[Travel] What I ate at Petaling Street (Chinatown) during Lunar New Year Part 3 - Restoran Nasi Ayam Kam Kee

Final installment of what we ate at Petaling Street 2024. Read more about Part 1 and Part 2.

Lunch

Restoran Nasi Ayam Kam Kee

We were supposed to check out by 1230pm, so went over to this chicken rice shop that's just nearby to the famous Michelin Bib one, which we also tried before some years back.

My sis says Kam Kee is not bad, so here we are to have a quick lunch before we head back to our hometown.

shop front

menu

The shop seems to be specializing in kampong chicken, but we didn't order that because my parents (and myself too!) are getting on with age, and we prefer not to work our jaws that much.

The lady boss is friendly with a sense of humor while the younger chap wears a more serious face and seldom interact with the customers except to accept payment when the meal is done.

We ordered roasted and steamed chicken drumsticks, one portion of charsiew and one portion of roasted pork. For vegetables, we chose the beansprouts. They have other things like curry mutton, beef soup (!) which are uncommon for a chicken rice shop, no?

Food was served a few minutes after we ordered.

food is here

chicken rice

The rice here is flavourful and not oily.

steamed chicken drumstick

roasted chicken drumstick

roasted pork

blanched beansprouts

char siew

We were pretty surprised by the texture of the chicken. We looked at one another and wondered why their normal chicken has similar chewy-ness as kampong chicken? Haha, not too tough but it wasn't exactly the 'normal' chicken that we were expecting. 

The best sauce award goes to the char siew. But health-wise, you might want to stay away from all the charred bits (which came up to quite a bit). But I liked these charred  bits...

The taugeh (beansprouts) looked nondescript but it was tasty! And juicy!

And, our meal was the most cost effective through-out our stay at Petaling Street as it came up to RM66 for all the food that we had and fed 5 adults comfortably.

Address: 42, Jalan Sultan, City Centre, 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Contact: +60176294188

Business Hours:

Closed on Wed.

Thu - Tue: 10 am to 3 pm

Homecooked Food in Kajang

Finally went home in July after years of absence. My younger sis showed how much she missed me, by cooking up delicious food. Actually, this is my conjecture only. Haha! Truth is, she has always been the better cook since, I don't know... forever, I think. At the moment, she is the only family member that cooks on a daily basis. Eternally grateful to her for being there with and for our elderly parents.

Here's a collection of the good stuffs I had for that few days when I was at home recently.

Day One (Dinner)

fried rice

radish pork ribs soup

The grains of the fried rice were well defined, and texture of the rice was good. Diced french beans and carrots gave it a crunchy texture and some colour. Of course, must have egg. Pair this with a hearty bowl of soup. Chunky radish and carrots as the base, meaty flavours from the pork ribs and a tad of umami-ness from the dried oysters. Throw in one or two honey dates for the natural sweetness.

We have some homegrown chili padi, so cut chilies was a must for my meals.

Day 2 (Breakfast)

Penang-styled char kway teow with clams

Impressive plate that had legit awesome flavours. The generous amount of small clams and chinese sausage provided savoury-sweetness to the plate. Kway teow was bouncy and each strand was well coated with the dark sauce. Sprouts were juicy and the chives 韭菜) added authenticity to the plate. My sis said she use special sauce and sambal meant for ckt for this.

Day 2 (Dinner)

three dishes (三菜)

brinjal petai in bean sauce

turmeric baked drumlets and wings

steamed white pomfret in soy sauce

All these dishes actually made me wanted to have more rice. But, need to control... 

Day 3 (Breakfast)

chicken feet wanton noodles with char siew

Day 3 (Dinner)

stir fried lettuce with garlic

simple panfried fish

Hakka zhar yoke with black fungus (客家黑木耳炸肉) 

This meal was double wow! The zhar yoke was lovely as the pork belly was tender and so easy to (over)eat. No funky porky smell. The black fungus is one of my favourite foods and it pairs well with the zhar yoke (Cantonese) or zhar bak (Mandarin).

Panfried fish is a simple delicacy that I had always enjoyed. Just rub some salt all over the fish and panfry each side till cook. Take extra care for the head and usually need to baste it for it to be a little bit crunchy. The drizzle lightly with soy sauce and drop some chopped spring onions to garnish. Pour over a bit of the hot oil over the spring onions.

My sis said we have some white chili padi and asked if I'd like to try. Ok, although I've never heard of it before.

white chili padi

Turned out that it was not exactly white, just a very very pale shade of green. But it was indeed more spicy and more fragrant than the normal birds eye chili. Hmm, 1.5 times more spicy I'd say.

