Went on a Genting trip with 4 siao kias (crazy folks) back in March, and with our trip planner PK being a food-centric person, we are only allowed to dine at the best places around :P
Anyhow, I was the one who chose to have Ipoh Dim Sum here @ Yoke Fook Moon
Yups! So this is the entrance... and that's baka quah (somewhat shivering? On a bright Saturday morning?)
We were all basically starving by the time we reached Ipoh as all of us had empty stomachs needed to be filled up
Instead of chinese tea, we all had Iced White Coffee which ah soon said was freaking good (where he ordered this when we came here during our team trip a few years back)...........
.........except for PK who ordered Milo instead (-_-)
This is one hell of a cool white coffee like I never tasted before wei! Thick, smooth, creamy all in one - chun! [I think these cost at least RM 3.50 each :S ]
Preparing the chilli sauce to go with the Dim Sums... this is one hot chilli sauce I tell ya.. don't dip too much if you can't handle it
First thing that ah soon the 'tham chiak kui' ordered was Fried Fish Balls (which is also one of my favourite as well)
... and the moment it landed on the table - he dug in already even before the rest came back from restrooms :-| (aptly named 'tham chiak' what)
- later on PK found out through pics that I took that we had these, and got upset at ah soon coz she didn't get to eat any fish ball at all, hehehehe...
(and that's Suchi at the background thinking what dim sum to order)
I always liked century egg porridge at dim sum places, and I thought they serve the same 'round here too, so we ordered 2 of the porridges....
But found out that they are not century egg and lean meat porridge, but it was Dried Oyster Porridge instead... and they weren't that tasty.. as well as too big of a portion
Har Kau (Prawn Dumpling)
These were very big-sized and were pretty juicy and fresh
Yong Tau Foo (Stuffed Beancurds and Vegetables)
Not a big fan of yong tau foo, this one's so-so
I'm not sure who ordered this - or what 'kao' is this - and I didn't even recall tasting one either :S
Deep-Fried Yam Balls
These were not bad on the outer layer - crunchy and all; but on the inside - the fillings were a bit bland and the outer layer was too thick as well
Deep-Fried Prawn Fritters
PK's favourite - pretty good with mayonaise - I think we ordered 2 of these
Egg Tarts
These were just mediocre.. crust was too thick and the fillings too sweet
Prawn Chee Cheong Fun (Steamed Rice Rolls with prawn fillings)
Typical Hong Kong style chee cheong fun.. tasted alright but I had better ones elsewhere
Lor Mai Kai (chicken glutinous rice)
I was too busy eating to snap this pic quick enough before the 'vultures' get to it.. hence the reason for it's state of "incompleteness" But this was a disappointment coz everything was just basically too hard (probably overcooked) - from the rice to the chicken/preserved meat, etc.
Baka wanted Char Siew Pao (pork bun), but I didn't sample it.. it should be pretty ok though by the looks of it
Here's baka quah again doing the wrap up for Yoke Fook Moon - by sharing with everyone its business hours :P
Surprisingly, they're open at night too... hmmm.. night time dim sum...
Total damage for our indulgence even before we were half way to Genting wasn't little there... RM 91.70 - which is an average of about RM 18 per person :-|
I'm ok with that though - coz we don't get to eat Ipoh dim sum very often :P
One of the favourite place for me and KW for a good ol' mee goreng is at Lasia Cafe.. it's located in Air Itam, right before the roundabout leading to Penang Hill (12 o'clock), and Kek Lok Si (9 o'clock)
Before being introduced to this stall by KW, I've always supported the mee goreng at Bangkok Lane Pulau Tikus, and the one in Swee Kang kopitiam, also in Pulau Tikus (opposite the police station)
But this one's so much better!
This is the stall.....
The major income generator for Lasia Cafe is actually this stall as this is the one that drives customers in, but please be WARNED that the price of the drinks are notoriously expensive! We always order the Sour Sop juice and it costs a hefty RM 2.50 or something!?! So does the rest of the drinks.. very steep prices
Business is damn good as far as we're concerned, coz everytime we drop by (it's quite far from my place actually), this place is not short of people yearning for his plate of mee goreng or mee rebus
I heard from friends before that the wait time 'round here is pretty outrageous... but maybe coz we're too hard core of a fan hence we didn't really notice..
But I actually took effort to time our total wait time once.... and eventhough there were not many customers waiting in line, it took a good 20 minutes for our plates to arrive.... hmmm....
Introducing... Mee Goreng
What's so special about their mee goreng is that it's pretty 'wet' and 'mushy', definitely not one of those typical dry mee gorengs. Surprisingly, being a fan of dry mee goreng, I can accept this type as well, because it tasted as though all the goodness of the sauce that they have mixed have been well infused in the Mee itself, giving it the 'ooomph'
Because we don't normally order Mee Rebus, I had to dig out one of the pic from my phone just to show how it looks like
The Mee Rebus is very nice and the flavor ... I can just say that they got it just right... the soup base that they use, paired with all the chilli and some other sauces which we could not identify, makes this a perfect 'soup' version of the Mee. And for those we are not into fried mee, they can always opt for a healthier Mee Rebus.
This is a mixture of a *very* backdated post (Chinese New Year to be exact) and a very recent one (yesterday) - my 2nd and 3rd visits to The Sire Museum Restaurant with different company.
