deconstruct has added a photo to the pool:
Ichiban Ramen @ Jusco Mahkota Cheras, Selangor
All that talk about ramen on Twitter couple of weeks ago got us hankering for some ourselves. The perfect opportunity presented itself when we took the kids to Jusco Mahkota Cheras at the start of the school holidays and we were in need of dinner. Other than fast food, there's not much to eat here in the mall hence we settled for Ichiban Ramen.
Since we were sharing with the kids, we ordered non-spicy ramens. Hubby had the Beef Ramen (RM15) while I had the Chicken Cha shu Ramen (RM15). While this may not be the best ramen we've eaten (Hokkaido Santouka still gets my vote for the best), it was pretty decent and filled our stomachs. Most importantly, the kids enjoyed it very much - slurping the noodles and drinking up the soup.
The broth is pretty rich and not MSG laden. The noodles are springy and enjoyable. The only thing which wasn't up to scratch was the flavoured egg (as you can see the yolk is overcooked and runny as it should be). The chicken cha shu was a bit dry but then again, it's chicken and not pork.
Beef ramen
Chicken cha shu ramen
Baby D eyeing the noodles!
(and he's probably thinking, mummy are you done with photos yet?)
Noodles
We also shared a plate of chicken gyoza (RM9) - pretty juicy.
Baby C enjoying her noodles! More please.She was happy that the waiting staff gave her the Hello Kitty cup to use (it comes with the set for kids, but Baby C asked if she could just have the cup and they obliged)
Other outlets in Pavilion KL, Sunway Pyramid, Maluri, Balakong, Ikano Power Centre, Seremban, Genting Highlands, Tebrau City and Seberang Prai.
Pork-free.
Service: Good.
Price: RM41.20 in total. We got 20% off for using CIMB credit card.
Location: Ichiban Ramen, G28, AEON Mahkota Cheras Centre, Jalan Temenggung 21/9, Persiaran Mahkota Cheras 1, Bandar Mahkota Cheras, KL.
Tel: 03-9074 8895
Tom Phat @ Brunswick
Tom Phat isn't exactly your orthodox breakfast / brunch place you would imagine going to dig into a plate of poached eggs, toast and maybe some smoked salmon. The coffee in the machine and the smell of coffee beans suggests that but once you take a seat especially if you are closer to the back, you should notice something quite different.
For one, the sound of the wok in action and occasional flame should pique that interest to look into the kitchen and of course followed by reading the menu.
For one, the sound of the wok in action and occasional flame should pique that interest to look into the kitchen and of course followed by reading the menu.
Coffees are just as good as any brunch place in Melbourne but see what we had for breakfast!
Back to the menu, you will still find your bacon, eggs and bread but not exactly in the conventional form or dish. Every dish sounds like these items had just come back from a trip to South East Asia. Bacon and eggs can be found in a Roti Omelette while bread comes in the form of a vietnamese baguette or sourdough with some asian jazzed eggs (not really a dish, just for you to get the drift).
I don't know about Australians but Asians do fancy anything rice whether it is during breakfast, lunch or dinner. My Korean friend eats rice every morning for breakfast. So if you are that typical Asian who sulks at eating bread during brunch, I suggest you come here.
So what is served with rice? A succulent piece of pork chop that has been marinated with amongst other things; lemongrass. You also get a crispy fried egg to go with your rice. A mild sweet and sour dressing completes the dish. Of course, one must have your vegetables too, a tomato and cucumber salad fixes that up.
The Roti Omelette is pretty fascinating even though there is a chance that the Roti comes from a packet. Entwined with a soft silky omelette then topped with a tomato salsa / paste with crispy shallots, this was awesome! Loved every bit of it even if I was stuffed by the end of it and just wanted to go back home and nap.
Having come from Brisbane where breakfast / brunch comes in a more conventional form, we found it very interesting to see how far some places have taken breakfast items to. Having had English inspired breakfast and now a South East Asian influenced brunch, we are getting quite excited to see what else we will discover.
