NRICR

NRICR stands for New Restaurant Ipoh Chicken Rice. There are many outlets in the Klang Valley and their specialty dish is the steamed organic village (kampung) chicken (a lower quarter portion of this chicken without rice costs MYR18). Their tagline is "Ipoh Nga Choy Chicken Since 1977" (Nga Choy means beansprout in Cantonese). Now they have diversified and added a variety of vegetable, pork, noodle and fish dishes into their menu.

I am not overly particular about chicken meat so I seldom eat at this place due to its price. It so happened that the other day we were near the Sri Petaling outlet around 4pm and needed a quick noodle fix so we ordered two bowls of noodle as below.

Signature Ipoh Hor Fun with Chicken and Pork Meat Balls (2 balls only) - MYR8.80 - On its own, each pork meat ball costs MYR1.1 and one must order 4 at least. This pork meat ball is very tasty because it has dried squid (or dried cuttlefish) pieces (tiu pin - Cantonese) in it giving it a special salty seafood smoky taste.

Wanton noodle with 5 dumplings (soup) - MYR6.80 - the wanton noodle is springy and thin and tastes like Hong Kong egg noodle so it is quite nice but the soup is very salty and so are the 5 dumplings. I will definitely not order this again.

A warm herbal (pak chee cho/夏枯草/Prunella vulgaris) drink - MYR2.50 (we requested for no sugar at all) so it is quite bitter just the way we like it.

NRICR Sri Petaling outlet - best to come here only for its steamed organic kampung chicken but not for its noodle meals.

Service Charge: 10%
Govt. Tax: NA
Total Bill: MYR19.90 (2pax)
Tel: 03-9057 6128

Fruit Free Clusters

I was at Presto Supermarket, Citta Mall a few months ago looking around and this "buy one get one free" offer caught my eye. Two boxes of "Food For Health - Fruit Free Clusters with chia" for MYR26.99 only (475g nett - each box).

This fruit free clusters health food is created by an Australian for people with gluten and fructose intolerance (made in Australia too). One can eat this with milk (hot or cold) or add to yoghurt or just eat the clusters as a healthy snack.

 Front

Back

The clusters

Close-up:  (ingredients copied from the list on the box) Buckwheat, Puffed Rice, Sunflower Seeds, Organic Raw Sugar, Rice Bran Syrup, Almonds, Hazelnuts, Pecans, Pumpkin Seeds, Puffed Millet, Psyllium Husks, Chia Seed, Flaxseed, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavour, Cinnamon.

I like the taste of cinnamon in general but somehow I do not quite like the overall sweet taste of this clusters (on the box, it says "The clusters have a scrumptious nutty cinnamon flavour...." but I just couldn't bring myself to like the taste). I took a few months to finish eating them. I don't think I will buy it again as I prefer the bland taste of plain oats to this.

Tou Tou Little Kitchen

Tou Tou Little Kitchen (肥 陶丸粉专卖店), Sri Petaling is a neighbourhood eatery where I go for some noodles at around 4pm when all the morning coffee shops selling noodles have closed for the day. It serves a few types of noodle with many types of meat balls - squid, prawn, pork, pork and bacon, and fish. Meals with rice are limited.

Hakka Fried Pork Belly with Thin Hakka Noodle set - MYR10.80 - comes with a bowl of red bean dessert soup (in the photo below). The noodles are springy, good for exercising the jaw.

Xi Dao Fish Balls (4 only) with Thin Hakka Noodle (Dry) - MYR5.80 only. The bowl of red bean dessert soup in this photo comes with the Pork Belly Noodle set in the first photo. Prices are nett.

Store front 

On-going promotion

肥 陶丸粉专卖店
Tou Tou Little Kitchen
No.67, Jalan Radin Bagus,
Bandar Baru Seri Petaling

Dubu Dubu again

This is the 2nd time that I ate at Dubu Dubu (Urban Korean Food), Midvalley Megamall. Again it was the weekday set lunch promotion that attracted us. For our sets, we did not pay an extra MYR2 per person to have unlimited refill of the 3 banchan (side dishes) of the day as 1 serving is more than enough for us.

Spicy Seafood Ramyeon (Ramen) set - weekday promotion price: MYR12.90, normal price: MYR18.90 - the 3 side dishes of the day are: beansprout, kimchi and sesame potatoes (sweet).

Close-up: A half hard boiled egg, 2 prawns with shells and heads, corns, seaweed, and kimchi so with kimchi also as one of the side dishes, I had a double dose of kimchi and needed help to finish the kimchi. The soup is very spicy and salty so I have to remind myself not to order this dish again as I had difficulty eating this due to its spiciness.

