: : Kuih : :

Mouthwatering U CHAR KUEH! Going to get whacked for posting this pic up for sure.

Feels like rubbing salt in the wound eh? :p

: : Brunch & Granny’s Cooking : :

Well, brunch was a really quick affair. After 6 hours of sleep, felt refreshed. Granny had gone grocery shopping and bought back some kueh chap.

I think Kueh Chap is a local Sarawakian dish. Don’t recall seeing it in the Chinese coffeeshops in KL. The big flat pieces of noodles is actually uncut kway teow noodles. Kueh Chap is a high sodium content meal. Imagine all the soy sauce that goes into the dish. However, note that it’s a non-halal dish as it’s usually cooked with pork : lean meat, skin, intestines. I think the pork can be substituted with chicken. Beef might be a bit too strong but I suppose if one tenderizes the beef before hand, can be used. The kueh chap was bought from Kenyalang Park, one of the foodstalls there. Tasted a lot better than the one I posted much much earlier.

Granny also cooked some Japanese Egg Tauhu with Leek. She used some spicy Sze Chuan tauhu as well to add in some spicy-ness into the dish. Yummy!

And added bonus : Lotus Soup! I love this! Granny put in some pork spare ribs and chicken meat in. For the Muslims, just add the chicken is sufficient. But, you’ll need to boil the sliced lotus pods for a long time to soften. Granny cooks this over a slow fire for a few hours. Add chicken in later as well as salt and pepper to taste.

: : Carvery, Pending : :

I have known Yoon, a fellow Korean collegue, for about 4 years now. When he announced that he was resigning, the entire department decided to ‘chia’ him to a excellent dinner at Carvery. WARNING! VERY LONG BLOG!

Note that some of the photos are slightly yellow as I did not turn on the flash thinking that I could edit the pictures. Talk about being an idiot.

As usual, Malaysians are generally not so punctual so there were only 5 of us who started first including Yoon. Too hungry at 7:30 p.m. so we hit the salad buffets. Also, Opa (brother) Yoon contributed a bottle of whiskey. Wah!

Hot Salad Buffet

Cold Salad Buffet

Hot Salad Buffet

There were a lot of varieties here : baby carrots, stir-fried (FRESH!!) mushrooms, brussel sprouts, fried rice, lasagna, brocolli, baked potato, cauliflower. I’m a sucker for fresh mushrooms!!

To the right of this buffet, minestrone soup was also served. I added a touch of Tabosco sauce to it to add a little spice. Spaghetti noodles were also added into the soup as well.

Now the soup definitely went well with the homemade bread. There aren’t that many places in Malaysia that makes decent bread. If anyone says that Gardenia is the best bread there is, he/she deserves a whack!

Cold Salad Buffet

The pictures speak for themselves.

One has to pace oneself when it comes to eating at this place. Portions are just huge! Anyway, here is a the menu for the main course : CARVERY! The meat is cut or served immediately on the diner’s plate. Take note that there is an extremely sharp knife so one needs to be careful not to get too close or to move in the direction of the blade.

Beef Ribs

Mussels

Chicken Wings

Lamb Chops

Smoked Beef

Smoked Chicken

Beef Sausages

Chicken Breast

Chicken Sausage

Fried Fish in Batter

Chicken wrapped in Beef Ham

Ribeye Steak

Rump Steak

Beef Ribs

Hmm… the pic wasn’t that good. I didn’t take this but the others did. They loved it!

Mussels

Another weakness. I think LSL and I had 6 pieces each. Definitely going to visit Lorraine in Brussels to eat the mussels!

Chicken Wings

Better than KFC. I couldn’t identify the taste but it was delicious!

Lamb Chops

Delicious! Of course, it does have a strong smell but who cares? Also, the mint sauce that came with it is made right in the kitchem. Mmmmmm…

Smoked Beef

Be forewarned that this is very salty so you’ll need to eat it with some bread, rice or veggie just to get rid of the salty taste. Other than that, it’s simply too beautiful for words!

Smoked Chicken

I never like smoked chicken until I tasted this one. The best thing is that it doesn’t come apart.

Beef Sausages

Very salty yes still tasty. I love sausages.

Chicken Breast

By the time the chicken breast came, I was starting to get too full so needed to stop. Looks good though. The guys just had nearly everything.

Chicken Sausage

I actually thought that this was the cheap sausage until I tasted it. Talk about taking appearances for granted. It tasted SO GOOD! However, was too full to ask for seconds.

Fried Fish in Batter

No chips! Ha ha! The highlight was the tartar sauce. They made it there and tasted great! I’m extremely fussy when it comes to good tartar sauce for fish.

Chicken wrapped in Beef Ham

I skipped this one as well. Think after this, I skipped all the food. Too full. The guys were still going on strong.

Ribeye Steak

Man. So much meat! Too much!

Rump Steak

Aiyo! Sayang (pity) cannot try it. Sigh. Looks so good!

