KL Gastro Adventure: Day 4 – Morning Market Delight

Even a dead squirrel and mushy turtle couldn’t kill our appetite for more food the next day! Again I dragged Jian to a new eating place. The coffeeshop is located in the corner before the second entrace to Seri Kembangan market in Jalan Besar. It is easy to spot especially when this man removes sheets of steamed rice flour from the steamer like an art :)

To Jian’s relief, no more shocking dishes ^_^ Only a humble plate of plain good HK chee cheong fun. Jian ordered the ones with shrimps, while I had the mix of shrimps and char siew. I have not eaten this version of ccf since I left primary school and they’re quite hard to come by, so I thought we’d better record a video of the process!

Tada! When it was served, I couldn’t wait to dig my chopstick into it. It took a lot of perseverence to wait and snap. I only took 2 pictures before the mouth-watering dish called out to me. I still remember the softness of the steamed rice flour rolled around the fillings. I’m drooling already! :3~ Oh yeah. I’d be satisfied without any soy sauce but the saltiness gives a wonderful kick with each morsel.

According to Wikipedia, this version of ccf with fillings is called laicheong.

Before leaving, Jian had to buy kai tan ko (egg cake) from the savoury bakery stall we sit next to. She exclaimed joyfully when she saw it because she was searching for this. Haha. Then we went into the market to.. buy more food, of course! Keke n.n

We came to this stall and Jian gave that same exclamation again. I was like, what?

She told me this is wun chai ko (literally translated – baby bowl pudding/kuih?) or also known as put chai ko (claypot pudding). She has only seen people eating this savoury dessert in HK drama. Then I remembered! In the drama, it’s sold like lollipop where you can hold it by the satay stick.

They come in 3 flavours:
Brown – sweet
Pinkish purple – savoury (which is yam)
White – sour (plain)

We bought the former 2. The yam one comes topped with dried shrimps and bits of onion, and a packet of sweet plum sauce. I totally love the sweet wun chai ko! I’m not sure if it used gula melaka. It’s nice to bite :)

I don’t remember what else we bought, memory has failed me :P I just fondly remember that the yam wun chai ko travelled with us up to Genting, survived the shivering cold and get preserved along the way before coming back down. It was still good to eat the day after. Heh.

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Day 3
Day 2 Part 2
Day 2 Part 1
Day 1 Part 2
Day 1 Part 1

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Mmm, a disappointing week in football… Man U gave away the FA Cup to Chelsea. Liverpool was edged by AC Milan, who dashed Man U’s European Cup dream. Man U coming to Malaysia anot leh? Still deciding ar? It’s in July leh. KNS punya AFC. Yeah, I need a much needed break to Cameron Highlands! Will be back by Wednesday ^_^

KL Gastro Adventure: Day 3 – Carnivorous Eat-out

Mom bought a pack of Vico and I was ecstatic to find this come with it! Transformers free gift n.n

There’s a puzzle, 2 stickers and 2 colouring pages nicely packed in a DVD-like box. The robots in the stickers and colouring page are so damn cool, I’m gonna stick it everywhere :> So happy ler!

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To gastro adventure day 3…Unable to savour a bowl black sesame tong sui which sold out early, we walked from Hang Tuah station, passed Berjaya Times Square through to the backlane of Jalan Imbi and arrived at Weng Hing coffeeshop for some porky-liciousness. A bit of story on this stall in Jian’s post. The pork noodle comes in two choices, dry or soup. The nice gentleman we shared the table with suggested that we order the dry version for maximum pleasure. Hehe. Observing the surrounding, 99% of the patrons had dry version.

So, 2 bowls of dry pork noodle. Loh shue fun for me, koey teow for Jian. Mmm.. looks very lardy but in fact, it is not very oily. The combination of dark soy sauce, chopped scallions and fresh minced pork is the epitome of hearty Chinese-Malaysian Sunday breakfast. RM5 per bowl.

On the side, is a bowl (almost the same size as the noodle) of soup containing pieces of pork balls and slices of Chinese sausage. The pork balls is incredibly fresh tasting and has the right amount of bounce :)

This is the slice of Chinese sausage to die for! I could just munch on this all day until I die from siew cheong overload and I’d still be happy. Inside is perfectly infused with Chinese wine while the outside skin is slightly chewy. Each morsel is a heavenly interlace of flavours that sent me and Jian go
O_O “Whuuuuaaaa!“. I just had my first gastro-orgasm.

Fergie will go singing Porkylicious if she had a taste of this.

Some window shopping at Low Yat, Sg Wang, Times Square and it was time to hit the shack under the tree behind Berjaya Times Square. A couple of times I passed there, the sight of towering steamers placed on top a wok constantly stirs my curiousty. What possible dish that’s so good and secretive, could be hidden in there? Also, there always seems to be a crowd that fills up the no-frill place.

I persuaded and dragged Jian along. Without much problem reading a few Chinese characters here and there, Jian revealed the mystery to me.

