A Chinese Family Dinner @ Gu Yue Tien, Chulan Square, Kuala Lumpur

Remember these ribs?

Yes, they're none other than the fabulous salt baked Spanish Iberico spare ribs from Gu Yue Tien. We had it once during our CNY review and was so impressed that we went back last week, with our family in tow, to let them all try the delicious ribs ;)

Gu Yue Tien

Since we were the first diners in the restaurant, food was served in an efficient manner. It took us a while to decide what we wanted to order as everything sounded good. In the end, we settled for most of the chefs recommendation (well if the chef thinks it's good, it should be!).

I think this soft boiled egg with foie gras (RM8) issynonymouswith Gu Yue Tien. It was a huge hit with our family, especially my children who love eating soft boiled egg at home, albeit this being a luxurious version. Rich, creamy nicely cooked egg with tiny bits of foie gras got our meal to a flying start.

Mummy, I want more!

Baby C had 1 1/2 eggs!

Since Gu Yue Tien is known for its innovative Chinese cuisine, we decided not to order a whole fish but instead went for the signature Pan Fried Cod Fillet with Picked Vegetable glazed with BBQ sauce (RM22 each but looking back at the bill we were charged RM26 each). Bummer! Price aside, the fish was actually well prepared, flaky and fresh and the the tangy pickled vegetables went well with the dish. Would be nice if the cod fish was in a bigger portion though as I wouldn't mind eating more of this dish.

We were torn between the Wok Charred Rack of Lamb or Fortune Leg of Duck. In the end, we picked the latter since we thought the for! mer may be too similar (dry type) to the Iberico ribs. The medium portion we ordered came with 3 duck legs/thigh which was cooked until the meat was tender and falling off the bone. The gravy was delicious and was infused with the flavours from the Chinese herbs.

Fortune Duck Leg (RM33 for medium)

The salt baked Spanish iberico ribs (RM15 per 100g) was as good was we remembered it. It was literally finger licking good. Our son who has never been taught or given a rib to eat was digging into it like a pro. LOL. He looked so cute devouring his meat that people started to come over to watch him eat. There is a minimum order of 1kg which is sufficient for 4 adults to share.

Eating like a boss

The restaurant manager recommended the Fried Noodle's Hawker Style (RM24 for medium) since we couldn't decide which noodles to try. Turns out to be a great choice, thin strands of noodles (similar to sang meen) cooked with julienned vegetables, beansprouts, eggs, prawns and chicken.

For desserts, Hubby had the cold sweetened almond cream (RM8 which they overcharged me by RM2 again) which was slightly diluted compared to our last visit while I had thechilled mango cream with pomeli and vanilla ice cream(RM10) since they ran out of the lemongrass pudding that I wanted. Baby C had 1 scoop of vanilla ice-cream (RM3) while my parents shared the deep fried glutinous ball with sesame paste (RM6).

Baby C is always happy to get ice cream!

Sweetened almond cream

And then she came over and shared my chilled mango cream. LOL crafty!

Deep fried glutinous ball with sesame paste

Petronas Twin Towers at night

Verdict: We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, the food was very well prepared and service was excellent.

Price: Total bill was RM460. A bit shocked to see so many discrepancy between menu prices and actual bill now that I'm writing this blog.

Location: Restoran Gu Yue Tien, Lot B5-A, Chulan Square, 92 Jalan Raja Chulan, 50200 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2148 0808

Website: http://www.chulansquare.com

GPS Coordinates: 3.148808, 101.715814

Super Natural Every Day: UK edition

Hi friends, I wanted to share a couple quick announcements today. First thing, I'm quite excited to tell you that the UK edition of Super Natural Every Day is set to be released this week (4/1/12). Here's the link to its page on Amazon.co.uk. Like the US edition, it is softback-wrapped, matte paper, with recipes in weights/volume.

I'm a bit embarrassed that I never got around to doing a proper London write-up after my visit last year. So, better late than never, I figured this would be a fine time to remedy the situation. I dug up notebooks, receipts, and went through my photo archive, then drafted a page with a map of all the places I enjoyed visiting (as well as a few I saved for next time). Here's where the London page lives.