A few of my collegues decided to go for the ala carte menu instead. They ordered the lovely lovely salmon steak that comes with salad.

Phew! Then came the farewell speeches from everyone to Opa. Was a rush to make a movie using the digicam. Exchanging batteries and memory sticks. In the end, couldn’t capture all the speeches but got the important bits. Adjourned later for a karaoke session in town.

For those who are interested in trying out this fabulous food fare, here is the address and a map of carvery.

Carvery

Lot 2069, Jalan Utama,

Bintawa Industrial Estate,

93450 Kuching,

Sarawak.

Tel : 082-345428, 345429

Opening Hours :

Opens on Monday to Saturday.

Lunch : 11.30 am – 2.30 pm

Dinner : 6.30 pm – 10.30 pm

Closed on Sunday.

Map

: : Crowne Square, Pending : :

Took half day off this afternoon as still feeling too tired to work. Went to pick up the Palm Zire for the farewell party tonight from ForeRunner. The shop is at Crown Square, located in the Pending area. Decided to have lunch at the food court there. Airconditioned! Thank goodness : was going to expire in this heat.

The name of the foodcourt is called Thian Food Court and it’s a family-owned business which has been around for ages. They also have a restaurant in another building nearby called Lok Thian Chinese Restaurant with a Japanese (Tenichi), Thai (Bangkok Thai) and Shanghai restaurant in the same building.

Lunch was prawn chee chong fan and ang kuih (white carrot cake). Chee Chong Fan is made the same way as kway teow noodles except that it is not cut until later. It’s prepared by putting a piece of white cloth on a steamer, pouring a thin layer of batter over it, adding prawns on top and steamed for about 5 minutes. Then, the entire thing is rolled up and removed from the cloth. This is the best tasting chee chong fan that I’ve had so far in Kuching. As for the ang kuih, it is prepared before hand in a steamer, cut into rectagular pieces and later fried. This ang kuih only tasted so-so. There are better tasting one out there in hawker stalls.

A bit more about Thian Food Court. It’s an amazing place to eat all sorts of food and it’s also halal. You can find Thai food, Chinese desserts, noodles, rice dishes, Western and Japanese food. In fact, Tenichi is the most popular Japanese restaurant in town but it’s not located in this building. Even the Japanese go to eat at Tenichi, rather than the other 3 restaurants in Kuching. Probably because there is a Japanese sushi chef working there full-time.

As for the Thai restaurant, there are 3 chefs from Thailand working there, preparing the meals. The menu offers an extremely wide variety of Thai Food. It’s a plastic folder with many small pictures!! *Blissful sigh*

Back to Thian Food Court. A small corner of the restaurant is converted into a Mediterranean Restaurant but prices look too steeped to me. Thian Food Court also has an ala carte menu so if you want to order a combination of Chinese, Japanese and Thai food for a big family meal, this is the place. The Vietnamese Crab Claypot is to die for! Yum!

Some pics of the Japanese counter.

Also took some pics from the Chinese Dessert counter. Some reflections on the glass but it’s not too bad.

Never tried Luk Bee Ting before but Bo Bo Cha Cha is a favourite. Usually known as Bubur Cha Cha, it’s actually yam, sweet potato and sago cooked together with coconut milk and sugar. Served hot or cold.

Luk Tau Saun is a favourite. Served hot with u char kuih. Also, the famous green bean soup that one has to eat before midnight. Sheesh!

Well, that’s it for today. No posting later tonight as will be at a Farewell Dinner taking a lot of pictures of food at Carvery. Will take a few hours to sort out the many pictures taken because over 15 different types of meat served!

: : Kuih : :

Granny : Want to mum-mum some kuih? Nice wor!

With my aching feet, I slowly walked down the stairs. Been an extremely long day but finally event is OVER.

Perk up a bit when I saw the chai kueh. Given to Granny by her friend that lives nearby.

There are two versions here :

Salted Veggie Filling

Mangkuang Filling

Salted Veggie Filling

I’ve never liked this filling but others do. The one we had didn’t taste salty at all. Some other taste pop up instead. Anyway, still deserves a posting.

Mangkuang Filling

My favourite! Can eat this kuih alone for lunch and I’m already happy. Oh yeah, Uncle Cyril mentioned today that mangkuang is actually Spanish Turnip. Mangkuang is a great filling for many kuihs including spring rolls (egg rolls).

Chai kueh means vegetable kuih. However, note that sometimes there is a pork or chicken filling in it. Highly addictive especially with the mangkuang filling? Why? Mangkuang actually tastes a little bit sweet when it’s cooked.

Couldn’t eat more than two pieces. Stress level still kind of high so appetite wasn’t there.

Enjoy the pics!

: : Links : :

Some interesting links food links :

Lian Bee Mooncake

Ordered Mooncake for my sis last year. Paid RM200 just to courier to the US!! Aiyo. Oh well, she was happy. That was the point.

Airline Meals

MAS is there! When I travel again, will start taking pics and send it to this website just for a lark.