Sup Pedas Kajang, Puchong

December, December, December!
So much to do, to rush for before the year ends!
And with all the hustle and bustle, I had, inevitably neglected my blog ;p

Finally managed to squeeze in time for an update, and it shall be a continuation of the rainy day series..

We were in Bandar Puteri and heard there's a new shop in town..
Up for something spicy, we made our way there in hope for some great grubs.
Ordering was prompt, we wanted to try their 'sup pedas', ie, their hot and spicy soup..

If you were thinking it's somewhat like the peppery pig stomach soup, then you'll be sorely disappointed. This pot of soup is thick with pepper, slices of ginger and loads of choy poh (preserved vegetables). There's slices of pork, pork stomach and chicken to sweeten the soup, but it's just not my cup of tea. I find the soup chokingly sweet and saltish, I'd go for simple pepperish pig stomach soup anytime.

We tried the 18K Hot Hot Pork, which sounds menacingly fiery..

Turns out very similar to the dry style bak kut teh, sans the lady's fingers. The thick sauce was perfect with rice, the pork slices itself was less impressive as it was rather tough. Better than the soup though.

Got some Houliao seafood roll..

Mediocre seafood rolled in beancurd.

The spinach that we ordered was too old..
Way too fibrous.
Overall a less than stellar experience, doubt I'll pop over again, unless I had no other option.


Sup Pedas Kajang is located at 16G, Jalan Puteri 2/4, Bandar Puteri, 47100 Puchong.

Xin Chun Seafood Steamboat, Kota Damansara

The rain has been relentless for the past few weeks..
It's cold, wet and dull, I guess it's a tropical country's version of 'winter'?

Though there's many who would lament about the rain, I for one, secretly enjoy the rain. I love the smell of rain, the sound of it pelting against my window pane and magnificent lightning that strikes just before a storm begins. That is, if I'm nice and dry indoors..hahaha.

And when it rains, most of us would seek some sort of comfort food..

In my case, steamboat tops the list to warm me up on a rainy day :).

I first heard of Xin Chun from SL. We were on our way to try it but a most unfortunate incident happened and we had to cancel. Year end came and most of us were busy going for hols and clearing last minute work, we just didn't thought of Xin Chun again.

When WF was hanging out at my place recently, it was another wet evening and we were both craving for something to warm us up. Xin Chun came to my mind.

It was freakishly packed when we arrive, but luck was with us, we got a table soon after.

Like any typical steamboat joint, Xin Chun offers 'ching thong' (clear soup base) or 'yin yiong" (mixed of 2 soup, the other being tim yam). Since it's our first try, we opted for yin yiong.

There were 2 sets to choose from - Ketam set (RM13.50) and Seafood set(RM24.50).

It was a minimum order or 2 pax per set, so we could only try one type. We went for the Ketam set. Quite substantial serving for 2, we decided not to order extra ingredients. The set also comes with the typical yee mee and vermicelli, with eggs.

I assumed that their ching thong was basically herb based, to my surprise, it was not. I cant tell what's the ingredients for the clear soup, it was a very familiar, seafood taste. WF said it might be shark bones, which may be the case as the soup was murky, and usually boiling fish/ fish bones brings such effect. I was actually enjoying this soup very much, it's rather satisfying slurping it down. Yums. The ingredients for the steamboat was very fresh too, which added to the sweetness of the soup.

As for the tom yam, both of us didn't like it. It was very spicy yet sweet. Just didn't enjoy it.

Xinchun serves dishes other than steamboat too. Dishes such as lala vermicelli, crabs (in different sauces) and pork ribs, to fill us up while waiting for the food to cook.

Xin Chun Seafood Steamboat is located at No 15, Jln PJU 5/3, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara , 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Vivo American Pizza & Panini, Tropicana City Mall

I can be very bias sometimes..

I tend to make a hasty decision for not dining at a place with it's outlook. That does not mean that the restaurant is dirty, smelly etc..its just a 'feel' that I get. No chemistry I guess, hah. Weird, eh?

Sadly, Vivo was one of such restaurant. When I saw it opening its doors at The Curve a couple of years back, I never had the urge to want to try it.

But recently, Vivo opened a branch at Tropicana City. I was there to catch a movie and while cracking my head on what to have for dinner, I recalled Ms. D persistent effort to convince me to try the food in Vivo some time ago.

