Chinese

Rice Bowls Restaurant, Pusat Bandar Damansara

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rice bowls chicken rice

Rice Bowls Restaurant is hands down the best halal chicken rice in the world. I happen to hold the Mayorship on foursquare for this place for one simple reason – I eat here almost every day. However, a couple of weeks ago, I got a piece of shocking news – they’re closing down coz the proprietor is moving to Australia.

rice bowls restaurant

I was horrified. It took a couple of hours for the realization to sink in. Where am I going to eat lunch now? There’s nothing remotely as good as this chicken rice place in Pusat Bandar Damansara. It was a shining beacon in the rat race – a sanctuary I look forward to every single day. I’ll have to go hungry and die of starvation. 🙁

rice bowls chicken rice meal

Dejected, I started eating at other places again until someone told me the good news. Rice Bowls is open! It lives again! It’s the modern resurrection! I could scarcely believe my ears. I had to see it with my own eyes, being the Doubting Thomas that I am.

Behold! It’s true! Rice Bowls is open under new management. Shout it from the hills! It’s back, and so is the chef and the people working there.

rice bowls staff

I always eat the same thing over here so when I walk in the staff will just smile at their regular and go “Biasa?” and prepare my order. It’s apparently more renowned for the roasted chicken but I prefer their steamed chicken. My usual is the drumstick chicken rice with an extra bowl of rice and iced tea. I love the oil and sauce that goes into the steamed chicken and the chilli sauce is fucking awesome as well.

rice bowls chicken rice mine

My routine for eating it is to dump the extra bowl of rice in the plate and pour the chicken + oil + sauce on top. It’s almost like a ritual. I’ll eat 3/4 of the rice + sauce and save the 1/4 virgin chicken rice for eating with chilli sauce. I’ll down the hot soup after that and finish the meal with the iced tea.

rice bowls chicken

It used to cost RM 8.10 for a drumstick with chicken rice and an extra bowl of rice (free) plus iced tea, but under the new management, there is no more free extra rice. It costs RM 9.60 for my regular meal now so that makes an extra bowl of chicken rice RM 1.50.

rice bowls lunch

I don’t mind though. It is indeed the best halal chicken rice in the world and I’m glad to see that it’s back!

Yangshuo beer fish

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yangshuo beer fish restaurant

Yangshuo is famous for beer fish – a local specialty that is cooked with lots of chillis, garlic, peppers and of course BEER! The fish is called Li River fish (another must-try if you go to Guilin) although I don’t know exactly what type of fish that is.

yangshuo view

I went to a rather touristy place to sample this awesome dish so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of it. The view is great though and we were each given a RMB 50 coupon to dine on. I was the only person traveling alone in that Li River cruise tour and this girl Kiko who was there with her mom and dad was kind enough to wave me over to share their table.

chinese menu

WHY DO THE MENUS ONLY HAVE CHINESE CHARACTERS?

yangshuo tofu

I left the ordering to them since I can’t read anything but I managed to order beer fish and beer to go along with it (it’s the perfect combo). It is obvious I didn’t do the ordering coz here you have tofu. REAL TOFU. As in the kind that comes without anything to somewhat mask the inherent tastelessness of tofu.

yangshuo shoots chicken

This is a vegetable dish cooked with chicken. It consists primarily of shoots and it’s not too bad but I’m not a huge fan of vegetables.

yangshuo local fern

Now this is an interesting one – it’s a local fern gathered in Yangshuo by the locals. It tasted bitter but I found it quite interesting and ate quite a bit of this. I think the fact that it’s indigenous to Yangshuo made me go against my vegetable principals.

kiko

This is Kiko. She’s with an MNC and was based in Malaysia for a bit.

yangshuo beer fish

I always leave the best for the last so here I present to you the famous Yangshuo Beer Fish!

yangshuo tea

You can actually taste the malt and hops from the beer fish and it surprisingly adds a lot to the taste of the tender and succulent Li River fish. The gravy was so good I drizzled it over my rice, which apparently is not compliant with the etiquette of Chinese dining, along with my propensity for sticking my chopsticks into the rice bowl. smirk

beer fish

I can’t remember how much the bill was but we had to top up about RMB 100 (about RM 50). I offered to pay since I was the only one who ordered beer (although Kiko and her dad drank it too) but they won’t have anything to do with that. I had to literally force my Yuan into the hands of the waitress, to the protests of the family and a lot of back and forth before I escorted the waitress away with my Yuan.

yangshuo beer fish end

That’s Chinese culture for you. Heh! Anyway, the family is not from around here too – they’re visiting from Guangzhou and their family was kind enough to ask me to visit anytime and they’ll be my tour guide (and a place to stay). w00t! I’ll be going after my Melbourne trip. 🙂

