Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Puchong Puteri Shabu Shabu Steamboat at Plus One Shabu Shabu by Best Restaurant To Eat

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Sheer mention of steamboat drives my craving for this dish. Yours truly really enjoy a meal going by the cooler rainy weather in Kuala Lumpur these days. I had an invitation to review Plus One Shabu Shabu Restaurant located at Bandar Puteri Puchong which was opened just 3 months ago.
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We were told that this restaurant is the same owner as the one in One Utama thus the expectation of a good meal is imminent. The restaurant offers many variants of soup base i.e. you can literally have different soup based for different person. Unlike normal steamboat where you need to share one or 2 soups based, here it is based on individual pot. One person one pot. This is good, as it is more hygienic and secondly you can choose our own soup base. Kind of cute too, you control what you want to put in the pot, control the cooking temperature and etc. No more rushing to grab what is in the shared pot.
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Food Photo
To start off with, we choose to have the signature broth which is the Macau Pork Bone, the other option was the Papaya with White Fungus, Pepper Soup and also the Tom Yam broth. These broths are painstaking prepared on a daily basis and some broth needs at least 4 to 6 hours to be able to extract the full flavours of the soup ingredients.
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Food Photo

Food Photo
We ordered the seafood set and pork loin set. The seafood set comes with some prawns, slice fish, brown squid, crab stick and clams. All sets come with vegetables, white sotong surimi, fish-ball, Enoki mushroom, corn cob, fried bean curd skin and yee mee.
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The ingredients were very fresh; the owner is quite particular, when it comes to selection of choice ingredients for its customer. Coupled with the some house made sauce i.e. Tom Yam sauce, Sambal Belacan, Hong Kong Satay sauce, Fermented Beancurd Sauce, Hong Kong Chilli sauce, Sweet sauce and Hawaii sauce. We were recommended a combination of Hong Kong Chilli sauce mix with Bean curd sauce and with a dash of sesame oil and spring onion. Surprising it blended pretty well with the seafood. The sambal belacan sauce, was another sauce that is not too spicy and can go well with the noodle and vegetable.

We were also served with some side dishes as follows.
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Deep Fried Hong Kong Fish Skin – very crispy that you can eat as it is, but would be smoother if it was Shabu-Shabu.
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Secondly, is the 3 Season Home Made Meatball – Prawn ball, Pork with Mushroom and Fish with Parsley? These meat balls was prepared using the best quality of meat and you can taste it once you bite into it.
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Thirdly, we had the fresh slice of Garoupa fish meat. After dipping into the pot, the fish meat was very silky and tender.

Lastly, is The Little Black Pearl – which is actually the century eggs flown in all the way from Hong Kong. The century serves here has the gooey creamy yolk. Served with preserved ginger which is also imported from Hong Kong. It has a strong after taste which is important benchmark of a good century egg.

Editor Best Restaurant To Eat
Date of Visit : 08-01-2014

Steamboat Review by Best Restaurant. Pls Click Here
Puchong - Best Restaurant Other Review in Puchong. Pls Click Here

Thursday, January 2, 2014

MUAR JOHOR | South Food Trail by Best Restaurant to Eat

There are many blogs and TV shows featuring Muar in Johor as a food haven. With that in mind, we decided to make a trip down south to savour this offering.


There is a TV series which highlights Muar streets foo. Today, we will be eating street food rather than restaurant food that we normally featured. After a series of search, we have shortlisted a couple of some of the best of Muar Food to savour for this trip.


We started quite early in the morning at 6am from Kuala Lumpur as most of the food stalls are open for breakfast up to lunch hours. We reached Muar at 830am and drove around town trying to spot the Wai Sek Kai Along Jalan Haji Abu (between the junction with Jalan Meriam and Jalan Ali). 


We notice that there are streets with the colour theme like red where most building along that street is painted with red and yellow as yellow streets and blue streets. A true community spirit of the people of Muar to promote this town.

We took a walk around the main makan street and try to see what was that they were selling and also to find out where our shortlisted store is.


Our first taste was the fried carrot cakes; we saw a big queue already before the store was open. We look around to see what was being ordered by the other patron and decided to order one big packet with eggs to be shared. The normal price for a small packet is RM3.00. For the big packet, it is at RM4.00. The uncle told us his version is the sweet type version (which is black due to the thick black soya sauce) and we also got to know that in Muar there is a white version from one of the fellow patron which she also recommends some places for other Muar favourite makan place.