Address and contact details:
Verdict: 4 stars out of 5 stars. It is not exactly authentic South East Asian cuisine but we loved how it has been used to create a whole different breakfast menu. Don't expect and be rewarded.
Home Cooked Shanghai Dishes
There are 3 floors in my FIL's father's shikumen house in Shanghai. On the ground floor is a small entrance with the maid's room on the right and the kitchen on the left. There's a bathroom next to the kitchen, next to which is FIL's youngest bro and wife (Xiao Su and Xiao Shenshen)'s living and dining room and oldest aunty's (Doh Ma, oldest mom, who's the wife of FIL's late oldest bro) living and dining room. On the second floor is Doh Mah's bedroom and bathroom, Xiao Su and wife's bedroom and bathroom and my in-laws' old room, which is kept neat and clean, just in case any of us visit. On the attic floor are two rooms, one my daughter's bedroom and the other where her Jay Chou coffee stain painting lies, on the linoleum floor. You can smell the wonderful coffee aroma even when you are going up the stairs. The painting is even more beautiful when you see it face-to-face, in person.
On a typical day, Ahyi, Da Ma's maid, would cook for Da Ma and Xiao Shenshen would cook for Xiao Su and herself. Both Da Ma and Xiao Shenshen's children live nearby and visit daily. Da Ma is 89 years old, very alert and strong, always well-dressed, loves to go out, loves to dance and speaks English. Xiao Shenshen spends most of her time with her church friends. She knows the bible as well as any pastor and loves to talk about "Shen" (first intonation).
The morning after we arrived, Hub and I got downstairs to find both Ahyi and Xiao Shenshen cooking up a lunch feast for us in their kitchen which is diplomatically divided into 'yours' and 'mine'. We were going to meet up with our daughter for lunch, so we had to disappoint them. But I love to try other people's cooking, so I ate a chopstick of this and that, running right to Xiao Shenshen as she told me to try her soup, then running left to Ahyi as she gave me a taste of her pork chops. I can see why Yi feels so at home here.
We ate maybe two lunches at home in the week we were in SH, and I enjoy home-cooked meals as much as I enjoy eating out. I always th! ink that anywhere I go, it's such a privilege to live with the locals and eat their food.
Like all old folks, Doh Ma and Xiao Shenshen prefer lots of veggies and soupy dishes. All the dishes they cooked were familiar to me; they were what my MIL cooks. The veggies though are not familiar and I just love how all the veggies are tender sprouts or young shoots.
"Water celery" and semi-hard tofu are stir-fried into the dish below:
Yindoxin is a very yummy Shanghainese soup of tofu sheets, pork, Chinese ham and fresh bamboo. The tofu sheets are usually tied into knots but Xiao Shenshen didn't bother. Xiao Shenshen loves fatty pork and swears that it keeps people looking young.
Another d! ish that my MIL regularly cooks: dried bamboo and pork stew. Very yummy.
Young bamboo shoots fried with soy sauce. Drool...
I don't quite like Shanghai-stylesteamed fish as much as Cantonese steamed fish because the addition of "yellow wine" overwhelms the delicate flavor of the fish. Doh Ma said the big tropical ocean fish in Malaysia are too coarse for steaming and she's quite right.
Shanghainese cuisine is known to be oilier and sugar-sweeter than other Chinese dishes. I don't like sugar or wine in every day stir-fried veggies.
The Shanghainese just love bamboo shoots.
Sticky rice 'sticks' (nian gao) in soup.
Meat-filled savory tang yuan.
I jumped when I took a close up of this fish because it jumped too, even though it was cut into half. Frozen fish is unheard of in China. I was relieved that I didn't stay for lunch because I don't eat fish that look like snakes.