Boxing Chicken Rice

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scr food corner

Boxing chicken rice! Doesn’t that sound intriguing? The name of the
dish is the best selling point of this rather mundane (but tasty)
preparation. I was searching for food just now (I’m typing this at
home, so it would be “last night” by the time you read this) and walked
past the Singapore Chicken Rice (scr) stall which seems to have
expanded their menu to include the chicken rice variants like salad
chicken rice etc. I was interested in boxing chicken rice though.

scr shrubbery

My apologies about the foliage that obscured the right side of the
first picture. I couldn’t very well move it, look at the size of the
shrubbery and pot. Photographing the outlet from the other side would
miss the main menu wall which has boxing chicken rice (watch the virus
infected chicken box each other!) photo on it.

boxing chicken rice

This is the photo of the menu banner which depicts the Boxing
Chicken Rice dish. It appears to be dubbed boxing chicken rice due to
the double chicken drumsticks…I imagine some marketing person thought
that looks like the chicken are having fist fights or something to that
effect.

scr boxing chicken rice

This is the Real Life (TM) photo of the dish. It doesn’t differ all
that much from the menu picture which is a pleasant surprise. The
drumsticks are the small ones from the wing of the chicken. It tastes
like Ayamas mini drumsticks without the Ayamas flavor. The boxing
chicken rice had a great sweet and sour sauce permeating the dish, this
imparts a nice taste everything. There is also a nicely done sunny side
up egg and some veggies. The rice is chicken rice eg real chicken rice.
I liked it, it’s a nice change from the normal chicken rice Singapore
Chicken Rice offers.

On another topic, does anyone know any er…”duty free” liquor
outlets in Kuching? I used to know one in 3rd mile – fly by night
operation, closed down the same year it opened (when I was in Inti). In
case anyone is wondering what “duty free” liquor outlets are, they’re
the ones that buys in bulk from duty free Federal Territories like
Labuan (usually) and Langkawi (unlikely due to distance) and sells them
at a reduced price (RM 40 – 60 each 750 ml bottle), undercutting
legitimate bottle shops price wise. I didn’t have any problems in KL –
Svenskt Brannvin vodka @ RM 30 (40% 700 ml bottle) in the Swedish
Specialty Shop at your friendly local Ikea outlet. 😉 Thanks for the
tip, Stephanie! I brought several bottles of that and O.P.
Anderson Fine Old Aquavit (another bargain buy @ RM 22.90 for 500 ml,
40% vol) over but er…inventory levels have dropped below the
personally preset threshold level so a re-stock is necessary to
maintain consistant amounts.

vodka vodka

If my math is right, I need at least 1/4 bottle with benzos to sleep
each night, since I drank about 1 1/4 bottles since I arrived (not
including other alcohol containing beverages). Anyone who has a problem
with this can send mail to devnull@sixthseal.com which would naturally
be routed to /dev/null. I go to work on time, I do my work well since
I’ve had a good night’s sleep (I don’t get hangovers, since I hydrate
myself before sleeping), and so what I do at night (which is legal btw)
is my own business. Anyway, any kang tau about duty free in Kuching,
please email to veritas@castitas.com
instead of commenting here okay? Thanks! By the way, I told the truth
about the email addresses – there really is no veritas@castitas.com or
a veritas@sixthseal.com, they all go to the me@castitas.com and
me@sixthseal.com catch all address. So there. :p

P/S – Before the harm reduction police (HRP) jump on me, let me
state that some people think that benzodiazepines combined with another
CNS depressant like alcohol will instantly put you six feet under.
Please do not mock them, for they’re looking out for you, and indeed,
this combination has caused fatalities in the past, but er…it’s not
as dangerous as the HRP makes it sound. But you did not see that last
sentence! I repeat, you did not see that last sentence. Please don’t
drink and take benzodiazepines at the same time. Thank you very much,
I’ve done my civic duty.

P/P/S – I have to tone down the sarcasm, it seems to dominating my posts lately, forgive me. 🙂

P/P/P/S – The conglomeration of veritas and killuminati into a
single entity may have caused unexpected perceived changes in
personality. My apologies, now that I’ve admitted everything, I have no
obligation to stick to the “personalities” that I’ve created. I’m being
the real me now, a bit of an asshole at times, quite a lot of “drug
elitism”, sometimes sarcastic, but generally I like to think I’m a nice
guy, so I hope that you can forgive any transgressions and adapt and
perhaps get to like me as me. 🙂

P/P/P/P/S – I was ethanol impaired when I wrote the above last night…

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