Dim sum, Dim sum, wherefore art thou, Dim sum?

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

1.

Monday
Ecstatic Eeyore barged into my room. “We’re doing lunch together on Friday!”, he announced.

“Where?”, I asked.

“Restoran Clan in Sri Petaling. 8TV’s Ho Chak featured their delicious looking tai bao/loh mai kai! So are you game?”

That was like asking the President of the Japanese Food Kawan’s Association if she liked sashimi.

Tuesday

Ecstatic Eeyore suggested going on a diet to prepare himself for the big lunch on Friday.

Wednesday

Ecstatic Eeyore checked and rechecked his schedule to make sure that he didn’t have any meeting between 12.30pm and 2.30pm.

Thursday

“Don’t forget! Lunch on Friday!!”, Ecstatic Eeyore reminded me.

“What lunch?”, I teased.

“Hmmmphhh!”

Ecstatic Eeyore walked out of my room in disgust.

I made a mental note to not mess with his head until after that lunch.

Friday

We found the restaurant. A few tables were occupied. We asked for the star item. “Sorry, don’t have”, the waitress said with a wry smile.

Our faces fell.

BUT….

….it was a dim sum place, after all, and since we were planning to have dim sum together with the star item, we decided to go ahead with our plans.

The trays laden with dim sum arrived.

We weren’t about to let a minor setback spoil our day (yes, we’re highly positive people), so we picked out our favourites.

Instead of describing each item in detail, I shall categorise the food as follows:-

Average (pass the pepper please)

The fried dim sum fared better than the steamed ones. The yam puff (extreme left) was crispy and the filling was substantial. The Hong Kong style chee cheong fun (extreme right) came with a tasty sambal that was rich with aromatic crushed dried prawns.

Bland (no salt?)

The char siew bao (extreme left) was scant in fillings, while the dough was too thick. The porridge came with a generous serving of chopped century eggs but it lacked flavour.

Where’s the toilet bowl?? (I really need to throw up)

The brinjal appeared to have been steamed over and over again – probably leftovers from the previous night. The flesh was mushy and tasteless. I almost threw up.

Oh wait a minute. I did throw up.

Restoran Clan
140, Jalan Radin Anum
1, Sri Petaling, 57000 KL

Tel: 019-382 5455

2.Saturday

After relating my tear-jerker to Boo_licious, she agreed to have breakfast with me on Saturday. It was going to be a replacement of sorts, to get rid of the awful taste from the day before. We also managed to rope in fellow foodies, Precious Pea and Unkaleong to join us at Hong Kee Tim Sum at Damansara Jaya at an ungodly hour of 8.30 on a Saturday morning. I can still hear Unkaleong’s whines of “Ohhh….I’m so sleepy!!! Why so early???” *sounds of stretching like a half-dead kitten in the background*.

And the food? Everything tasted soooo gooooood. Yes, I am probably biased, having almost died from eating bad food the day before, but hey, it really was good.

I experienced a burst of flavour as I bit into the siu mai with minced pork filling. The spinach version was equally good too. We had the Hong Kong chee cheong fun with prawn filling, and if I were to compare it to the HK CCF which I had the previous day, I’d say that the CCF here is a lot smoother but the sambal did not have the “kick” that the other one provided.

We tried an interesting looking dim sum which was essentially fish paste with salted egg yolk filling and coated with almond flakes (3rd row, centre pic). I didn’t quite like the combination of the ingredients; firstly, it tasted rather dry, and secondly, the ingredients just didn’t blend together.

If prizes were given out for the best item on the menu, the Sang Chau Loh Mai Fan (fried glutinous rice) would have ranked tops. The glutinous rice is painstakingly fried together with bits of lup cheong (chinese sausage), dried prawns, sliced mushrooms, eggs and chive. This dish may look rather oily, but it is considerably lighter on the palate as compared to eating loh mai kai (steamed glutinous rice) as less oil is used for the former.

The dim sum is priced between RM2 and RM5 per plate.

Also check out:

Masak-masak
You Get What You Give…Sometimes
Precious Pea

Hong Kee Tim Sum Restaurant (behind Atria)
No 18 & 20, Jalan SS22/25
Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya.

Tel: 012-6069787

Opening hours: 7.00am to 3.00pm daily.