On a typical day, Ahyi, Da Ma's maid, would cook for Da Ma and Xiao Shenshen would cook for Xiao Su and herself. Both Da Ma and Xiao Shenshen's children live nearby and visit daily. Da Ma is 89 years old, very alert and strong, always well-dressed, loves to go out, loves to dance and speaks English. Xiao Shenshen spends most of her time with her church friends. She knows the bible as well as any pastor and loves to talk about "Shen" (first intonation).
The morning after we arrived, Hub and I got downstairs to find both Ahyi and Xiao Shenshen cooking up a lunch feast for us in their kitchen which is diplomatically divided into 'yours' and 'mine'. We were going to meet up with our daughter for lunch, so we had to disappoint them. But I love to try other people's cooking, so I ate a chopstick of this and that, running right to Xiao Shenshen as she told me to try her soup, then running left to Ahyi as she gave me a taste of her pork chops. I can see why Yi feels so at home here.
We ate maybe two lunches at home in the week we were in SH, and I enjoy home-cooked meals as much as I enjoy eating out. I always th! ink that anywhere I go, it's such a privilege to live with the locals and eat their food.
Like all old folks, Doh Ma and Xiao Shenshen prefer lots of veggies and soupy dishes. All the dishes they cooked were familiar to me; they were what my MIL cooks. The veggies though are not familiar and I just love how all the veggies are tender sprouts or young shoots.
"Water celery" and semi-hard tofu are stir-fried into the dish below:
Yindoxin is a very yummy Shanghainese soup of tofu sheets, pork, Chinese ham and fresh bamboo. The tofu sheets are usually tied into knots but Xiao Shenshen didn't bother. Xiao Shenshen loves fatty pork and swears that it keeps people looking young.
Another d! ish that my MIL regularly cooks: dried bamboo and pork stew. Very yummy.
Young bamboo shoots fried with soy sauce. Drool...
I don't quite like Shanghai-stylesteamed fish as much as Cantonese steamed fish because the addition of "yellow wine" overwhelms the delicate flavor of the fish. Doh Ma said the big tropical ocean fish in Malaysia are too coarse for steaming and she's quite right.
Shanghainese cuisine is known to be oilier and sugar-sweeter than other Chinese dishes. I don't like sugar or wine in every day stir-fried veggies.
The Shanghainese just love bamboo shoots.
Sticky rice 'sticks' (nian gao) in soup.
Meat-filled savory tang yuan.
I jumped when I took a close up of this fish because it jumped too, even though it was cut into half. Frozen fish is unheard of in China. I was relieved that I didn't stay for lunch because I don't eat fish that look like snakes.
Knockin On Heaven Peace Gate
I was still reading Frank Diktters Mao's Great Famine before leaving for Beijing. For obvious reasons, the book did not follow me on this trip. To say I enjoyed reading it would be wrong, but the impact it had on me was immense. The political side of the book didnt interest me much. The struggle for survival of millions of Chinese during the Great Leap Forward did. Recently published provincial reports of failed collectivism and industrialization projects, and obfuscating officials leading to starvation, mud and faeces consumption, diseases and ultimately, death, were heart-wrenching to say the least. I wonder if a sacrifice like this is inevitable in creating one of the most important and fundamentally noble revolutions in modern history.
My first stop in Beijing was Tiananmen (or Heaven Peace Gate) Square, the heart of the Chinese Communist Party. Its in the surrounding buildings that decisions were made and executed during the famine, and where Chairman Mao was laid to rest. On one hand, I was impressed by the vastness of one of the largest squares in the world, the centralized gigantic screens proudly showing, on rotation, the vitality and vigour of modern China, and faithful comrades bowing before the body of Mao Zedong in the mausoleum. Yet, chapters of Diktters book kept haunting my mind.
Why should I take it so seriously? Its just a holiday. Id be gone five days later. And I am, afterall, a Chinese descendant, but a Malaysian first, Singapore resident second. I should be more concerned about the troubles back home.
