Macau / Hong Kong trippie : Food Part I - Restaurante Galo

Our first stop for makan @ Day 1 Macau - we checked out a Portuguese Restaurant called Restaurante Galo - in mandarin it's called Rooster


We were seated upstairs and it was a pretty cosy set upindeed. It's evident that this place was carefully decorated to fit the theme and the name of the restaurant - Rooster; as there were close to 20 different varieties of roosters on the second floor alone..



The moment we were seated, the waitress poured us glasses of plain water from a big mineral water bottle.

After glancing through the menu for an extended period of time, we finally settled down with:-

Fried Clams in Portugese Style


Fried Pig Knuckle


Ox-Tail in Curry Sauce


Do remember how the food looks in the pictures though, because later on you will observe 'slight' differences with the ones actually arriving at our table :P

The waitress was pretty taken aback by the fact that this weird girl kept taking pictures not only of the surroundings, but on the food inside the menu as well, and she hurriedly collected back my menu like the very moment I laid it back down on the table lolz

Fried Clams in Portugese Style ($60)
Resemblence to picture : 90%


The fried clams were sort of like the 'Signature' dish around here as we saw almost every table ordering this (or maybe they saw us order it first ;)


The clams were fresh, they did not have any smell and the best part is, they were very fragrant with the garlic, herbs, wine, etc used and the sauce it was served with.. a very authentic and must try dish indeed! Best consumed hot from the kitchen :D

Fried Pig Knuckle ($60)
Resemblence to picture : 70%


At first few bites, the pork knuckle proved to be a disappointment due to the overwhelming smell of pig. The knuckle itself was pretty crunchy and the meat's tenderness just right, it's just that the smell was too overpowering until we could not finish the meat at all :( furthermore, hubby found a few strands of pig hair on the skin! *yikes* (observe pic below - middle part of the knuckle meat)


Obviously, the pork knuckle did not impress us at all

Ox-Tail in Curry Sauce ($60)
Resemblence to picture : 60%


The chunks of ox-tail were tender yet flavourful, and the curry was not very spicy too. A downside was that the curry sauce was too salty (even for a pretty tolerant person as I am). Another point to note was that the layer of oil on top of the curry sauce quickyly surfaced and we had to scoop them away to get to the curry sauce

We were pretty much filled up after such a heavy meal indeed, and hit the streets for some more Macau street food :P



More... up next!

Cool Blog @ Prangin Mall

There's this new bubble milk tea establishment that just sprung up at 2nd floor Prangin Mall called Cool Blog with the tagline "Be cool with a refreshing blog".


There was quite a queue at the outlet when we walked past a couple of weeks ago and thought of giving it a try.

So we got ourselves a drink which one of the crew recommended Blue Berry Italian Soda Milk Shake


It was very rich but too sweet to our liking... we couldn't finish it in the end due to its sweetness overloading :(


Maybe they should use 'Be sweet with a sweetening blog' as its tagline instead :P

喜饼 ∙ 嫁女饼

喜饼, a.k.a 嫁女饼 is a type of biscuit specially made as a gift from the bridegroom's side to the bride's side prior to the new couple's wedding.


On a pre-selected auspiscious day, my hubby's sister-in-law represented my mom-in-law and brought over these 喜饼s to my parents' house for us as part of the 送礼 (gift-giving) tradition.

There are 2 flavours in the 喜饼 - the pink ones are filled with 豆沙 (Tau Sar) while the yellow ones are filled with 莲蓉 (Lin Yong)


My family liked them and I shared the 喜饼s with my co-workers.. they all loved it! Most of them liked the 莲蓉 (Lin Yong) ones but my personal preference is the 豆沙 (Tau Sar)

Re-post from MC's blog - Avoid Island Red Cafe!

As I promised to MC, this is the re-post of his visit to Island Red Cafe @ Gurney Tower so more people can be aware of what happened...

Perhaps it's karma, but after the awful experience at Hongkie/Boston the previous week, I found myself caught in an almost as bad lunch situation at Island Red Cafe in Gurney Tower. (Interestingly enough, Firefox threw a security notification when I tried to go to the site - click here to check out the Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page for this site).

As I was in the neighborhood over the past week for training, myself and a couple of friends and colleagues descended on the outlet for a quick lunch. Unfortunately quick would be the opposite of our dining experience.

We arrived at roughly 12:40pm or so, and between the three of us we ordered spring rolls, vegetarian spaghetti, chicken rice served with mushroom sauce, and nasi lemak. The spring rolls were intended as appetizer, but the nasi lemak was the first to arrive after roughly 20 minutes. 20 minutes was a long enough wait for a relatively simple dish (by restaurant standards), but it would be another 20 minutes of waiting before our spring rolls arrived, and another 15 minutes after that for the two remaining dishes to show up.

Throughout this time, we had complained to the waitress who was assigned to our table for updates on our food - but that did not help at all. It was absolutely bizarre that we had to wait an hour for our food to show up as the place was practically empty. Plus, it was very obvious that all the dishes were prepared with ingredients one would typically find in the frozen foods section in your local supermarket.

The customer service was absolutely atrocious, the food was passable at best, and they even had the gall to ask us to spread the news about the place and distribute a stack of flyers to friends and family. I did all of that of course - with a warning to everyone I know NEVER to visit this establishment.

Avoid at all cost!