Beef Soondubu Jigae (Beef soft tofu stew) set - weekday promotion price: MYR12.90, normal price: MYR17.90 with a bowl of rice and the same 3 side dishes of the day: beansprout, kimchi and sesame potatoes (sweet).

Close-up: Beef Soondubu Jigae - beef slices and tofu with a (almost raw) egg - (not seen here because the egg has been pushed under the broth).

For those who love kimchi and spicy affordable Korean food, this is the place to go for its weekday promotion set lunch menu.

Fish & Rice

Stirfried ginger, spring onion and slices of fish (not sure what type of fish this is) served with rice set comes with a glass of herbal drink (drink is not shown here) - MYR11.90 (MYR13.80 after 10% service charge and 6% gov. tax) - Esquire Kitchen. Not the best but not the worst either - passable.

Sauce Price

Once of the best Penang Chee Cheong Fun (rice noodles)  in KL is served by a stall in O & S coffee shop at Paramount Garden, PJ. Whenever I go there I must order a plate of 2 "sheets" Chee Cheong Fun with prawn sauce (har gao) which will set me off MYR3 as 1 "sheet" costs MYR1.50 but I did not know that if I order it plain without any sauce, the same 1 "sheet" of Chee Cheong Fun will only cost me MYR0.80.

I only found out about this just recently after eating at this place so many times previously. This means that the prawn sauce costs MYR0.70 for each "sheet" of Chee Cheong Fun. How interesting.

2 "sheets" of Chee Cheong Fun with prawn sauce (har gao) and a bit of chili sauce on the side - MYR3 but as I asked for the prawn sauce to be put on the side as I only like to eat a little bit of the sauce and it was not done, I went to buy another "sheet" of plain Chee Cheong Fun (as shown below).

I ordered just 1 "sheet" of plain rice noodle but the owner asked me to please buy two as one "sheet" only costs 80 cents so I said ok. Total price is MYR1.60 for two "sheets" without any sauce. So you know what to do if you are really keen to scrimp and save. ;p

Da Feng Shou

This was another celebration dinner with the in-laws. Since all of us have just been to Hee Lai Ton, this time my sister-in-law suggested a restaurant in Bandar Puteri Puchong, named Da Feng Shou (大豐收). With 9 other hungry mouths around, I just quickly took a photo of each dish so this post is just for my own record of what we ate that night and how much each item costs.

All the dishes are very flavourful and oily since the cooks are from China (I think) but everyone agreed that the food is a nice change from the restaurant that we frequent. As usual I did not eat rice for dinner.

Deep fried pomfret - MYR48 - sauces are provided. After ordering this, we tried to cancel this order because my sister-in-law thinks that she could easily fry this fish at home but the head waitress said that the cook has already started preparing this dish so no changes can be done.

This is a small dish of spicy and sourish black fungus as appetizers - MYR8

A small dish of steamed brinjals with chili on top - MYR15 - a bit oily

Peppery and spicy (hot) frog soup - MYR38 - this soup is so peppery hot that if one is not careful, one would choke on the spiciness. I did not drink this soup although this soup is a specialty dish of this restaurant - you could opt for other meat if you don't want to eat frog.

Just look at the bunch of peppercorn with the red and green chilis revealed after all the soup has been consumed - no wonder the soup is so spicy hot.

I have no idea what this dish was as the ordering was not done by me. It was some sort of dried mushroom that tasted like dried lily bulb (kam chan) - MYR28.

Lamb ribs - MYR38 - the lamb is tender enough

Pork ribs - MYR38 - this is the least favourite  dish as the pork meat is quite dry beneath the sauce.

The pork belly (東坡肉 - Dong Po Rou) costs MYR28 and the 10 buns costs MYR15. I did not eat this dish but everyone else seems to like it.

Young kailan - MYR15 for a small portion - very crunchy - a clear favourite because my mother-in-law said that she only managed to eat just one stalk and then all the kailan was gone.

Total bill came up to MYR274 after including rice (MYR10.5 for 7 bowls), tea (MYR10 for 10pax) and a misc charge of MYR10 and a 10% discount due to my sister-in-law having a promotion leaflet of this restaurant.

There is another outlet in Ara Damansara and the tel. no. is 03-78465168. The outlet in Bandar Puteri, Puchong is directly opposite Penang One eatery.

Teochew Chendul

I have been reading about this cendol shop in Paradigm Mall so I went to try the food out with my family. True enough the food is tasty and price is reasonable.

Penang white curry with chilli paste in the spoon to be mixed in later - MYR7.90 - really tasty!

Assam Laksa - MYR7.90 - not that salty, more sourish so this is a lighter version of Penang Assam Laksa I would say.

Penang Cendol - MYR4.90 each - the palm sugar tastes authentic enough. I only wish they have given us more shaved ice for the cendol.

