Local food

Golden Arch Garden Laksa review

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golden arch shopping mall

Golden Arch Garden Laksa (not to be confused with the Golden Arches, which sells a totally different food product) is located at Golden Arch Shopping Mall and I heard its laksa is serious fucking business.

golden arch garden laksa

Golden Arch Garden Laksa has RM 3/4/5 bowls of laksa and the RM 5 bowl, which is their flagship, has two large tiger prawns in it. The laksa booth is also the flagship of the eating establishment – it belongs to the owner.

golden arch prawns

There is a huge tray of differing sizes of prawns, which is selected depending on your order e.g. an RM 3 bowl of laksa would have small prawns while the RM 5 bowl of laksa would have two huge tiger prawns.

golden arch laksa

Behold! The legendary Golden Arch Garden Laksa. This is the large (RM 5) bowl and contains 2 huge tiger prawns in it.

golden arch laksa tiger prawn

I’m told that the proper method to partake in tiger prawn infused laksa is to pour the laksa soup down the head of the tiger prawn to allow the flavors to really shine.

Laksa – Serious Fucking Business.

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Breakfast of Champions – Char Kueh Tiaw

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char kueh tiaw

Char Kueh Tiaw is a local fried flat noodle dish that is my preferred meal to start off the day. I usually eat this for breakfast (with an extra fried egg on top) and I’ve found that it’s the best option for breakfast as it can sustain you enough to skip lunch if you’re busy. I have experimented with various different meals for breakfast and I eat out so breakfast options are usually limited to nasi lemak, kolok mee, fried noodles or kaya and toast.

Thus, I usually eat Char Kueh Tiaw even though I would prefer muesli and milk (but I don’t cook over here, or have a fridge and pantry for that matter).

What do you usually eat for breakfast?

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Tambun Biscuits from Macalister Road, Penang

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tambun biscuit penang

Tambun Biscuits originated from Penang, Malaysia
and I remember having them during my trips over there when I was young.
I haven’t had authentic Tambun Biscuits from Penang ever since and
Freddie was kind enough to show up at my workplace with a bag of Hoh Heong Tambun Biscuits from 100 Macalister Road, Penang.

tambun biscuit bag

There were two transparent packages of individually wrapped old
skool Tambun Biscuits in the bag. Freddie travels a lot and he dropped
by to pass these to my on his Kuching trip. Cheers mate! 🙂

tambun biscuit wrapper

The Tambun Biscuits are wrapped in slightly translucent cream
colored packaging with red script. The contents are listed as: Flour,
Sugar, Caramel (?), Onions, Salt, Oil, Molasses and “Lenga”, the last
of which totally stumped me. What is “Lenga”?

tambun biscuit whole

This is what the famous Penang Tambun Biscuit look
like – it’s covered in flaky pastry which will totally fall apart as
soon as you bite into it and get into the hardest to clean nooks at the
first opportunity like the keyboard. 😉

tambun biscuit bite

Tambun Biscuits have a sugar based center and it tastes like caramel
mixed with onions. It sounds like an odd combination but it really
tastes great! My coworkers who had the Tambun Biscuits pronounced it
“Good” as well.

…and now our office has pastry flakes all over the carpet.

Eating frogs and eels in Sabah

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sabah seafood

There is a popular seafood center in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah which
serves a lot of live seafood. It’s notable due to the way the live
seafood offerings is presented – the customer is presented with a huge
array of see-through aquariums that hosts a variety of (still alive)
marine life from green lobsters to huge oysters and a lot of swimming
fish in the middle.

sabah frog

We decided to go for something a little unorthodox – frogs.
It tickled me to no end to see large frogs jumping around a container
for the benefit of the customer. I choose three large frogs to be
cooked. Poor frogs. 😉

sabah eel

The proprietor of the stall also recommended their eel.
The eels were swimming around lazily in their aquarium and the eels are
rather long, sinewy characters which looks rather like snakes with
water as their habitat instead of land.

sabah eel you

I also chose an eel for our consumption. Poor eel. 😉

sabah mussels

There were also local oysters on display, which were flat, solid
looking objects. I also choose a couple for our table but the
proprietor accidentally served it to another table, and that other
table unknowingly accepted, so we forgot about it, since it would take
a long time to prepare another batch.

eel dish

Here’s a closer look at the eel dish. This was cooked Japanese style
in BBQ sauce with a touch of hot chilli (Sabah style) and it tastes
great! The eel came out hot and oily and it does get a little cloying
to eat too much eel, so small portions are the key.

eel close up

This is a close up shot of the eel. The (poor) eel has been sliced
into bite-sized pieces – the dish bears a distinctive resemblance to
the live eels, except that it’s been chopped up. 😉 The colorization
and shape (round) of the eel is still visible though.

frog dish

The frog dish was prepared with the WHOLE frog, which is great for
presentation purposes. This dish was cooked in a very bland sauce,
allowing the natural sweet frog meat taste to shine though.

frog meat

The Chinese call frogs tien chi which translates to “sweet
chicken”. It’s an euphemism for frog. The frog dish has parts of the
frog still visible – there’s the much lauded frog legs, a little frog
thigh here and there, the body of the frog. It’s frog.