Hmmm, why so insistent?

Curiosity got the best of me, we went to Vivo without much hesitation..

Power juices seemed to be popular..

We tried a couple..

Cant remember the names of these, but one was thirst quenching while another was a tad too sour..

The Green Tea latte was a nice way to warm the belly in preparation of the food..The slightly bitter green tea (powder) was balanced by the tame milk.

Ms D said the baked seafood pasta was worth trying..

And so I did.

The pasta was tongue scorching hot when it was served. The top layer of cheese was wonderfully burnt and melted, clinging on to the spaghetti underneath. The tomato cream sauce, - rich and gooey complemented the mild flavour dory fish slices and pasta. A rather satisfying dish, you should give it a try if you prefer creamy based pasta.

The pizza, on the other hand, came with some quirky flavours..

SH wanted to try the Funghi (Mushroom) pizza, and so we ordered one.

You get to choose to have it thin crust or the normal pizza base. Ours was thin.

I was surprised that Vivo was very generous with their ingredients. Loads of mushrooms accompanied with a scattering of feta cheese and almond slices. So far, it sounds normal right? The quirkiness came with the sauce used for the base of the pizza. Rather than the usual tomato base, they opted for pesto. Not that it's bad (the worst base I've tried was caramelised ginger sauce base for a duck pizza..ewww), it's just acquired taste. So this pizza got a mixed vote, some of us enjoyed it, while others don't.

Amy opted for a more norm pizza..

Topped with salami, chicken slices and lots of vegetables. Pretty decent, I liked the fact that the capsicums are bursting with juices when I bit into it.

I've tried their chicken tenders too (which I didn't take a picture of, sorry!), which is great to snack on. It's like a cross between A&W fried chicken batter with Chilli's chicken crisper.

I must admit, there were some items in Vivo that I did enjoy. Vivo is has almost similar clientele akin to Pizza hut's. But if I had to choose between these 2, I'd rather do Vivo.

Vivo American Pizza & Panini is located at Tropicana City Mall, L1-55, First Floor, Tropicana City Mall, No. 3, Jln SS 20/27, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Icing

Made these cupcakes last Night. Nakaka adik pala mag bake! Kinuha ko lang yung recipe sa likod ng lalagyan nung binili ko na Hershey's na unsweeted Cocoa. Pati icing dun din. Ultimate Chocolate cake na nilagay ko sa cupcake molds at yung icing na pinipe ko lang using an end of a plastic zip lock container.

Assorted icing designs na napagkatuwaan ko lang gawin kagabi. Na tawag na nga ko ng asawa ko at akala kung ano na nangyari sa kin. Im tired from work at nag luto pa ng dinner pagdating ko ng bahay tapos di talaga ko pumayag na di makapag bake na kahit yung recipe sa lalagyan ng cocoa ay di ko pinatawad.

Nag enjoy naman ako kaya may smiley dyan! haha



Had this piece this morning. Masarap! hehe
At dahil sobrang nag enjoy ako kakalagay ng icing, bibili na ko ng pipe bukas.....

Next project ko? Red velvet cupcakes naman :-)

Fun Taipei Tea Cafe, Kota Damansara

We were on our way to another destination, but it was lunch time, we were famished and Fun Taipei had just opened it's doors at Kota Damansara. Parking was relatively easy, we decided to give it a try..

The restaurant was decorated with large wall posters of famed taiwan tourist attractions and snack street pictures, clearly indicating their main food focus. There were quite a number of set meals to choose from (other than ala carte), with very decent prices.

Choosing our meals didnt take that long..

WF had oyster mee sua..

I was rather surprise with her order, since she had just returned from Taipei a couple of weeks ago and I assumed she ate this many,many times when she was there. It's was a mediocre dish though, the sauce tasted rather quirky, not like the norm oyster mee sua. The accompanying deep fried tofu was quite nice, if eaten together with the pickled cucumber.

I had the san bei (3 cups) chicken..

Was a decent version, not too bad. Sadly, the chicken was not well marinated and did not absorb much of the sauces flavours. The mince pork rice (lu rou farn) had too much star anise aroma in it, which I didnt like. Also, insufficient gelatine in the sauce to

Amy decided to have the braised set..

