Precious Taste Restaurant off Jalan Burma

We used to scout around Burma road area for nice food previously but never got a chance to post it. Now as we do some housekeeping on our food pics, we stumbled upon some past records that makes our mouth water again...One of them is Precious Taste Restaurant.

Hidden in the small lane off Burma Road (opposite Yataimura), there is this little restaurant where there is a lot of Japanese expat like to hangout for lunch. The chef is from Penang who married a Chinese wife and both had worked in Japan for some time. Then they decided to come back to Penang and start up their own restaurant. Sometimes if you are lucky, you'll catch the wife happily chatting away with the Japs in perfect Japanese before asking you what would you like to have your lunch in China's mandarin accent.

So what's the specialty of the restaurant? Siu Long Pau!

It is quite delicious with hot soup pouring out from the mini pau when you take a bite. Mouth watering, really...

Tie Guo is not bad too..


We ordered fried kailan,


and deep fried soft shell crabs...


Not to mention the yummy braised pork with salted fish


and finally the long bean stir fried in minced pork


And if all these doesn't fit your taste, you can always try the alternative menu set..


Now, what can we say....truly precious

Updates: We wanted to pay it a visit in May 2010, but this place was shut down.

Dunkin' Donuts @ Tapah rest area

During our trip back to Penang from Bukit Tinggi, we stopped by Tapah rest area along the north-south highway. We gobbled up some KFCs (nothing to eat...) and went to Dunkin' Donuts for a visit :P

We decided to buy a 5+1 pack, but was having a hard time choosing the ones we like....they all looks so yummylicious! So end up each of us choose few types and tada!

Looks colorful right? taste great too!

Now where can we buy some nice donuts in Penang?

Hokkien Mee aka Prawn Noodle

Do you feel like want to have a big bowl of delicious home cooked Hokkien mee? Let me tell you, the method of cooking is not complicated, but the whole process really takes time. I’m going to share with you the method of cooking, but not the quantitative recipe. The reason is simple, because my mom’s ingredient is for 20 person. Yes, TWENTY person!

Hehe…This is the outcome for the hard work. It’s my mom’s home cooked Hokkien mee.


Blended prawn shell

So, let’s start with the soup base. First, you need to have enough prawn shells. My mom collected prawn shells from about 3kg’s prawns. You can keep it in the freezer until you get the desired quantity. You need to stir fried these prawn shells with some chopped garlic. Add some light soy sauce and oyster sauce, and continue to stir fry till you smell the aroma. Next, you need to blend the prawn shells with a cube of belacan (you determine the size). Add some water to smoothen the blending process.

Bring water to a boil in a pot. Add few hundred grammes of pork ribs; return to a boil. Add the blended prawn shell. Reduce heat; simmer and stirring occasionally. Add some smashed pepper, some rock sugar, and let it simmer for about 1 hour.

While the soup is simmering, you can proceed to deep fry the sliced shallots in a wok.

Set a side the crispy shallots for garnishing purpose. To maintain the crispness, the best is to keep the cooled shallots in a sealed container.

Then heat enough oil in the wok, and saute the chili paste for about 3-4 minutes.

Pour chili paste in a bowl.

Sift the whole pot of soup to remove the prawn shells. Add some chili oil and continue simmer for another half and hour. Add salt or light soy sauce and MSG to taste.

Use the remaining chili oil in the wok to stir fry shelled and deveined prawns.

Remove the prawns, and let it cool. Slice each of the prawns into 2.

Cook vermicelli in large saucepan of boiling water, uncovered, until just tender; drain.

Rinse noodles under hot running water; drain.

Roasted pork, cut into small equivalent sizes.

Cook some kangkung in the boiling water and drained.

Bean sprout with tips trimmed. Rinse the bean sprouts under hot running water; drain.

Hard-boiled egg, quartered.

To serve, put a handful of noodles and vermicelli in a bowl. Add a little of each garnish: bean sprout, kangkung, hard-boiled egg, prawns, and roasted pork sliced. Pour a ladleful of prawn soup over the noodles and garnish. Sprinkle crispy shallots, and add some chili paste to taste.

This is the earlier version of my mom’s home cooked Hokkien mee. She used thinly sliced pork meat (hard-boiled in the prawn soup) instead of roasted pork. What to say? Marvelous!

Meaty Fragrance Noodle

Here, I present to you my home cooked noodle, which I named it as Meaty Fragrance Noodle. I have wanted to cook this kind of noodle for quite sometime, but I have no idea which type of noodles should I use. I have no guts to try with dried wanton noodle, fresh yellow noodle or instant noodle. Till last Sunday, suddenly I got an idea to cook with organic spinach seaweed wheat noodle.

I bought a packet of this noodles (x4 pcs) from Jusco organic food corner at RM5.30 few weeks back. I was shocked to know that the price hikes up to RM7.20 during my recent shopping there. Wow, RM1.90 equals to 36% price increase ler! Too much!!

Anyway, the noodle is claimed to be no pesticides, no preservatives, no frying, no colouring, no bleaching agent. Besides, it's rich in insoluble fibres and powerful antioxidants. With organic spinach enhanced, it provides us iron to fortify our blood. So, forget about the price, and just go ahead to give it a try cuz the quality is irresistible.

My recipe for

Meaty Fragrance Noodle

Ingredients:
1. 2 pcs of organic noodle

2. half carrot, cut into strips

3. 6 dried mushrooms, soften in hot water. 2 of it will be used for the sauce, and 4 mushrooms will have to cut into quarters. Leave the mushroom water to use later.