frog leg

This is the best part of the meal – the frog was wonderfully
prepared, leaving the sweet, tender and juicy frog meat to shine
through. Hop on, frog! 😉

Kedai Kopi Wan Wan

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kedai kopi wan wan

Kedai Kopi Wan Wan is an auspiciously named eating
establishment in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The eatery specializes in fish
noodles (as in noodles made of fish puree) and fish pieces (also made
from the same puree). It came highly recommended from a KK resident who
claimed that seafood and the fish noodles here are the only noteworthy
specialties in Sabah.

wan wan al fresco

It seems that a lot of KK residents agree, as the place was packed
during lunch and even well after lunch hour. Kedai Kopi Wan Wan spans
two large shop houses and is neatly compartmentalized into indoor and
outdoor (the term al fresco should never be used to describe the
Malaysian dining experience) spaces. The tables were filled with people
eating the much lauded fish noodles and a side dish of fish slices in
soup.

wan wan fish community

The three of us and the couple residing in KK that we met up with
recommended eating the dish like the locals do – having a personal dry
noodles dish and a shared fish noodles and fish slices in broth
community bowl. The fish slices/noodles (or a combination) is cooked
with the soup of your choice and the interesting bit about this
establishment is that the soup is refillable at no cost, much like a
steamboat.

assam tom yam fish

This is fish slices in Assam Tom Yam soup. It tastes like tom yam soup with a dash of the sour assam
tang. The fish slices in this dish are made from real fish cuts. Fresh
fish is cheap and plentiful in KK due to its proximity to the sea.

assam tom yam fish personal

Here’s a closer look at the fish slices in the orange looking Assam
Tom Yam soup. The soup is hot and spicy and the fish tastes good when
paired with the dry noodle dish.

cin tan fish noodles

This dish is based on plain broth (cin tan in Mandarin) and
is a combination of fish slices and the famous fish noodles. It tastes
better in this implementation as the soup is bland and does not
overpower the taste of the fish.

cin tan fish noodles personal

The fish slices are made from fish flesh which has been grinded up
and shaped into rough, uneven slices. It’s a little like a flat
fishball. The fish noodles are thick, flat noodles made of the same
processed fish.

dry tossed noodles

The main fish soup dishes are meant to be eaten with this dry noodle dish, in lieu of rice. This dry noodle dish is also called kon lo mee
(dry tossed noodles) like its Kuching counterpart, except that it’s
eaten with fish instead of meat, presumably due to the relative
abundance of the former in KK.

kon lo fish noodles

Our hosts were kind enough to order another popular variant of this – kon lo
fish noodles. It’s like the dry noodle dish, except that it’s made with
fish noodles instead of flour noodles. It’s tossed and served dry, and
it’s interesting to eat a noodle dish made entirely of fish flesh.

It’s surprisingly good…

Sambal Bak Chang / Zhong Zhi (Rice Dumplings)

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penny bak chang

I’m told that it’s the Bak Chang festival today. Penny brought a
couple of the rice dumplings to the office today – it’s a twist on the
popular bak chang, with a unique filling catering to Malaysian taste
buds…it’s a sambal bak chang.

what bak chang looks like

This is what bak chang looks like – it’s a pyramid shaped rice
dumpling wrapped with a single, long pandan leaf and bound with string.
There are various different shapes and sizes, some smaller, some
looking like a box, there’s literally all sorts out there.

sambal bak chang

This is what the inside of the sambal bak chang looks like. Sambal
is a spicy paste that’s commonly eaten with nasi lemak in Malaysia.

Turtle eggs preparation recipe and report

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turtle eggs

Turtle eggs are considered to be very nutritious and purportedly
have a lot of health benefits. Unfortunately, they happen to be illegal
due to the wildlife preservation enactments to prevent rampant poaching
of turtle eggs (which is a protected species) in Malaysia. However, I
managed to hook up with someone who sells turtle eggs through a
coworker.

turtle eggs sandy

The transaction was very covert, which I found amusing – the turtle
egg seller called to tell us where he is and we got him to deliver it
to the office. He was an overweight slightly grimy looking man carrying
one of those tote bags with probably 100 turtle eggs inside (and also
some porn VCD’s on the sides). I bought 10 turtle eggs off him for RM
15 (it’s RM 1.50 per turtle egg). The turtle eggs are still sandy from
the beach and each one is about the size of a ping pong ball.

turtle eggs wok

I don’t know how to cook turtle eggs, so we brought it downstairs to
solicit the help of Kakak (literally “Sister” in Malay) who works
downstairs. She told us that it can either be eaten raw, or heated lightly (emphasis on lightly) with boiled water. Thus, we set the wok (there’s a kitchen downstairs, sorta) on boil with some water.

turtle eggs washed

The turtle eggs are washed by putting them under running water to
get rid of the sand. The interesting thing about turtle eggs is that
they’re very pliable – it’s so soft that pressing on it will
make indentation marks (as can be seen in the first two photos). The
turtle eggs in their natural configuration also has that property –
surrounding eggs impact each turtle egg by forming recessions around
each other.