Day 4 (Breakfast)

Taiwanese-styled breakfast of shou zhua bing (手抓并)

I think my sis missed travelling and this breakfast was reminiscent of Taipei. Home version means you could add more greens (shredded lettuce) and a thicker piece of spam. Yums!

Thank you sis!

[Johor] Sunroast 宏達燒臘 @ Yong Peng

This was my first trip home after Covid and am blessed to be accompanied by my travel buddies; Ivan, Hence, Tracy and Shermaine. Was lunch time, and we were in Yong Peng, so headed to this place after a quick search online on what's available to eat.

The shop was pretty spacious and reminded me of Taiwan, somehow.

shop interior

I asked the staff on what is her recommendation and she gave me a bored look and said we should just order what we like. Ok...

Nevertheless, we ordered the three meats platter, consisting of roast duck, roast pork and char siew. For greens, we ordered the winged beans (四季豆) but was later informed that it was out of stock, so we got the ubiquitous Chinese cabbage (小白菜). For carbs, we got the oil rice (油饭) while Hence chose the noodles. Plus a bowl of seaweed fishballs soup.

The utensils are on the table, together with the sauce. Food was served pretty quickly too.

The 3 meats platter was RM38.80 but was served separately for the duck and the pork.

roast duck

roast pork and char siew

bok choy @RM8.50

fishball soup @RM10

dry noodles @RM4

The noodles fared better than the rice, as it was tossed in light soy sauce with sesame oil fragrance. But of course, a small plate of rice was only RM1.

I liked all the roasted meat. Quite nicely done and not overly seasoned. Duck was pretty tender too!

kopi (small) @RM2

After we left the place, and later that night, it was discovered that the winged beans (RM10) was included in the bill although we didn't get that plate. So do check your bill when you pay.

We spent RM20 per pax for lunch.

Sunroast 宏達燒臘

Address: No 2,Bt 1/4,Jalan Air hitam 83700 Yong Peng, Johor, Malaysia

Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063470441391

[Travel] Ipoh - Where to eat Bean Sprouts Chicken (芽菜鸡) and Best Ipoh Hor Fun (鸡丝河粉)

There are tons of write-ups on where to go for 芽菜鸡 aka taugeh chicken (beansprouts chicken) and Lou Wong would be frequently mentioned as the spot for tourists. Well, we headed towards that direction anyways and decided to try Ong Kee (安记芽菜鸡) which is like beside Lou Wong. Similarly, Ong Kee has a big shop and busy with tourists. We sat alfresco, and the service staff will bring you the menu (has photos of the dish and prices).

shop front

menu

You have the option to choose either rice or sar hor fun (沙河粉).  My advice is, go for the sar hor fun because the soup was so darn tasty and it would make a good base for the gai see hor fun (thin flat noodles with chicken shreds). Of course, we didn't know because we were first-timers, and all of us ordered rice.

Bun Tong Bean Sprouts (文冬豆芽) @RM12 for large

Farm Chicken (whole) 菜园鸡 @RM66

must have chili

rice

super tasty chicken soup

The sprouts was really good and refreshing. It came as a mountain on a plate but we finished 'em all. All us 7 adults. The farm chicken was lean but not too chewy. The soy sauce on it was good. Slightly sweet savoury. Rice was cooked with ginger and garlic and not too oily.

Just beware of the streetside vendor who goes from tables to tables. She sold me an overpriced packet of biscuit which I later found out, was also available at the biscuit shops around that area.

night fall

Ong Kee Bean Sprouts Chicken Restaurant

Address: 48, Jalan Yau Tet Shin, Taman Jubilee, 30300 Ipoh, Negeri Perak, Malaysia
Contact: +60 5-253 1562
Business Hours:
Daily: 10.30am to 2am


Next, we sampled the best gai see hor fun at Thean Chun Coffeeshop but the wait was super long. At least 15 to 25 minutes to wait for a table and another 45 minutes for the noodles. That is considering we went after 1.30pm.

Thean Chun Coffeeshop

the famous stall for 鸡丝河粉

First, be warned that the coffeeshop is kinda old and dingy looking. Definitely crowded and we stood behind some tables to wait for our turn (like food-court!) and in-turn, sometimes got scolded by the stall assistants for blocking their way. And, often times, the table will have like a few that are already done with their lunch and one who was still waiting for the hor fun. So those are no-go as well.

Not easy when you're in a group of 7 pax and wants to eat at a crowded coffee shop. Finally, we got our table and since we had to wait 45 minutes for the hor fun, we went and ordered chee cheong fun and satay while waiting.

chee cheong fun and satay stall

Most of the stall owners are above 50 years old. So you'll get to taste authentic and old school recipe for the dish.

chee cheong fun

Old school chee cheong fun does not have the additional yong tau foo items as other places in Malaysia, and is served simply with pickled green chili, some shallots and good drizzle of the sauces. My mom says this was what chee cheong fun tasted like when she was growing up.

