Hokkaido Sushi

When I was at One Utama recently, I was surprised to see that Hokkaido Sushi has moved from its previous lower ground floor location to its current location which is on the 2nd floor.

I was not surprised to see a queue there because this eatery is under the same group as Sushi Zanmai which is under a bigger group that includes Kura, Rakuzen and Hokkaido Ichiba so the quality of the food is good. Pasta Zanmai is also under the same SuperDining Group.

12 not 24

10 Portuguese egg tarts. The colour of this photo has too much red to it.

A big thank you to NuxV who wrote about this good deal. Since I have not eaten Portuguese egg tarts for a few years, I went for it. King's bakery is having this promotion from 3.30pm to 4.30pm daily - 10 Portuguese egg tarts for MYR12 nett. The price of one Portuguese egg tart is MYR2.40 so this promotion gives a 50% discount but you need to buy 10 tarts and so I did. I shared them with my siblings who took one to share among them because they are on diet so I had to eat one daily until they are all gone.

The layered puff pastry is thick and a bit salty without any buttery taste. The egg custard is not overly sweet, is thick and has a strong egg taste. My spouse says that the egg custard has a milky taste (which I couldn't detect) to it so he won't eat it as he can't stand that milky taste. Since I didn't want to eat so many tarts on my own over a few days, I requested him to eat the pastry (crust) and leave the custard to me which he did. I would have to say that the egg tarts taste good for this price.

I bought them at the King's Bakery outlet in Sri Petaling. I guess this promotion would be available at the other outlets too. I did not notice any end date to this promotion.

Not again

Nasi Lemak again! We ran an errand around the area so we went to eat at Brilliant Nasi Lemak House. We ordered two plates of nasi lemak and one glass of hot barley bencurd drink at MYR2.80+ (MYR2.95 nett).

Ordered one with Sambal Prawn - MYR8.80+ (MYR9.35 nett). The portion of rice is definitely much more than Poppo's but the sambal is so much less. Since I only take a bit of sambal, I am fine with the little bit of sambal which is too spicy for me. There were only 5 small prawns.

The other one is with Pork Rendang because we don't get that in many eateries that serve nasi lemak - MYR8.50+ (MYR9 nett). I tried one piece of pork and found that the pork taste is too strong for me.

The price of nasi lemak here is between Poppo Kanteen and Tea Garden and the taste is acceptable. We will eat here if we want to eat prawns sambal, squid sambal or pork rendang but not if we want to eat beef or mutton since beef and mutton are not served here.

Tea or Poppo

Since we like the nasi lemak (coconut milk rice) at Tea Garden a lot, we had to go back to Poppo Kanteen to try their nasi lemak again to compare the taste to see which one we like better.

Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken - MYR8.90 nett. The portion of rice is quite small which is good for me as I am a small eater but this means there are too much sambal and curry sauce. The rice here has a slightly salty taste.

Nasi Lemak Beef Rendang MYR9.90 nett. Same case - too much sambal and beef rendang to match the small portion of rice. Next time, we will order one nasi lemak with a type of meat and then order just the plain rice for MYR1.80 nett to go with the sauce and sambal from the nasi lemak.

Verdict is I like the taste of Tea Garden's nasi lemak better but the price here is better due to the smaller rice portion.

Organic Milkcow

Two complimentary small portion of premium organic soft serve ice creams with honey. It is extremely creamy and eating this ice cream is like eating frozen full cream milk.

I was surprised to find that the texture of this ice cream is very different from the texture of McD sundaes. McD sundaes are very smooth due to the ingredients used to make the sundaes. This Milkcow soft serve ice cream is not smooth at all even though the taste is very creamy. The texture is like very, very, very fine ice-blended frozen full cream milk. Anyone else can confirm this or is there something wrong with the complimentary ones that I got?

The Milkcow kiosk at the Gardens Mall. It has seats for customers to eat their soft serve ice cream onsite.

The lowest priced item is plain milk soft serve ice cream with no toppings at MYR8.50 so up till now I have not bought any to eat because of its price which is high since it is organic ice cream. I just redeemed two coupons to get the complimentary ones in photo 1.

