprisingly, although they practice an a la carte buffet system here, the steamed dim sum is not cooked to order, unlike many other places which we have eaten at before in the past.

Crystal prawn dumpling "har kau" with crisp dried scallop - the prawn was big and succulent, but the skin stuck to the steamer basket.


Crab bisque xiao long bao - very disappointing, as soon as we tried to lift the XLB with our chopsticks, the skin broke. Also, the skin was far too thick for our liking.

Crystal dumpling with crab roe and crabmeat - same problem with the skin

But not all! is bad. We enjoyed most of our other orders from EEST.

Chicken and shrimp dumpling topped with fish roe (aka siew mai) - this was rather delicious.

Steamed spare ribs with salted black bean - liked this. The sauce was very flavorful.

Double cooked grouper and bamboo bean curd skin roll - Hubby liked this very much, the fish was moist and the sauce again was very flavourful.

Chicken feet with XO sauce - Hubby doesnt like chicken feet so I finished the whole plate by myself. Finished = good :)

Steamer baskets

Chef in action

There is a live cooking station for porridge. They have two styles of porridge available, cooked to order.. cant remember what they're called now. Anyway, the waiters and the chef kept asking me to try the porridge so I did. Can't say I liked it - too bland even with the addition of all the side dishes.

Porridge side dishes


Porridge

Crisp
We found all the crisp "deep fried" items very good.


Octopus mousse with salted egg yolk coat with golden thread - nice.

Cheese and prawn bean curd roll - I love this. The cheese just oozes out when you bite into it and also the saltiness from the cheese works very well with the juicy prawn.

Garlic chive and chicken pot stickers - the filling was pretty moist but I think if they use pork, it would have been even better.



Flaky barbeque chicken pastries - this was one of our favorites, we kept ordering this over and over again. The pastry was very flaky and the filling was very flavorful.


Chee cheong fun


We tried both the 'sea scallop & XO sauce' and 'crystal river shrimp' chee cheong fun. Give the sea scallop one a miss since the scallops are about the size of a 5 sen coin and do not have much flavour in them. The prawns one are much better since the prawns used are of a decent size.

BBQ pork

This is not on the menu, but they have roast pork, BBQ pork and roast chicken by the dessert counter. They ran out of roast pork (siew yuk) by the time we came around to ordering it so we only tried the BBQ pork (char siew). Another disappointing dish - I only ate 1-2 pieces since the texture was very hard and the fat layers was not very nice. Hubby finished most of it since he doesn't like to waste food.


Dessert / deep frying kitchen

There are quite many Western desserts on offer such as tarts, cakes, fresh fruits but we didn't try any of them. We were attracted to the handmade mochi which came in four different flavours. OMG they're really good - pillowy soft and the fillings were really nice. They came in four different flavours, our favorite was the dark chocolate. And they come in such pretty colors as well.

Dessert counter

Handmade mochi


Fresh fruits

We had multiple helpings of the handmade mochi - they're excellent!

The eggs tarts here are really good too.. the kind that I like with flaky pastry. :) I think they have a very good pastry chef here since we liked the pastry items.

The teh tarik ice cream is actually served with pisang goreng, but we forego the banana and just ordered the ice cream. Unfortunately, the ice cream was too icy.

The black sesame ice cream mochi may not look like much, but it was rather interesting and tasted good too. Basically, the mochi makes up the outer layer and is filled with ice cream inside.

The mango pudding was supposed to be served with chocolate ganache and hazelnut wanton but the last two items did not arrive with the pudding. However, we were too full to enquire further. The mango pudding was decent, though we would have preferred the mango taste to be more prevalent.

Wibble wobble

EEST restaurant exterior

You can enjoy Starwood privilege discount for this dim sum brunch.

Verdict: Service was very pleasant, although the food had some hit and misses. But overall, we enjoyed our dining experience here. Mochi, egg tart and flaky chicken pastry is highly recommended.

Full set of photos available to view here.

Price: RM98++ per adult, RM49++ per child, RM6++ for chinese tea.

Location: EEST, Level 1, The Westin Kuala Lumpur, 199 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tel: 03- 2731 8333

GPS Coordinates:3.14779, 101.714569