The satay stall had run out of the innards and only remained a few sticks of pork satay. So we had a mix of chicken and pork satay.

pork and chicken satay with peanut sauce

pork satay

Satay was good and the peanut sauce was thick and chunky. Not that spicy though.

Finally, the wait was over and we were served the hor fun. My first impression was...how come the soup got so many bubbles one? Putting that aside, the soup was flavourful and the hor fun was slightly soft. Loaded with lots of shredded boiled chicken meat and there were some prawns too.

鸡丝河 Chicken Shred Hor Fun Soup

close-up view of the noodles

After Thean Chun, we tried other gai see hor fun at other coffeeshops, but their soup couldn't match up with the stall at Thean Chun (maybe the Ong Kee tauge chicken one can).

Would I want to wait another 45 minutes for a bowl of gai see hor fun again? Well, if you have not tried Thean Chun's version, will recommend to try at least once.

Restoran Thean Chun 天津茶室

Address: 73, Jalan Bandar Timah, 31650 Ipoh, Negeri Perak, Malaysia
Contact: +60 5-255 3076
Business Hours:
Fri to Wed: 8am to 3pm
Closed on Thurs

Exploring Ipoh at a Relaxed Pace - Kajang to Ipoh | Ipoh Downtown Hotel | Hua Nam Coffeeshop

Was my first time in Ipoh and my sis booked us a room at Ipoh Downtown Hotel. We travelled from Kajang to Ipoh Station via ETS train. Journey was about 3.5 hours from Kajang Station. Think it was less than SGD30 for a return ticket.

arrived - Ipoh Train Station

ETS Route

Reached Ipoh Station at about 1pm. The station was constructed in 1894 and it has a nice exterior painted in white. From there, one could take a taxi or Grab to downtown. If you intend to get Grab, most of the grab cars are not that big and could possibly fit at most 2 luggages of 23-24" in its boot. We had 7 adults with us, thus it took us 3 vehicles to transport all of us and our bags to the hotel.

Ipoh Train Station

It was just a 10 minutes ride from the train station to Ipoh Downtown Hotel. This hotel is located near "Tong Shui Kai" (糖水街) or also known as "Dessert Street".

Ipoh Downtown Hotel

hotel sign

hotel lobby

We were given rooms at Level 5. There's a small sundry shop at the hotel lobby where you could get instant noodles, chips, bread, or ice-cream but with a higher than market price. Good for rainy days where you don't want to walk out but there's a convenience store just a few steps away from the hotel.

hotel room with 2 double beds

view from room

minibar with complimentary drinks

instant coffee

complimentary bottled water

bathroom

bathroom supplies

After checking-in, it was about way past lunch time so we decided to try the nearby coffeeshop. We went to Hua Nam Coffeeshop.

Hua Nam @ Jalan Leong Sin Nam

fried noodles stall

char kway teow  with cockles @RM5.50

cockles 螄蚶

The char kway teow was good. Savoury, well-fried and had a hint of wok-hei. The cockles (seahum) was of a decent size. On another day, I tried their "Kap Dai" (及底) noodles and it was essentially just fried noodles. Preferred the char kway teow over that anytime!

Kap Dai" (及底) @RM6

Also tried the curry mee but think there was a mis-commucation. Ordered a bowl with additional roast pork, and when it came, there was no other ingredients in the bowl except roast pork! Hahaa.

roast pork curry mee @RM6

roast pork curry noodles

My dad ordered the "lam mee" (淋面) from the Penang Noodles stall. Hmm, no particular liking for this dish as I still prefer the lor mee back in Singapore.

Lam Mee (淋面)

The iced coffee from this coffeeshop is pretty good. Not too acidic, strong coffee and milk that's not too overpowering. They also have a plum drink which they soak the plum in a large container to steep out the flavours.

iced coffee

housemade preserved plum drink @RM2.60

Also tried fruits rojak at the coffeeshop, and it was good too. Just that the turnip slices was a tad tough. Other than that, the rest were ok. Tasty.

rojak

The caramel custard from the coffeeshop was not bad but it wasn't made in-house. They got it via a supplier. First one that I had, it disintegrated rather quickly as the custard had not solidify enough. Informed the lady-boss and she changed another one for me.

caramel egg custard

Kedai Minuman & Makanan Hua Nam 華南白咖啡茶室

Address: 45, Jalan Leong Sin Nam, Kampung Jawa, 30300 Ipoh, Negeri Perak, Malaysia