turtle eggs cooking

The turtle eggs were then put into the water for a short (less than a minute) amount of time and left to simmer for a bit.

turtle eggs kakak

I also got Kakak to pose for a photo beside the cooking wok with the turtle eggs in it. 😉

turtle eggs cooked

This is what the slightly heated turtle eggs look like. The eggs are
soft and slightly translucent, so that you can see the yolk inside.

turtle eggs bowl

You can eat the turtle eggs by opening up the shell (it’s so soft,
it’s almost like peeling instead of opening) and eating it as it is. It
tastes surprisingly good…it doesn’t need any flavoring for the turtle
egg taste to shine through. Unlike other eggs, turtle eggs have a
distinct musky aftertaste to it.

turtle eggs single

However, I’m told that the proper way to enjoy turtle eggs is too peel off a small hole at the top…

turtle eggs single sauce

…and put a drop of soy sauce inside to flavor it, before sucking the whole egg contents.

This method of consumption is more visceral and much more enjoyable. 🙂

Restoran Kari Kapala Ikan Cheras

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cheras fish head restaurant

Cheras Fish Head Curry Restaurant is an eating establishment that
has been in operation since 1978. The eatery is open 24 hours a day and
serves curry fish head as their flagship dish. There’s also a sign
saying that their other signature dish is the mutton curry.

cheras fish head mutton

The kari kambing (mutton curry) was good…though the chunks are a
little too big to handle. Smaller cuts would have been nice, but
otherwise, I have no complaints about the mutton curry. It says that
the mutton curry has been popular since the restaurants inception.

cheras fish head crackers

The obligatory crackers also made an appearance…

cheras fish head vegies

…as well as the vegetable dish.

cheras fish head prawns

We also ordered some prawn curry. It was alright, but nowhere near as good as the mutton curry.

cheras fish head calamari

The calamari curry was also uninspiring…

cheras fish head fish

…but then came the much lauded fish head curry. It was great! The
curry fish head came out tender, with the fish tasting fresh despite
the curry treatment.

cheras fish head fish accusing

There’s just something about a dead fish looking accusingly at you
(through chilli covered eyes) while you eat. I can’t explain it…

cheras fish head waterfall

…but those who are inclined to do so can drown themselves in the
waterfall beside the restaurant should the guilt prove to be
overwhelming. 😉

Mun Wah Hokkien Mee

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mun wah hokkien mee

Mun Wah Hokkien Mee comes highly recommended and is touted as the
best Hokkien Mee in Malaysia. It’s located at Jalan Maharajalela in KL
and has been in operation since 1960.

mun wah hokkien mee interior

Kedai Makanan Mun Wah Hokkien Mee seems to be doing very brisk
business and attracts a wide range of people. There’s an altar for Kuan
Yee Kor (Kuan Kong) at the back, complete with incense for offerings.

mun wah hokkien mee cook

I managed to get the cook to pose for a photo, though I didn’t take
the shutter speed into account and he went back to his (slightly
charred) Hokkien mee cooking in the wok. The place specializes in
Hokkien mee and people reportedly throng to this place for it.

hokkien mee piles

The rack at the back of the cooking place is filled with piles and
piles of the thick fat yellow noodles used to make Hokkien mee. Hokkien
mee is a sticky, slightly sweet noodle preparation.

mun wah drink steel

I ordered 100 Plus for my drink and it came in a steel cup, which I
found to be amusing (though I don’t know what the source of amusement
was, I just found it funny).

mun wah hokkien mee sign

Mun Wah Hokkien Mee is very clear about what its flagship dish is,
by this sign prominently stuck on every single table. It was translated
as “People ordering Hokkien Mee may have their meal served faster due
to this eating establishment’s specialty. Please be notified that other
orders may be delayed as this place does not practice a first come
first serve policy when Hokkien mee is involved”.

mun wah hokkien mee mixed

This is what the Hokkien Mee looks like. It was mixed with beehoon (rice vermicelli) to give it a bit of texture. It was really good – the sticky Hokkien mee tastes nice, with all the little crunchy bits to complement the taste.

mun wah fish puffs

We also had a side order of fish puffs – it was served with Thai
chilli sauce and one of the people I was with noted that it tastes
particularly good, nice and puffy, with a soft almost
melt-in-your-mouth texture.

Kedai Makanan Mun Wah Hokkien Mee is a great place for Hokkien mee – it’s really good!

Malaysian canteen style BLT sandwich

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sesco blt

Behold! I present to you Malaysia’s very own BLT sandwich, available
not only in most office and school canteens, but in lower end bakeries
as well. It differs from the classic BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) of
other countries due to the premium nature of bacon over here, so the B
is substituted by (more) BREAD. Our very own variant also has TUNA mix
in lieu of TOMATO sometimes.

sesco gula melaka

I’ve been eating canteen food for the past few days, and the only thing I enjoy is this caramel tasting kueh made with lots of Gula Melaka. It has a very chewy texture. Hey, at least it beats the canteen’s “BLT” sandwich any day. 😉

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