I've also realized that a good number of you like to use my city posts when you travel. The problem is this - when I visit a place more than once, those pages sprawl across the site, are outdated, and are hard to find. So, I'm (sloooowly) consolidating each city onto a single dedicated page. All pages into one place (eventually). Right now there's: London, Paris, and San Francisco. I'm working on Portland, Tokyo, and Rome. To make them easy to find, I've posted a "travel guides" link in the upper right-hand corner of every page on the site. This way the maps should be easy to find if you happen to be traveling to one of the places I've done a page for. Thanks for your patience here, I didn't really think my travel related posts would turn into a "thing"...but enough of you have mailed me with questions that I'm going to try to make things easier and more re! ference- y in the future. Cheers!

Continue reading Super Natural Every Day: UK edition...

Tea Infusion Menu at Zuan Yuan Chinese Restaurant, One World Hotel

It was timely that after a week long of F1 events and hot days at Sepang that I sat down and ate a nourishing meal like this.

This soup, double boiled for 4 hours using the chinese Black Chicken (a breed named Silkies and prized by the Chinese for its perceived medicinal value) was wonderful and soothing to the soul.

I inhaled the waft of fragrant chrysanthemum essence when the waitress bought the soup into the room and was instantly eager to get started on the soup.
As I sipped, I loved that each spoonful has aperfect balance of savoury flavour mingled with the sweetness of the chrysanthemumflowers. And the smell of the soup was almost floral!

The soup aside, Zuan Yuan tea infused promotion is worth checking out especially for the RM98 set.

I thought it was pretty reasonable, almost cheap even, considering the ingredients and the myriad of dishes offered. 7 individually portioned dishes, but each substantially filling and the set covers seafood, meat, soup, vegetables and dessert.

Zuan Yuan Specialty Platter.

Praises goes to Chef Michael for the clever mix of sweet savoury scallops and sweet tangy mangoes which was combined with cruncy sweet ches! tnuts an d briny ebiko.
A lover of yam, its given that I enjoyed this whole little ensemble.
The side of mung bean noodles gave a little fire as it was coated with some spicy sauce. I thought it was another savvy match with the salty smoked duck, giving more character to each toothsome bite of the noodles.

Spring Chicken.

We got half a spring chicken each and that was too much even for me.

I particularly loved the conmingle of smokiness & subtle tea flavour in the chicken. The flavour was infused right to the deeper folds of the breastmeat, but do note that it was very subtle.
A quick chat with the chef revealed that the chicken was cooked beforehand, wrapped & smoked with tea leaves prior to serving.

Stir Fried Prawns infused with Long Jin Tea.

Though not a shellfish fan, I still finished both prawns as it was delightfully fresh, so fresh that each bite was crunchy and so sweet! For this, the tea flavour wasnt even subtle. More of non-existent. But the overall dish keeps in theme with the tea and healthy concept, with very little seasoning or oil added.

I highly recommend this Aprils Tea Infused Promotio! n to tho se who prefers their food clean in taste and low in seasoning. However, this DOESNT imply that the food is tasteless. On the contrary, its subtle flavours that doesnt leave you feeling heavy after lunch. And its easy on the digestive system too.

This isnt part of the promotion Fried thin udon with light satay sauce. Chef Michael just wanted to make sure we were all stuffed. Well, I wont complain as theres 2 more crunchy big prawns on it! Yea!!

Promotion: 01 30 April 2012.

Available for lunch and dinner.For reservations, please call Zuan Yuan Chinese Restaurant at 03 76811159.

Opens daily
Lunch 12.00 noon to 2.30 pm
Dinner 6.30 pm to 10.30 pm

Last of the set is Green Tea Cake from One World Hotels pastry chef. One of the better ones so far that I have had. This boasts of a very natural green tea flavour and aroma layered moist sponge. Full as I was, I finished it; minus the cream of course.

