I know you’ll be having fun watching the finals in Austria. Here’s to you, and to your favourite team!
(And if Spain loses, at least you still have me. :-D)
To my my husband, my partner and my best friend…Happy Birthday. (Miss ya)
Taking the lead from Kenny Mah’s blog with his lyrical rendition of breakfast with his better looking half, I am inclined to share my experience with you, because breakfast with the one you love is the best feeling in the world.
The breakfast ritual which we practice dates a-a-a-l-l-l-l the way back to 2002 when we first moved to our current residence in Shah Alam. Being the morning person that he is, Bald Eagle would set out into the wild country (Shah Alam ain’t KL, after all) at 7.00am to hunt for breakfast to feed his wife who would still be curled up in bed with dreams of char siew and siu yoke. When he chanced upon Chicken Cuisine, he knew he had hit the jackpot. It was there that we discovered our favourite curry mee and curry chee cheong fun, and that, my dear friends, is the secret of marital bliss (only if you take non-halal food lah). After making me a steaming hot cup of coffee, he’d wake me up, and I can assure you that there is no better smell than the heady aroma of spicy curry and coffee as I open the bedroom door. And the sight of a hairy well toned chest.
Six years later, Bald Eagle is still a regular patron at Chicken Cuisine where the owner is already familiar with his order of either two CCFs or two curry mees and a copy of Saturday’s New Straits Times. About a week ago, the owner announced to Bald Eagle that he had opened a new restaurant next to Chicken Cuisine, named, quite unsurprisingly, Fish Cuisine. It is just like when you name your children, isn’t it? The first child will be Peng Eng, the second Peng Beng, the third Peng Chee, the fourth Peng Yee (yes, I can go on). With very few possibilities left, I bet I can guess what the next outlet will be called.
If you look close enough at the picture above, a chopped garoupa head may suddenly materialise. Ok… I screwed up. Shit happens when your hubby’s wearing an expression that says My Wife Doesn’t Let Me Eat Hot Food. Served in a claypot, this curry is not very thick, but is sufficiently flavourful to be eaten with rice. Priced at about RM15 (or RM16?), this portion is enough for two. Like all the dishes served here, there is a generous amount of fish (both head and flesh) in this dish.
Let’s see if we can spot any fish in this photo. No? Remind me to tell you about my honeymoon pictures of our Safari expedition in South Africa one day. (Hint: All the pictures have foliage. Lots of it. You can play Spot Simba and win RM100.)
Another specialty here is the Fish Head with Tofu dish. The garoupa head is chopped and cooked in a dark sweet sauce and then cooked with firm tofu and other vegetables. Not bad, but nothing exceptional like the drink-worthy fish head curry above. Again, this dish has quite a lot of fish in it, and the portion is enough for two as well. Priced at about RM15.
The soft tofu in this dish is cooked with minced pork and an egg is broken into the dish while it is still hot. It looked quite different from the picture on the menu, but aside from that, this was quite delicious.
I really liked this sliced lotus root, beans and capsicum with fermented red bean curd (nam yue) dish. The intense flavour of the bean curd enhanced the flavour of this dish and was wonderfully fragrant, especially when eaten with steaming white rice. Talking about steaming, on the flipside, the restaurant is airconditioned and I found that the food turned cold pretty quickly.
There are one-dish meal options as well. The fish head noodles is cooked with a type of fish called leng yue (dace?) which is a seawater fish and which lacks the muddy smell. There are also less bones, so one can order this dish even if one were in a hurry. (I know how I sometimes painstakingly remove one bone after another before I ingest the fish, and by the time I’m done with one piece, my makan companion would have finished his plate of wantan mee and started drumming his fingers impatiently on the table. Tsk tsk. Anyway.) The soup is slightly sour and tasty with a mild chinese wine flavour. You can also tell them to hold the milk if you’re lactose intolerant.
The garoupa fish fillet noodles is cooked in the same soup base as the fish head noodles above sans the milk. This is a rather exceptional bowl of noodles as the fish fillet is just so fragrant and firm and delicious. Both noodles above had bits of pork lard for the X-factor flavour too!
I’m beginning to enjoy living in my neighbourhood where I can get superb fish head noodles, curry mee and char siew and still manage to smell the roses and enjoy the odd hot air balloon that gets snared in the trees. (So I’m consoling myself about the petrol price hike and the extra hundred bucks I have to fork out each month for living in Shah Alam and working in Kayell….but what price happiness, eh?)
Fish Cuisine
8, Jalan UI/36, Seksyen UI
Hicom-Glenmarie Industrial Park, Shah Alam
Open daily 8.00am to 10.00pm
Like most double-income married couples with no kids, our Saturday mornings are spent at home, with breakfast either on the patio or in front of the TV, while the part-time maid cleans the house. Our usual argument would be about who had to stay at home. “I wanna go to the gym.” “No way, dude. Last week, I took care of the maid. It’s your turn.” “But I stayed with her for four weeks in a row last month when you said you had to work weekends at the office.” “That doesn’t count. Work’s work. Work doesn’t equal play. 3 Work weekends off = 1 Gym weekend off. I have 2 more work weekends to redeem.”
Never argue with a woman. Especially if she knows how to count with her fingers. Especially if she has all twelve of them.
Breakfast on a Saturday morning with half of the Just Heavenly duo is such a pleasure. Part of the pleasure is in escaping the responsibilities of staying at home on a sunny Saturday morning, and the other part is in hearing Nigel’s loud booming laughter reverberate through the cafe.
Chawan had just opened a few days earlier (at time of writing, it has been open for over 2 weeks), and we were curious to try this place having seen it being used as a meeting point for the last BN team campaigning for the losing candidate. I like the interior -grey walls and bare stones encased in galvanised wire netting, surrounded by steel and cement structures. Situated at a corner lot, the idea of keeping the cafe open with lots of air is a great one as it appears more welcoming. So one inhales the fumes from the passing vehicles along the busy Bangsar stretch, but at least the illusion of wind is there, albeit a manufactured one.
Food is typically Malaysian fare. The nasi lemak bungkus served before 11am is great despite its RM3 pricetag for a simple packet without any frills. The nasi kunyit served with thick chicken curry is delicious, but it would be better if they served it with more curry. Nigel doused the Ipoh koay teow in soy sauce before he ate it. Soy sauce is the boon for many types of food to make the food more palateable. It tasted fine after the special treatment, of course, but I probably wouldn’t try it the next time. The rice dishes looked a lot more tastier. I liked the keropok lekor, but it was a teensy bit too soft. Do try the mango juice….thick and pulpy. There is also an amazing variety of local coffees; the Kemaman coffee is one of their bestsellers. At the end of the day, flavours were good, but there were little deficiencies in other areas – texture, quantity, value-for-money. There were also some initial teething problems which I hope they have sorted out. Waiting half an hour for a packet of nasi lemak bungkus just doesn’t cut it. Judging by the crowds that throng this place, I suppose they’ve improved. Having said that, I thought the staff who served us were great. They were all friendly, courteous and knowledgeable, and these traits go a long way. Would I go to Chawan again? Without a doubt.
As for my Saturday mornings in the near future, I shall be putting in my share of work when the hubby goes off to Austria for the Euro 2008 finals while I’m stuck at home taking care of the maid. It’s a fair world after all.
Also see masak-masak.
Chawan (at the former Devi’s Corner), Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar (opposite Bangsar Village). Open daily from 8am till late.
Food pictures:
Nasi lemak bungkus
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Nasi kunyit with chicken curry
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Ipoh koay teow
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Keropok lekor
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Interior
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Customers at Chawan
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