Taste wise it is, it is a little sweet and they don’t fry it like in KL where the pieces of carrot cake are cut to smaller pieces and a little crispier on the outside. Moreover, we can’t really taste much of the choy poh.


Next, we venture into a restaurant called Hua Nam. In this coffee shop, there is 2 main food served here i.e the popular Muar Laksa and the Teochew Pork soup. The shop was packed when we arrived and took us a while for us to get a table. We look around to see what was being ordered by the other patrons.


The Muar Laksa was noting great compared to the one we had in Kuala Lumpur. The broth was not thick and was not spicy at all. It was quite bland. The saving grace was the cockles which were very fresh and succulent.


Next, we savour the Teochew Pork (Chap Chye) Soup with white rice. This is a totally new dish for me as the one we had in Kuala Lumpur is the Mustard Vegetable Pork soup. Well, this dish is only for lovers of pork spare parts. Taste-wise, it was short of my expectation of a good pork soup.


In this coffee shop, it does allow outside food from the outside to be brought in to be eaten. There are a couple of streets store just outside this shop.


The first one that we ordered is the Teochew Braised Pork and Spare parts. We had the pork, pig skin, pig intestine, eggs and tau foo. Taste-wise, it is not very fragrant as it lacks the taste of spices usually used to cook this dish.


Lastly, we ordered the Woon Chai Koh, compare to those that you normally find from the Pasar Malam, this is a super small bowl and for RM2.00 you get 8 pieces of it. One of the main difference is the garnishing, which is boiling hot, unlike those found in Pasar Malam, which is usually cooked hours earlier. Taste-wise, the texture was quite smooth while the garnishing blended well.


The next to the shop is the coffee itself. Understand that there are many coffee merchants in Muar, so the one we had in the shop truly has strong aroma with the strong aftertaste in your throat. Worth the money you paid for many times over.


We tried the otak-otak on Avenue 4 food court but found it to be too spicy and salty. Not much to shout about. Probably being introduced to the wrong place.


We were told of the best wanton noodle in the area and when we reach the shop, it was beginning to open its shop, so we waited patiently for them to unload box and crates of dumpling, suikow and wantan noodles and the must-have char siew.


At first, we thought we were in a treat, how wrong were we after our first taste, of the soup then the noodles, then the sui kow and wanton. The only saving grace was the price. At 3.50 per bowl, it is a real bargain but I wouldn’t go for a second after tasting the best wanton noodles in KL.


As we were chilling before the lunch break, we wanted to sample the famous chicken rice Jit Fatt, we came about a place where we park our car, the place is Kala Chicken along the makan street, they served the Grass Jelly Tea at RM3.00 per shot. Feeling thirsty after all the food intake, we decided to try one. To our surprise, it was not bad and considering the price we paid for it was good.


We left the place to find the Jit Fatt 119-4, Jalan Mariam. Here like Melaka, the chicken rice is served moulded into a ball. Some say, it is comparable with the one in Melaka, so we ordered a small serving of 3 rice ball with a plate of chicken breast. If you really want to know whether the chicken is good, you have to try the breast meat, you can taste the sweetness of the chicken if any, the tenderness not soft, and the juiciness (breast meat have the least) and if any it will make the chicken especially nice and top quality. To me, it fails all the 3 test.


The rice balls were too hard and not much taste compared to those from Melaka, they are soft and fluffy even when moulded into a ball. I would say the size of the rice ball is also bigger than in Melaka.

It was a truly disappointing food trip and really out of our expectation. So we decided to cut short our trip and head to Melaka.


Before leaving, we remember we passed by a store where they sell this Bentayan Lemon Lime drink but it was in the midst of opening when we had our wanton noodle earlier, so we decided to make t trip there to try it out. The first sips were mesmerising, you can feel the sourish lime lemon flowing down your throat. It was very refreshing and can wake up your senses up if you are sleepy. It was also very intoxicating as you want to have more sips after the first. This is the saving grace of our trip to Muar, Johor. Next stop is Melaka.

Read about our Food Trail to Tangkak Johor

Read about our holiday at Desaru Beach 3D 2N Weekend Escapade, Johor

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Saturday, December 21, 2013

Fancy Christmas Theme Cupcakes At Rolling Pin By Best Restaurant To Eat


I am no fan of cupcakes as I find most cupcakes that I have previously eaten to be extremely too sweet for me.