ABC - MYR4.90 - with peanuts and rose syrup. This order was a mistake - we should have just ordered another bowl of cendol because although it is a nice bowl of ABC on its own, it pales in comparison with the cendol. All prices are nett.

During lunch time, there will be a long queue and not enough seats since it is not a big shop. Better go and eat during non-peak hours if you crave for the taste of Penang cendol (which was what we did).

Food post or not?

I will let you all decide on the above question (title) :D

Hayley is so very sweet to write me the lovely note below. I must say, thank you Hayley for your blog which I enjoy reading very much.

The gift - 8 bars of Echo Oat Choco. I think they are similar to Princess Ribbon's "The Next In-Thing". I am going to put them into my Milo drink because the oats are no longer shaped as bars (must be due to too much shaking during the long journey from Hayley's house to my house via post).

I must say Hayley is very attentive to her blog readers because she knows that I like to eat oats. If she has sent me a beauty face mask, then I would have to give it away because I don't use it. So thank you again, Hayley but please no more next time, ok? :)  I feel very embarrassed (paiseh) to receive your gift since you also comment on my blog. Thank you for your continuous support too, I appreciate it very much.

Details printed on the packaging.

Ingredients

P/S I have also requested Wenn and other blogger friends not to send me any more registered mail due to my inability to receive them. This time my kind neighbour agreed to do me a favour by house sitting for me and I am also embarrassed to have to seek their help all the time. So sorry but no more registered mail, ya? Thanks! :)

Taiwan Coconut Pastry

I was given one piece of this pastry bought from a shop (阿明師老店太陽堂) that is famous for its sun cake (太陽餅) in Taiwan.

This pastry is listed under the "Fragrant series - 香妃系列" which has 3 flavours - coconut (which is this one), meat floss and date paste. It is sold in a box of 12 pieces - TWD300 which is about MYR32.21 - MYR2.68 per piece.

Coconut flakes on top?

Many layers

Very very crispy and flaky but taste wise, I find it to be very oily and sweet with not much coconut taste so this pastry is not to my liking.

Turtles Anyone?

The dishes below need to be ordered a few days before the actual dining day. They are my parents-in-law's favourite food at Hee Lai Ton (Wisma Shaw, Pudu). My in-laws will order them for special occasions only (just look at the prices and you will know why). There are also other ordinary dishes ordered such as roast chicken and fried tilapia but I did not list them here.

Pork tendon braised with garlic, black fungus and curry leaves - MYR100 for this medium-sized pot

Lamb ribs braised with bean curd sheets - MYR56 (medium-sized pot)

水魚 - freshwater softshell turtle stirfried with ginger and chilli - MYR56. I did not eat this dish at all  because I could not bear to eat the turtles after I did a search and found out how they look like but I am not sure which species of turtle is being cooked here (I did not see the turtles before they were cooked) - it could be either the Chinese softshell turtle (Pelodiscus Sinensis) that is the turtle species being bred and raised for food in China's turtle farms or the Malayan softshell turtle (Dogania subplana). However, I have to confess that on one previous occasion last year I did try one tiny piece and that was before I found out how they look like.

Pie

I was around Damansara Uptown area and remembered reading reviews about a new eatery, "A Pie Thing" that has just opened here end of May this year. Since I could not eat a pie on my own, I went for a takeaway.

This place does not serve pork so the shortcrust pastry uses only butter and no lard. When home, I ate a quarter of each pie and shared the rest with my family. I even kept half of the spinach pie in the fridge and ate it cold the next morning and the pastry still tastes good.

If you like to eat buttery shortcrust pastry and would like to try these pies, do search out the many reviews online - same good, some not so good and read them to decide beforehand whether or not you will like to eat these pies. They do serve sweet open faced pies too for those with a sweet tooth.

Address: 128G, Jln SS21/35, Damansara Utama, PJ, close on Monday, (Tue to Sun) open from 4pm till sold out.

Bought 3 savoury pies. I did not buy any sweet pies though I was tempted to.

This is to show the size of the pie.

Chunky Steak Pie (MYR11.90 on its own) with Mashed Potatoes, Mushy Peas and Gravy (not shown) - MYR16.90 (named The Mashacre). If you are eating in, the presentation of The Mashacre is different - it does not look like my photo above. The beef is tender enough so thumbs up.

Pulled Lamb Pie - MYR11.90 - the lamb is also tender enough and the flavour is just nice, not overpowering so thumbs up too.

Creamy Spinach Pie - MYR11.90 - with tomatoes in the fillings. Very creamy and a bit on the salty side. I will be back to try the other savoury and sweet pies if I happen to be in the area in the evening.