“Exotic animals braised in herbal soup. Want to try? Got turtle, squirrel, bats, monkey brain…”

Hah? What!? *(&%#*@

I felt duped into believing this unpretentious shack serves some unbelievingly tasty tai-chow by the stream of customers they have. Ah well, we were already there and not to try it felt like a waste. As Jian put the orders, our gastro adventure has reached a road-block. It’s Fear Factor time! *rubs hands* >_<; Waaaa…

1st, turtle meat braised in tong sum and kei chi (Chinese wolfberry). The skin is jelly-like but the meat is tender which I find quite similar to bak-kut (pork ribs).

2nd, squirrel meat. Jian was suggesting that we should’ve reassemble the pieces and take a photo of it. But I’m so grateful we didn’t! Hee ;o
That would be like, looking at the corpse before digging in. The texture of the meat is like chicken but as the dish gets colder, it starts to taste funny.
At the bottom of the bowl, we found 2 tail bones :)

After the meal, the effect of the herbal soup crept in. Our body began to feel heaty. We quickly made our way to Times Square for 5 bowls of leong cha, 2 bowls went into container for take-away. By night, it was just horrible. The body felt trapped in a sauna we can’t escape. It was just terribly hot! Fortunately, next day we were heading 2000m above sea level to Genting.

I don’t remember how much it cost us but it’s reasonably priced. My first experience of eating exotic animals. Not very good, so to speak. Hehe. Lo lei sui ke lor (find our own trouble). Most customers chose the safer option of herbal chicken, wherelse we wanted to sembelih those cute little scurrying squirrels and endangered turtles ^_^;

On their signboard, mom said that the Chinese characters in red reads Cheong Kee herbal soup (or Chinese health soup).

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Day 2 Part 2
Day 2 Part 1
Day 1 Part 2
Day 1 Part 1

KL Gastro Adventure: Day 2 – Evening’s Vibrancy of Colours

Sorry! Been quite awhile since my stupid hero post ;) I was not up to anything at all. The immense amount of food I consumed and the exhausting days along the gastro adventure did little to intimidate my immune system. In less than 3 weeks at home, I fell sick with a cold, sorethroat and hormone inbalance issue ^_^; Jian experienced sickness the day after she got home from the trip. I guess I already run behind schedule.. blame it on the hormones. (I’m behind schedule with the posts too!)

From pan mee & bakso, we moved to nearby Chow Kit market’s delicious offer on fresh produce and their vivacious atmosphere. Chow Kit market is the oldest market in KL. If you watched one of Bobby Chin’s World Cafe: Asia episodes, he was taught a trick by a local at this very market. What he did was hipnotize a live chicken to sleep by massaging it from below the wattles down to the chest. It was hard to believe but the chicken looks like it has already drop dead. Hehe

Because the market is so well stocked, it looks so vibrant and colourful. You can get pretty much anything you need here. If this vendor doesn’t have what you look for, just move on to the stall beside!

Mountains of dried anchovy :D

Mountains of grapes :D

A slope of cakes :D

Jian and I were 100% captivated. The most interesting market we’ve seen yet! I thought such exuberant market is only found overseas like Italy or India, but now I am damn proud of my local market n.n

It was here that we accidentally bought the oh-so-delicious!-why-lah-didn’t-buy-more! crackers called keropok Geragau (cuz made of Geragau prawns).

It’s lightly spiced with the aromatic curry leaves that makes it taste so darn good and leave you wanting more. Along with it, we bought a pack of tapioca strips that are very crispy. It’s much thinner compared to the ones we usually find at pasar malam and less salty. RM7 for 2 bags.

Of course, wherever we go, we have to try and compare the putu piring at every stall we happen to find. Hehe.
Jian’s verdict: not as good as the ones had in Tg Tokong.
Reason: the brown sugar wasn’t flowing out and flour quality so-so.

Me agree! RM1 for 4 pieces.

Last but not least, a monorail ride to the Titiwangsa terminal before boarding a bus to Istana Budaya. Jian and I had a fantastic time relaxing at the beautifully decorated place.. carpetted floor, clean washroom, air-conditioned, high-ceiling with chandeliers. It’s a 5-star hotel-like lobby that we could steal 40-winks while sitting cross legged on the soft carpet :P

It should be added to the list of place to visit, besides KLCC, KL Tower or Putrajaya. The architecture of the building itself is amazing. Further down from Istana Budaya is the National Art Gallery which was under construction at that time. Both of these sites’ surroundings are photogenic grounds for some photo shooting.

Why we are there, is not to sleep on carpetted floor ^_^; We joined the rest of the people there for a show of wayang kulit. 5 minutes into it, I was lost in translation and purely just enjoy the bag of tapioca chips bought earlier.

Jian’s post: The Lost Pasar Malam of Chow Kit
Journey to Istana Budaya

Cunning little cold virus.. I shall be in tip-top condition for durian season

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Day 2 Part 1
Day 1 Part 2
Day 1 Part 1