So her's looks the plainest of the lot :p. Braised egg and tofu served with braised mince pork rice. The base sauce was the same for all the dishes, so everything tasted rather similar. Average tasting set..

We all agreed that Elaine's set was the best..

Her chicken chop set..

Humongous deep fried chicken chop, lightly dusted with chilli powder. The batter was crunchy while the chicken fillet remained juicy and well marinated. Very yummy indeed.

Overall, we find the food average, but all of us really enjoyed their bubble tea (which I didnt take any picture of :p). I guess I will come back for the bubble tea and maybe to try some of the snacks..

Fun Taipei Tea Cafe is located at No. 16-1, Jalan PJU 5/15, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara, Selangor. There are a few other branches located around Klang Valley.

Evolving popiah?

I guess I've not taken popiah (spring rolls) for a while now, so to my surprise, it has evolved to a new range of popiah when I was not even noticing..

When I was at Sun Yin Loong recently, I saw someone ordering a plate of 'sushi'. But sushi at a kopitiam just dont seem to fit well- I looked around and noted that there's a stall selling popiah with a twist..literally twisted and rolled with seaweed.

Curiosity got the best of me, I ordered a portion.

Outer layer was crisp seaweed, the second layer was popiah skin and the filling was mostly raw vegetables ( a mix of turnips, carrots, bean sprouts and cucumber), the center was filled with mayo, chicken floss and some fried crunchy bits of flavoured flour.

The taste? Funnily enough, this combo works- tasted like sushi (those crabstick mayo flavour), without the rice and wasabi. The only hint that it was ever a popiah was the skin.

I was told that some pasar malams are also selling this 'popiah' as hand roll versions, sans popiah skin and includes other combo of vegetables like cabbage and sweet corn bits.

Brilliant Beijing!

My dear, dear readers!

First and foremost, a thousand apologies for not updating my blog for the longest time!

Hope you guys didnt get the impression that I've stopped blogging for good :p

I've been busy for almost a month and when it was time for updates, well, I decided to procrastinate instead..hehehe.

Well, the title of my blog post gave it all away.. yes, I was off for a nice holiday in Beijing (and Xi'an) recently, to pay homage to mother of all walls :p, the Great Wall..There were 3 main gates to the Great Wall, we went to the JuYongGuan Wall, in which our driver declared, was the nicest of the 3 gates (I cant verify since this was the only one we went for :p). We were blessed with wonderful weather and beautiful autumn colours during our time there, I was so pleasantly surprise! The climb was ardous, but we defintely had loads of fun :D.

The grand Forbidden City was too humongous for me to absorb all it's rich history..

Overview of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park

The calm moat surrounding the walls of Forbidden City

Sadly, this place was my least favourite..

And being so near Forbidden City, how can we miss Tiananmen (and Tiananmen Square)..

Zhengyang Gate at the front, leading us to Tiananmen Square and Chairman Mao Masoleum

Crowded with locals and tourists (on a weekday! dont the locals work??), forming a long queue to visit Chairman Mao.

The Temple of Heaven was lovely though..

It was packed with activities, there were lots (and I do mean freaking truck loads of them!) of locals exercising, dancing and singing in the rose garden and cyprus park. Ironically for me, it still feels tranquil amongst all the bustling.

Summer Palace was a hit among us..

We love the slow stroll, the cooling weather, the breathtaking scenery, the lush greeneries...Time really did seem to slow down there.

And for a structure build during our time, we popped by to the Olympic Park..

The Birdnest was the most popular landmark here. We were told that the oblong shape stadium represents the Heaven (and Yang and male element) while the Rectangle shaped stadium(The Cube) across the Birdnest represents the Earth (and Ying and female element). It's all about Fengshui, baby!

There were plenty of parks in Beijing, we dropped by to Beihai Park..

I had an awesome time there, it was relaxing to stroll under autumn trees, watching the sun set..

We popped by to Yonghe Temple..

It's the largest Llama Temple in Beijing and the structure seems very similar to chinese temples. I guess the only tell tale sign that it's llama temple was the scattering of spinning prayer wheels around the temple.

And how can we miss the infamous Wangfujing Street where there's a stretch of street (fear factor) food for everyone to indulge in?