Don't confuse Milkcow with Moo Cow above. Moo Cow is frozen yogurt and not ice cream. I have eaten Moo Cow yogurt a few years ago and like it. This Moo Cow kiosk is at the Gardens Mall too.

Big on Fruit

Last week, these are the fruits that I bought during my weekly grocery trip. Normally I just buy oranges but there was a promotion going on for other fruits so I bought them as well. The bag of 8 Cara cara navel, or red-fleshed navel oranges costs MYR10.90 nett.

This pack of blueberries was on offer. The usual price is MYR9.50 nett but now it is selling for MYR7.90 nett so I bought one pack (125g with 79 blueberries in it). The blueberries were slightly sweet and the taste is quite mild until I couldn't determine what the taste is like, quite unlike the taste of those blueberry flavoured food but I like the taste of fresh blueberries more than those flavoured food so I will buy more of them if they are on offer.

I bought 2 packs of 6 kiwi fruit each for MYR11.10 nett each. I think some other places sell them at a lower price than what I have paid for here. These green kiwi fruit are quite sweet when ripe.

I also bought a pack of 3 ripe avocados at MYR11.90 nett. The usual price is MYR13.40 nett. Avocados are quite expensive here but I like to eat them because they are very creamy with a sulphur taste which I like so I buy them once in a while and eat them plain, sometimes with plain wholemeal bread.

I love to eat cherries but they are very expensive so I only buy them once in a blue moon. This is a 1-kg bag of cherries selling at MYR48.90 nett (usual price is MYR49.90 nett). These fruits should last me for about two weeks.

No Mains

These dishes are listed as appetisers at Madam Kwan Restaurant and we ordered them to share between the 4 of us.

Beef satay aka skewered BBQ beef served with peanut sauce, raw onions, cucumber, pineapple, compressed rice at MYR17.90++  (MYR20.90 nett) for 6 sticks per portion.

Otak otak aka Fish meat with spices grilled in banana leaf at MYR19.90++ (MYR23.20 nett) and chicken satay aka skewered BBQ chicken meat served with peanut sauce, raw onions, cucumber, pineapple, compressed rice at MYR14.90++ (MYR17.40 nett) for 6 sticks per portion.

The drink I ordered - Fresh Mango Juice - MYR10.90++ (MYR12.70 nett). I can't tell whether it is pure fresh mango juice or not because it tasted like it has some mango cordial in it.

Fruit Rojak aka local fruits served with peanuts and shrimp paste sauce at MYR14.90++  (MYR17.40 nett) with crackers.

After the plate of crackers has been removed, the saucer of peanuts and shrimp paste sauce is revealed. There are sticks of cucumber, jicama, pineapple, mango and ambarella. Some of us take the fruits and mix them with the sauce on our own plates and some of us just take some sauce and fruits and dip the fruits in the sauce before eating. I just ate the fruits as they are without the sauce.

Lavender Cheese Tart

Previously, I mentioned that the Lavender bakery is also selling cheese tarts at MYR6 nett each.

There they are. Two trays just fresh out from the oven. Too bad I just can't bring myself to fork out MYR6 nett for one because I am not convinced that it is worth it. I know Stacy has tried these. Anyone else? Is the taste worth the price?

Renovation

We went to the Gardens Mall recently and were surprised to see that Borders Bookstore and Sushi Zanmai were closed. 

The Borders Bookstore is relocating to another shop lot and will be opened on 9 September 2016.

The previous Borders Shop lot will be occupied by two restaurants. One of them is Ticklish Ribs & 'Wiches and is scheduled to be opened sometime in November 2016.

The other restaurant is Shinmapo Korean BBQ Restaurant which has an existing outlet in Subang Jaya.

The new Borders Bookstore is located on the same floor as Ben's General Food Store which is on the 2nd floor.

Sushi Zanmai remains at the same location. It is now closed for renovation.

It will be opened on 20 August 2016 which is in about one month's time. I wonder whether they will change the layout a lot or not.