From Kampar With Love

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

In the early days before the North-South Highway existed, every time we travelled from Penang to Petaling Jaya to visit my maternal grandmother, we’d make a pit stop at Kampar.

Kampar holds special memories for my parents as it was one of the places where they spent they dating days eating ABC at the corner kopitiam. And so, it only came naturally for them to stop at one of their favourite towns to fuel up both the car and our little tummies.

I used to throw up pretty often in the days before airconditioning was introduced in our cars, and my stomach would be ready for replenishing by the time we arrived at the sleepy old town. Thus, until the day this town got virtually obliterated by the superhighway, I shared my parents’ love affair with Kampar.Despite having sampled quite a bit of Kampar’s unique cuisine, I discovered the chicken curry bun much later in life when I visited my friend from Kampar, Pretty Pui, during Chinese New Year.

Chicken curry is wrapped up in a greaseproof paper and then baked in a bun. To eat this bun, one has to cut through the bun and and unwrap the precious package. The curry is creamy and extremely tasty, and by this stage, this chicken would have absorbed the flavours of the spices. What bliss to dip the pieces of bread into the curry and savour the tasty morsels!

Yau Kee Restaurant
No. 55, Jalan Idris,
31900 Kampar, Perak.
Tel: 05-465 1738

120E & 120F, Jalan Raja Permaisuri Bainun,
30250 Ipoh, Perak.
Tel: 05-241 6504

Thanks, Pretty Pui, for the wonderful treat!!

La La Chong Seafood Restaurant, Subang

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

1. The idea of bliss (or What Lyrical Lemongrass Did This Evening).Sitting in the kitchen of Just Heavenly in Bangsar.

Watching Allan, covered in flour from head to toe, kneading baby blue fondant.

Pleasant conversation.

Savouring moist chocolate cupcakes topped with freshly made icing.

2. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend

Just as friends come and go, so do Makan Club members. Bouncing Barbie made a decision to choose polished diamonds over diamonds in the rough and we wish her well.

Bangsar isn’t that far away, dear friend, and we’ll definitely carry on our “makan” sessions. 14 years is a long time to know someone. I still remember going to work in Bus No. 5 when we were still new at the office! Now there won’t be anyone visiting my room at 12.30pm and asking me, “So what’s for lunch today??”. We wish you all the love and happiness that diamonds can’t buy.

3. A feast, no less

The Makan Club has been visiting La La Chong for close to 10 years. Many special moments have been celebrated here, birthdays mostly. On the occasion of Barbie’s farewell, it seemed only appropriate that it be spent here, in La La Chong, together with three of her closest friends and colleagues.

We wanted old favourites. So we asked for fern stir fried with tuna. Unfortunately, they had run out of fern, and offered to replace it with four-angled beans instead. Thankfully, the substitute was quite delicious with lots of tuna and chopped chillies stir fried with the vegetables.

Another old favourite is Siong Tong Lala (Lala in superior soup). The shellfish is cooked in a fragrant soup with a generous amount of wine thrown in to bring out the flavour of the dish. As always, we were extremely pleased with this dish.

The crabs, on the other hand, brought out mixed reactions. We all liked the salt baked crab dish which was fried with ginger. However, the salted egg yolk crab dish failed to impress us. The crabs appeared to have been deep fried, so any attempt to scrape the roe from the shell would have been futile, and the flavour of the dry sauce seemed to have been marred by an excessive usage of salt (presumably used to enhance the flavour of the salted egg yolk).

The grilled mackerel is one of my favourite dishes here. The sauce used to marinade the mackerel tasted similar to a kabayaki sauce made of soy sauce, mirin and sugar. The fish was so delicious, I had no trouble finishing it up!

We still have fond memories of this place. I’m not ready to write it off just because of one botched recipe.

Also check out:

Living in Food Heaven
Da Wheel Of Life & Happiness
Masak-masak
Little Miss May

La La Chong Seafood Restaurant
Lot PT6824, Terminal 3, Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang.

(directions: Head towards Terminal 3, Subang Airport. At the traffic light, turn right)

Tel: 03-7859 1906

A Whiff of Lemongrass

NOT a food blog

Category Archives: Food Type: Chinese

Dim sum, Dim sum, wherefore art thou, Dim sum?

From Kampar With Love

La La Chong Seafood Restaurant, Subang