There's other places that we've visited (Beijing is way too huge), but I wont wanna bored all of you, would I? Overall an extremely tiring trip (I've never walked so much daily for a long while now), but thanks to the fantastic company, I had plenty of fun! :)

Yanna's School ID

This had me laughing this afternoon at work today.

I was in the middle of reconciling an account when hubby sent me this picture of Marianna's ID

I cried laughing for quite a while.

Ang gara naman kasi ng itsura ng anak ko. Parang naging kulot. Kulot na gulat! haha.
Nagulo siguro yung ipit nya. Pati yung ribbon pilipit. Tapos kita pa yung kapraso nung bag nyang pink.

I love you anak. You always make mommy happy.

I'll keep this ID of yours to taunt you in the future, hehe.



Chocolate Crinkles

From making chocolate oatmeal cookies, here is 

another cookie recipe that I tried in the Yummy Bake, Give & Sell recipe collection

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1/2 cup dark cocoa powder (I used hersheys)

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar (sifted)

PROCEDURES:

1. In a bowl, combine oil, sugar and vanilla. Mix together. Add eggs, one at a time.

2. Sift together cocoa, flour and baking powder. Add the creamed mixture and blend well.

3. Chill dough for at least 4 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Line a baking tray with wax paper. Set aside.

5. Scoop the dough then roll in sifted confectioners' sugar.

6. Place on the baking tray at least two inches apart.

7. Bake for at least 12 minutes then cool.

sifted flour, cocoa and baking powder mixture

dough mixture before chilling 

crinkles taken off the oven to cool

chocolate crinkles close up

crinkles stored for future snacking

This was my first try and have baked a few more batches after it. I even brought some at the office to sell but i did came out differently from my first try. There are batches that were too thick and the others a little dry. After this, I just hope that my next batch would came out as I would want them to be after a few adjustments from my previous tries.

This also serves as my entry for FOOD FRIDAY for this week

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Burger Project

After seeing this Burger store at a blog site and watching it in one of the episodes of Where you at in MYX, i have been bugging my brother to visit the place.

Last Saturday, we did had the chance to go here.The place was not that big. I was a little deceived by the pictures ....  Never the less , the place was cozy enough for a burger joint

List where you can customize your BRGR ...

Designer BRGR Board

My filled up Order sheet ... 

Order sheets are then submitted at the counter

Vanilla Milk Shake - Php 145.00

Their other milk shakes variants are strawberry, blueberry, choco peanut and good ol choc'lit all for Php 145.00 each

I'm a sucker for anything sweet and their milk shake did not disappoint

Marky Mark BRGR  (hubby's Burger creation)

 Beef burger, Blue cheese, Mango salsa, Jalapeno peppers, tomato in Poppy seed bun

Hubby did like his burger but claims he liked the burgers more in Wham Burgers.

I think its all in the combination ....

Fries - Php 60.00

This was supposed to be for my niece Ria 

We should have told them not to put chili powder

Sweet Potato Fries - Php 60.00

 This one was better than the fries. The natural sweetness of the sweet potato compliments the light kick from the chili powder

TOFURIFIC BURGER

Tofu BRGR, mozzarella cheese, Mango salsa, lettuce and tomato in an Oatmeal bun.

I did go for the lighter choice and it all tasted well together.

BUNGAL BRGR

This one was Kuya's Friend Burger.

Beef burger, cheddar cheese, pineapple slice, onion rings, egg and bacon in a Poppy seed bun.

An odd combination. But a very good and filling one according to him.

Funny name. He may turn out BUNGAL if he had this burger all in one bite, hehe.

BUNGO BRGR

My Kuya's burger. 

Chicken burger, cheddar cheese, canadian bacon. tomato and lettuce in a poppy seed bun.

They had this sliced in half since he's claiming he's on a diet and shared this with his wife.

Having my first bite on my TOFURIFIC BURGER

The burger was really huge and I wasn't able to finish mine and had more than half of it to go.

Hubby looking satisfied with his BRGR

Me and My Niece Ria

 I just can't resist having our picture taken at the wall with their logo inside the store

Glass wall at the entrace of the store with drawings of the steps on ordering your BRGR

The Burger Project is a different burger experience that is worth the visit ....

THE BURGER PROJECT


122 Maginhawa, Teahers Vill, QC
351-74-74
theburgerproject.com
theburgerproject@yahoo.com
Open daily 11 am - 12 mn