In the meantime, someone is excited about the oink oink food being served by Ticklish Ribs & 'Wiches. I hope their prices will be the same as the prices in their outlet in PJ.

Nice name for a dish of battered lean pork dipped in a saucy sauce.

This is the "Psycho" Sandwich with all the meat and all the sauces in one sandwich and it currently costs MYR80 at the PJ outlet.

Jul Aug Specials

For July and August 2016, Nana's Special Sweets are all about Mango and Coconut. Does mango go well with coconut?

And their special food for these two months is Seafood with Soy Milk Soup Udon at MYR23.90 nett. I have eaten savoury noodle in soy milk broth once in Tokyo and it tastes quite good so I guess this will taste good too.

**************************************************
Updated later (24102018 Wed from draft)

July and August menu for 2017. The 3 items are the same as in the 2016 menu but 2 of the items are priced higher and one (Mango Coconut Latte) is priced the same.

July 2017 menu for special food - Mentaiko Dashi Chazuke - MYR 21.90 nett.

There again

I like to eat the nasi lemak so much that we went back to Tea Garden the next day to try the Nasi Lemak Mutton Rendang (Coconut Milk Rice) at MYR12.60 nett. There are many pieces of tender mutton and lots of rice so we were very satisfied with this dish so we will definitely be back for it.

The Hainanese Milk Tea has a very strong milky taste to it. We had it with ice so the price is MYR4.30 nett.

We wanted to try the stir fried mee siam (dry) but it was not available so we settled for Nyonya Mee Siam at MYR7.90 nett and were pleasantly surprise at how tasty it was with a sourish broth of slightly creamy (coconut milk) curry. There are two prawns and one whole hard boiled egg to go with the rice vermicelli (mee hoon). I would definitely order this again.

A fulfilling meal at a total price of MYR24.80 for two persons.

Colours
This can be considered another post. After reading the post about colouring books on "Eat what, Eat where?" blog yesterday, I suddenly remember that I had been meaning to talk about this recent "colouring away your stress" activity for grown ups.

I came to know about this activity from Kuchingnite fb posts since her daughter is very good at drawing and colouring. Then I saw the expensive colouring books in the bookstores but unfortunately I did not have any spare cash to buy them since they are over MYR70 per book so I did the next best thing that I could do.

I dug out my two old boxes of (48 colours each) colour pencils for children from the store room and started using them since they are still in working condition after many years and here are the results. No need to pay anything and yet can take away my stress.

I just let it go and simply colour away on blank pieces of paper. If like me, you think those books are expensive and you would like to colour too, just do what I did. Go find your old colour pencils, get a piece of blank paper and just colour away. Anything goes and you may be surprised at the results.

Tea Garden Sri Petaling

We did not intend to eat at this place because we thought that the food will be just like the food in any other new style kopitiam. It so happened that we found a parking space near this eatery so we said to each other, let's eat here. Tea Garden is from Johor and has a few outlets as listed on their website  http://www.teagarden.com.my/ and this outlet in Sri Petaling is one of its new outlets (although it has been around since 2015 when NuxV wrote about it and I believe that it has undergone one renovation since then).

Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak - MYR13.40 nett. I would prefer the beef to be more tender. We requested for the fried egg to have a fully cooked yolk. Quite decent. The sambal and rendang is not that spicy hot when we ate it but we could feel it burning in our stomach later.

This dish has a nice name and an expensive price. Eight treasure glutinous rice - MYR5.30 nett. Basically this is just lo mai fan (glutinous rice) with peanuts, spring onions, mushrooms, and deep fried shallots. Where or what are the 8 treasures? Will definitely not order this next time. Have to order dishes that are more worth the price paid.

Double boiled barley with fungus (hot) - MYR7.40 nett. We find this too sweet.

Other than the white fungus and ginkgo nuts, there are cubes of egg whites in this dessert. How unique!

Tea Garden at Sri Petaling is located opposite Mcd. This corner shop lot used to be occupied by Restoran Kinrara which has now moved to a smaller shop lot nearby.