4. 300gms of minced pork, marinate with 1 tbsp of light soya sauce, few drops of sesame oil, and a dash pepper. Let it stand for 15 minutes.

5. 1 tbsp of chopped garlic

6. half tbsp of chili paste

7. 2 tbsp of light soy sauce

8. 4 tbsp of sunflower oil

9. The sauce (blended):
a. 1 onion
b. 6 cloves of garlic
c. 1 tbsp of soya bean paste
d. 2 soften dried mushrooms as per 3.
e. some water.

Method:
1. To prepare the noodle, just add the organic noodle (x2 pcs) to salted boiling water and cook for around 5 minutes until soft. Then, rinse in fresh water and pour onto plates.

2. Add oil to the heated wok and stir fry the chopped garlic till fragrant. Pour in the merinated meat and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add in the mushrooms and continue to stir fry for another 1 minute.

3. Add the chilli paste, light soy sauce, the blended sauce and some mushroom water. Let it simmer for roughly 3 minutes, and add in carrot strips. Off the fire, and pour the sauce over the cooked noodle.

And let me tell you. The outcome was really satisfying. Its appearance and portion are just perfect. The gravy is flavourful and scrumptious. The ingredients are sticking together with the smooth and tender noodle. I don't deny that I have done a good job although you may think that cooking organic noodle with meat gravy is a bit weird.

Update: This post has been submitted to Presto Pasta Nights#91 organised by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast and hosted by Daphne from More Than Words .

Buffet Dinner @ Le Blason Colmar Tropicale

The package that we booked during our stay at Colmar Tropicale is inclusive of buffet dinner, so we shouldn't miss out that part right? :)

So what we have here....errmm..some wedges, prawns, chicken....


fish, vegetables......


some salad...


some bee hoon soup...


and some cakes...


and....a group of entertainers singing at the restaurant


Nothing special about the food, and taste so-so only. But it is a different dinner experience for us in Bukit Tinggi...:)

Red Bean Soup 紅豆沙

Red bean (in Chinese) or Adzuki bean (in Japanese), has always been prepared as dessert. Mum used to prepare red bean soup for our afternoon tea since I was a child.

During my shopping at Jusco, I bought a packet of organic red bean from the organic food section. Definitely it's a bit pricey compared to the normal red bean. However, I believe it contains higher nutritional value which is benefit to our health. Eat wisely in order to stay healthy, right?

To cook a pot of tong sui for 4 persons, I just roughly estimated the ingredients. I used a packet of 200gms of read bean, about 1.2 litre of water, 5 pandan leaves (washed & tied into 2 knots), 20 dried longan (washed), and rock sugar to taste. First, bring the water to boil in a pot, then have the red beans and pandan leaves added. Bring the soup to a boil and added in the dry longans. I let the soup simmer for about 45 minutes under low heat to soften the red beans, and added in rock sugar to taste. Let it simmer for another 2 minutes before serving.

I cook this tong sui to my liking without adding the dried mandarin orange skin. With the dried longan, the flavor of the dessert is marvelous. We like it very much. Yum Yum! :P

Lunch @ La Flamme, Colmar Tropicale

The first thing we did when we reached at Bukit Tinggi was to have our lunch. Must have our stomachs filled up in order to boost up our holiday mood, right? We walked along the street of Colmar, made some survey before we made up our mind which restaurant to dine out.

Hmm... We saw La Cigogne, where haute French cuisine is served, a hodge podge of culinary delights at Le Cafe Coffee House, exotic cocktails and assorted beverages at the Le Blason Lounge, cool refreshments and snacks at Les-Bains-Douches Poolside, home made pastries at La Flamme Sidewalk Deli, sandwiches and various blends of coffee at La Terrace, mouthwatering ice-cream at Le Glacier Ice-Cream Corner, and the Le Poulet Roti. So overall, there are several choices of dining outlets serving various specialties.

Aha! and...This was the one that selected by us, the La Flamme.


We like the ralaxing environment at La Flamme. It's an open air outlet with great amosphere. The air is fresh, provided there's nobody smoking around.


The capuccino that I ordered. Hmm...nice aroma...


Hubby ordered this Chocolate Vienna with mousse topping. Bitter sweet goodness.

We ordered a small Colmar pizza, the Pollo e Funghi with roasted chicken, mushroom tomato concasse and mozzarella cheese. It cost for RM25++. We were not dissapointed with the taste.

This is the Marina spaghetti in tomato concasse. It's with prawn, mussels, clam, fish cube and squid. It just taste average, but the clam is yakkkkksss......Not fresh :(

The simple lunch cost for RM80++. Aih...Don't care lar, we came for holiday mah, must pamper ourselve lah, of course!

Foh San Dim Sum @ Ipoh

During our journey to Bukit Tinggi last friday we stopped by Ipoh for some local Dim Sum. We made our way to Foh San Restaurant which is one of the popular places for Dim Sum. It was 7:30 in the morning and the crowd already started building up. We managed to find a place to sit and ordered some dim sum right away! We found that the dim sum trolley is hard to come by, so we ended up hunting for the trolley to get some food :P


Fried prawn dumpling


Prawn dumpling


Steamed fish ball


Supreme prawn dumpling


Pork dumpling


Pork mushroom bun


Yam paste with meat

So how was the food? Well, we think it is just average. Maybe the old style dim sum trolley not so good in presenting the variety of dim sum available. The Bali Hai dim sum concept in Penang seems better in getting what we want.