In this trip across the cultural center of the middle kingdom, by learning its history, Id better understood the Chinese. Some of us have been, for the longest time, making insensitive remarks and ignorant about some of their practices. Ask yourself - would you hav! e done t he same if you were one of them? If youd taken time to know and understand them, then you most probably would.
In the pink with new ros Port wine
Barrels of aged Port wine are seen at a Gaia city cellar in northern Portugal on September 11, 2006. Reuters pic
They have given the sweet red or amber coloured Portuguese fortified wine, which is traditionally sipped as an accompaniment to the cheese course or dessert, a makeover with a lighter ros version that is 20 per cent alcohol.
Its port without rules, Adrian Bridge, chief executive of Taylor-Fladgate in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, said of his ros, Croft Pink.
His 320-year-old, family-owned port house, which also has the Fonseca and Croft brands, was the first to make a ros port in 2005 though others, including smaller producers Poas and Krohn, have followed suit.
Croft Pink, first sold in Holland, Canada and Britain, was marketed in Texas last fall before its 2012 roll out to the rest of the United States.
One restaurant was going through three bottles a day thats an awful lot of port, Bridge said.
He discovered that rather than sipping the drink, the bartender at the restaurant was pouring the bottles into a slushy machine to make icy drinks.
They were selling it as slushies, sort of ice cream for adults, he explained. This is definitely not your fathers port.
Port takes its name from Oporto, the seaport where, since the 17th Century, British ships have brought back barrels to a thirsty nation.
The British were so fond of the drink that families sent their sons to Portugal to become wine merchants and port producers.
There are many types of port including vintage, tawny, ruby and white. While some are aged for years in wood, or for decades in bottles, ruby port is aged for most of its three years in stainless steel or concrete vats. By port standards, it is young and meant to be drunk upon re! lease.
Ros port is a ruby that has had light contact with the grape skins giving the wine its color. It tastes fruity and has aromas of grapefruit, berries and honey.
Like all port, the ros is fortified with a neutral grape spirit, which means it is about 20 per cent alcohol. By comparison, most table wines are between 12 per cent and 15 per cent alcohol.
But unlike port, sales of ross in 2009 and 2010 increased by 14 per cent and 22 per cent, according to the Wines of Provence, a trade association that represents the French region synonymous with the wine.
But in 2011 ros sales dipped by about six per cent.
Despite the slide, Bridge thinks more consumers will buy his pink port.
Ross still make up 15 per cent of the wine market and ross are zero per cent of port, he said. Were having a lot of success with it and you know why? Its sweet, its high alcohol, and its really simple. Reuters
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Yong Tau Foo - Jalan Peel, Cheras
Another day, just another meal? Not so in Malaysia. even the humble Hakka YTF can be elevated to great heights in the hawker culinary scene. I have eaten from the adjacent Wah Kiow. The main difference may not be the food but in their delivery system. Wah Kiow take your orders, while this one (no name) is self-service. You take what's availablke on the tray. The food pipe-line is a well-oiled part of the food-chain, dumping loads of the different types YTF on the trays where hungry vulktures aka customers are waiting.
Address: Next to the Cheras Distict Police Station (Re-building in Progress)
Nothing like the Hakka YTF. Loads of good fresh fish. a bit off salted fish.... Except for the oil used, it is essentially healthy food. I can eat itr almost everyday, like staple food.
Fresh white tofu is not easy to source, except in Ipoh. It should be super soft, yet firm. Taste and smell with loads of bean for the tongue and nostrils. The attarction will be the fish paste with some 'mui heong' salted fish.
Fresh bean curd sheets wrapping the fish paste and then deep-fried for the crunchy feel. Customers' favourite and best-seller most of the time at any YTF stalls.
Rounding it up with Assam kembong Fish and some vinegared trotters are quite common nowadays in YTF stalls. Both will be good for the stalls as it acts as an appetiser as well as removing the stuffed-to-full feeling. Enjoyed both of it!
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