I attended my primary school's Year 6 reunion (yea you heard it right - it's Standard 6 reunion) during the 3rd day of Chinese New Year and almost 50 people turned up! What a great effort done by the few organizers... great feat it was indeed :D
My good ol' fren PChoon who is also my primary school mate went with me and it was such a nice feeling to catch up with folks whom we haven't seen for *ages* and see how they look like now - most of them still recognisable and looked pretty good ;)
We snapped loads of pics as it was such a rare occassion...
We were served with the usual complimentary Cheese Baked Bread (1 for each person on the table)
My drink - Banana Smoothie It was very thick and smooth - loved it!
PChoon and I shared an appetizer - Portebello Mushroom
These babies were pretty flavorful but ... there were only 2 of them that it's almost fine-dining standards
Mushroom Soup that CY had
Good comments for the mushroom soup.. though I didn't have the chance to sample it
Sizzling Tenderloin that I had
Such a big serving of the tenderloin pieces! I remembered wearing myself out just trying to finish all of them! The tenderloin pieces were lack of flavour on its own and I had to keep pairing them with the sauce which they sparingly provided on top of the tenderloin... It ran out pretty quickly and I had to request for a plate of the sauce to go with the rest of it
Lamb Shank that PChoon had
PChoon thought this was pretty nice - soft and flavour well-infused
Caramelized Red Snapper that CY had
I couldn't really recall asking CY about the red snapper as we were basically pretty busy chatting people up during the course of our dinner
Apple Creme Brulee that PChoon and myself shared
It wasn't anything magnificent - just that it was pretty unique to see apple being used as the ingredient for creme brulee and using back its skin to host it
Some of pics that we took.....
In all - we were all pleased with the turn out, sharing of laughters and catching up on each others' current affairs after so long... such a nice gathering indeed
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Brought didi to The Sire on Friday as he mentioned previously that he hadn't been there before. I called to make a reservation a few days before just to make sure that we get a table at the inner section of the restaurant near the antiques and galleries
Funniest thing was, didi made a turning into Church Street and slowed down mid-way along the street and said 'let's park here' - and I went 'huh? Why are we parking here?!' and he said 'We're eating here right?' (while looking to the left where Peranakan Mansion is) and I said 'No ar, we're not eating here' and he said 'not here meh? I thought all the while we're talking about here?' ahhhhhhhhhhh... what a HUGE communication breakdown it was..
Luckily the place he misunderstood was just around the corner from the actual The Sire, I asked him to go straight and showed him where to turn... and we ended up at the dimly lit King Street where I asked him to park. He was so confused as it didn't look like there were any restaurant, let alone fancy restaurant at sight other than the 'Rumah Tumpangan' which he spotted, haha! Seeing him so confused, I led the way to the restaurant and we were greeted by a waiter who was standing at the entrance, and we were shown to our table marked 'Cheryl' :D what a nice touch
After making up our mind and placed our orders, we went inside and started our tour of the museum within. Even after walking around for so long, we were just half way there covering all the corners of the museum and one of the waiter actually 'looked' for us and informed us that our food had been served
so we went back to our table and our bread and soups were there already
Complimentary Cheese Baked Bread
Didi had Norwegian Seafood Soup (which I fore-warned him that it's not normal seafood chowder type) (RM 16.80)
Turned out that he actually liked the soup despite the soup having a sourish tone to it and did not taste anywhere like the usual seafood soup we are accustomed to - so I've concluded that he likes weird-tasting stuff (refer Kimchi Soup episode in this post)
I had Thick Tomato Soup (which I thought will fire up my appetite well) (RM 14.80)
This soup was super overly thick and I felt that it's just pure tomato puree that they're serving! The taste was good but it was so filling that I had to force myself to finish the last 30% of it
Our mains:-
Didi's Roasted Loin Chop (RM 32.80)
..................which he then figured out was lamb meat :P this was pretty tasty and didi liked it.. I sampled a bit as well and I'd order this during my next visit :)
My Pan Sealed Red Snapper (RM 29.80)
Though the herbs and spices used to coat the snapper was visible, I find it to be a tad too much which caused the flavor to be too overpowering - it was slightly salty and some side portions of it were extremely salty too. Didi even commented that the fish's texture looked just like chicken. He wasn't entirely wrong as the snapper meat was definitely on the hard side and pretty chewy - not exactly the texture we'd expect on a snapper. I was basically struggling to finish my main as didi wouldn't help me at all as he doesn't take fish - even the small piece I sliced for him took him ages to finish.
Didi found the toothpick to be interesting.... and even attempted to con me into believing that it was fragranced *and for 2 seconds I actually believed him!*
After we were done, didi swore he was not going to have any dessert as he still had a friend's birthday party (with plenty of booze going around) to attend to later that night; but finally gave in when I kept asking him to share a dessert with me :P
So in the end, I let him choose a dessert - he couldn't take any cheese so cheese cake - out; no brownie coz too filling - out; no Tiramisu coz he's going to have Tiramisu cake later that night - out; which left us with the 2 options of either Green Tea Mousse or Apple Creme Brulee.
I was tempted to try their mousse but didi said "Apple Creme Brulee", so we ordered that.
Apple Creme Brulee (RM 16.80)
I was pretty disappointed with it this round - can't exactly pinpoint why other than the fact that the caramelized sugar coating on top was burnt pretty bad and too thick and hard, and the creme brulee was too sour to my liking. No more apple creme brulee for me I guess.
Some glimpses of the museum.. I'm so in love with the whole architecture and layout...
In all, it was an awfully filling dinner no doubt - but the museum tour at least made it worthwhile.. I guess people come here for the ambience and the museum and not really for the food afterall...