When a fellow blogger offered me the chance to review these cupcakes her friend made i.e. from Rolling Pin, I took the opportunity to test it out anyway as I was told that these cupcakes were a different in that, it was a Christmas theme cupcakes.



Fancy that, as you can see from the pictures, the beautifully decorated cupcakes was very pleasing to the eyes and it makes perfect gifts too and with the Christmas round the corner you could buy it as a dessert after the Christmas eve dinner too.


First to try out was the Santa Claus Cupcake. It looks so cute, that you wouldn’t want to eat it. The cake based was butter vanilla based. I find it was not overwhelming sweet but the cakes were a little hard, would have preferred it to be of soft and fluffy cakes. The topping was marzipan based and this is very sweet.


The next was a Christmas Tree theme cupcakes, with frozen green icing.


Followed by Snowman theme.


Followed by Snowflake theme.


Well, if you like cupcakes you can also ask them to custom made for your special occasion, it would be great and eye pleasing for your guest to enjoy it.

For more information on ordering you can http://rollingpin2u.weebly.com/

Photo courtesy of www.carmenhong.com


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Original Homemade Japanese Udon at Manmaru Restaurant Mid Valley By Best Restaurant To Eat.


What is a good UDON? How do you know whether the UDON is freshly made? With all this question in mind, we venture into Manmaru Japanese Udon Restaurant located at S-045A, Second Floor, Mid Valley City Megamall, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The entrance was brightly lit with Japanese lanterns.



The concept is simple. It is a Japanese Fast Food Udon Restaurant much like in Japan. You decide the type of noodles (10 types) and choose your add on tempura (ranging from shrimp tempura to mix vegetables tempura or side dishes and move to pay at the payment station followed by cutleries and tempura sauce. This self service concept is similar in Japan but in Japan there are no sitting space, you virtually slurp your Udon standing.


So, what makes a good Udon? The ingredient to make the Udon is very important, secondly timing is everything. According to Richard, the manager, brief us that Udon, once cooked have to be consume within 15 minutes, after which it loses the firm bouncy texture.

At Manmaru, this becomes a very critical stage as it takes another 10 minutes just to cook the Udon. So, in order not to have too much slack time, it is very critical to ensure that there are Udon ready to serve but still able to maintain the texture. At Manmaru, if they are not able to serve and consume by the customers within the 15 minutes, the cooked Udon will be disposed off. Kind of waste but this is how Udon are to be served for the freshest and the best of quality when eaten.


There are 2 main types of Udon i.e. Cold and Hot, depending on your preference, probably depends on the time you eat it. On a hot day, you might want to take the Cold Udon, while on a cool night you might want to slurp up a hot Udon.


 For the night, we started off with the Kimchi Udon follow by Curry Udon, Kamaage Udon, Niku Udon, Bukake Udon, Kake Udon, Kamo Seiro Udon, Ume Udon, Zaru Udon and Cream Corn Udon. All in all, we had the privileged to try all 10 of it.


My personal favourite are Niku Udon, I love the beef slice and the springy Udon and it complimented well with the broth. One thing about Beef Slice, you have to consume it quickly as the beef slice will be a little overcook if not eaten quickly.

 

My next favourite is the Cream Corn Udon, a cream based which looks quite similar to carbonara sauce, but here the cream is of a light cream which is very nice. This dish is a very simple looking and delicious Udon.


For Tempura, we were served the Enoki Tempura (golden needle mushroom), Ebi Tempura (Prawn), Yasai Kakiage Tempura (Crispy Mix Vegetable), White Fish Tempura, Kabocha tempura (Pumpkin), Satsuma-Imo Tempura (Sweet Potato), Renkon Tempura (Lotus Root), Nasu Tempura (Brinjal) and Green Pepper Tempura.


My personal favourite was the Enoki and Yasai Kakiage, as it was not too oily and as usual, you have to consume it as quickly as possible failing which it tends to loose it crispiness and become soggy.


And for the Karaage, they have the Ika Karaage (Squid) and Tori Karaage (Chicken). I personally find the Karaage to be a little too salty, but if you are eating with plain Udon, I suppose should be able to neutralized the saltiness.


Finally, is the side order dish of the Hanjuku Tamago (Soft boiled eggs marinated with soya sauce). This side order to me is a comfort food as I love to eat stewed eggs of all types, but personally, it lacks the kick compared to the Taiwanese version that I had previously.

The parting experience from this Udon expedition, the keyword is FAST, i.e. is you really have to eat fast to enjoy a real Udon meal in Manmaru. No time for chit chat during meal.