Zuan Yuan has monthly promotions so theres something new every month. I remember a Thai food, a HK dim sum, Shanghai menu and a Cantonese menu promo so far.
I have not been to all of them but I hope theres Sze Chuan one soon. Or some cuisine from some remote part of China. That would be something different for us foodies!

Soy Milk Chiffon

Soy milk chiffon

I made soy milk chiffon like the one I ate in Shanghai last month. I took the recipe from the Internet but didn't quite like the result because it was more sponge cake than chiffon. The recipe below is adapted from my favorite pandan chiffon cake.

The cake gave off really awesome wafts of eggs and soy milk while in was baking but when eaten with the soft cream and fruits, it was hard to tell that the chiffon was made with soy milk. Well, I thought I did detect soy milk but the rest of the family did not. Anyway, for those who are avoiding cakes made with dairy products, this is a good option. I don't know what you can substitute the dairy cream that should be served with this cake though. This is a very Japanese/Asian cake and should your guests be Caucasians or westerners, I suggest you bake a denser, more substantial tea cake for them. I once served my light lemon fresh cream cake to an Aussie friend and you could tell he wasn't impresssed while the rest of the table, Asians, loved it. He licked my plate clean when I baked a dense chocolate cake so I am convinced that western/Caucasians guys don't like light airy cakes. Girls seem to like their cakes soft and airy, Asians or otherwise.


1. Whisk all the wet ingredients and sugar in a bowl.


2. Sift in the dry ingredients.


3. Mix until uniform.


4. Egg white is to a cake as light is to photography. If the egg whites are beaten to the right stage, the cake will be perfect. The best stiff peak stage is when the egg whites are stiff but not overwhipped or they will not be able to hold the batter and the cake will fall and be flat and heavy. I can tell when the whites are ready: when they form a ball around the whisk.


5. Lighten the batter by adding some beaten whites to it, then add the batter to the whites (heavy mixture into light is easier to mix).


6. If the batter is still stiff after all that mixing, you know the cake will be soft and fluffy. Level by shaking, then tap or drop the cake tin on the counter to knock big air bubbles out.



































































Soy Milk Chiffon

A Ingredients:
3 oz/90g fine sugar
6 large egg whites
1/2 t cream of tartar
B Ingredients:
2 oz/60g fine sugar (reduced)
6 oz/180g self-raising flour, sifted
6 large egg yolks
4 oz unsweetened soy milk (preferably fresh)
4 oz/120ml veg (corn or canola) oil

Serve with:
softly beaten dairy whipping cream
fresh fruits--berries and bananas

1. Switch oven to 160 C. Get ready a bundt pan (9"/19cm diameter at top), no need to grease.

2. Mix all the B ingredients in a bowl.

3. Beat A ingredients in your machine until stiff and fold 1/3 of A into B and then all the AB mixture into the remaining whites. Mix well (you can use the machine) until uniform. Pour into the pan, level and drop pan on the counter from a height of about 6"/15 cm to knock out large air bubbles.

4. Bake 1 hour and invert the bundt pan when you take it out of the oven so that it will hang and not sit on its own weight. When cooled, ease the cake out by running a blade around the tin.


5. Serve slices of the chiffon with soft whipped cream and fresh fruits such as strawberries. blueberries, kiwis and bananas.

Cafe de Oriente

Spain, Part VIII: A popular stop for a bite, thanks to a prime location in busy Madrid.

Take an outdoor table at Cafe de Oriente for a pleasant view of the Spanish national palace.

Tapas are a treat _ particularly piquillo pepper stuffed to bursting with tuna, corn & langoustine.

Cabrales cheese & crispy pork bacon au gratin. Would probably be the perfect breakfast dish (except that we were here for pre-dinner snacks).

Jamon iberico with tomato compote. Cured meat really is everywhere in this city.

Green asparagus &! amp; goa t's cheese with the most memorable component: richly savory duck ham.

Cune Rv (Rioja) & Seguras Viudas (Aria) sparkling.

And with this entry, we wrap up our Spanish sojourn. Hasta mas tarde!

Cafe de Oriente,

Madrid, Spain.