Re-post from MC's blog - Boycott Hongkie Kopitiam @ eGate

As I promised to MC, this is the re-post of his visit to Hongkie Kopitiam @ eGate so more people can be aware of what happened...

This is a story about relatively decent food, deceptive advertising, impolite restaurant management, and hopefully the power of the Internet. This event took place yesterday (1 October 2009) at the eGate outlet of Boston (what was once Hongkie Kopitiam), when myself and two colleagues decided to have lunch there.

The restaurant staff was courteous enough (despite a pedantic grasp of the English language, but that's neither here nor there), and when we were seated we spied upon a flyer promoting free coffee, milk tea, or ying yong (a combination of both) with any menu item order. We were happy to see that, and proceeded to order such drinks to go along with our lunch.

Lunch was pretty good, and being the thirsty kind, I was the first to finish my glass of ice coffee. I requested a refill from the waiter, and was informed that the free refills is valid only for hot drinks. I was perplexed by this, as the flyer (see below) did not mention anything about this promotion being limited only to hot drinks. In fact, the graphic adorning the flyer definitely showed cool glasses.

Annoyed, the three of us requested to speak with the manager, who came to our table to repeat pretty much the same thing, adding (in a rather unfriendly, arrogant manner) that the management reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of this promotion at any time.

From a legal point of view, they were of course in the right. But this was simply bad customer service, and an obvious case of false advertising, as the flyer was designed and written in such a way to deceive and inveigle unsuspecting customers. Rather angry now, I threatened to bring this up to the CAP (Consumer Association of Penang) as well as posting this up on the Internet in whatever personal capacity possible. The facial expression of the manager very quickly changed to one of fear and worry, and she immediately offered to not only refill our drinks, but also give us each a jug of said drinks. We stuck to our guns, declined her offer, paid the bill, and left the establishment.

I do not know if this is endemic amongst all Boston outlets, or if it is only the eGate Penang branch that is so messed up. Nevertheless, I urge anyone reading this post to boycott them and spread the word. This is sheer arrogance and obscenely terrible customer service from a restaurant, barefacedly deceiving their customers with false advertising.

Please spread the word to your friends, and your friends' friends, and feel free to reproduce this blog entry (mention of original source is welcome of course) any way you like. We should not have to tolerate such eateries. Imagine the embarrassment if this happened to a tourist!

Chinese dessert/snack @ TianJin, China

Not sure why i'm feeling a bit nostalgic lately.. maybe because I just copied all my photos from my personal laptop to my work laptop and while going through all the pics, I found that I have tonnes of food pics I never got to blog about!

It was during our second last day on our Beijing trip at Tian Jin - we were out shopping and stumbled upon this peddlar on bicycle selling a type of snack. Now we were actually forewarned by our tour guide that people at Tian Jin are generally not as 'friendly' and 'open' compared to people back in Beijing as they tend to be more 'open & direct' with their emotions e.g. if you are not genuinely interested in buying items at the stalls - DO NOT ask for the price.

Anyway, back to the peddlar, we noticed that there were quite a few locals buying from this peddlar and finally we summoned enough courage to ask what is it he's selling - is it something sweet or savory and what is it made of?


So he said it's made of glutinous rice and dates and it's a sweet dessert - well, because it's served with a layer of sugar spread on top of it.

The peddlar said there are 2 varieties - one layered with red dates and another which I've actually forgotten :( so we opted for the red dates

We actually asked for the smallest portion and only paid like RM 3 for it after conversion. And it tasted absolutely beautiful! Freshly made and finely sliced with the right amount of sugar coating - authentic street/peddlar food this is - check out the aparatus he used to 'judge' the weight and subsequently the price - so old school ok?


After we had the first helping and walking around a while, we decided to buy a slightly bigger serving for the others to try and if they didn't wanted them, we'd chow them down ourselves :) In the end, some took our offer while others did not - and so we were happy to finish them off!

Room Service @ Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles

Decided to post up some room service food I had for a change - for those who knew when these have dated back since - shhhh k? :P

Stayed at Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles and due to the lazy bum and 'kia si' nature I am, I used the room service so conveniently made available to us guests during my stay there.

The meals that I had..

Breakfast:-

Plain pancakes garnished with a strawberry, served with rolled up butter and maple syrup and a glass of iced water with a slice of lemon in it.


The pancakes were steaming hot but there were too many pieces of it, I couldn't finish it and it was too thick, too dry and no flavour unfortunately :(

I had to keep pouring the maple syrup to make it slightly not so dry and flavoured a bit.

On my way back, I stayed at the same hotel for 3 nights and used their room service again - but for my dinner instead.

I had a good 'ol burger on my touch down night:- It was chock full of ingredients like beef patty, bacon, 2 types of cheese, onion, with a side of salad.


The beauty of it lies in the fact that it was served with 3 cute mini bottles of Heinz sauces - ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard! (which I was very tempted to bag in my luggage mind you) oh, and it came complete with salad dressing and the usual iced water with a slice of lemon


The bacons were definitely too hard and the cheese were just too overwhelmingly much (if there's such a description) I think the salad were not too fresh as well, although the beef patty was pretty good, to say the least

It took me a lot of effort - far too much effort to 'try' to finish this beast - so I ended up having leftovers for breakfast the next morning. It was cold and all but at least I have something filled my stomach before heading out to play :)

Based on my 2 experiences of not being able to finish my meals, I decided to go for their kid's meal the second night :D So I ordered myself a kid's spaghetti meatball, a kid's hot dog and an apple juice (adult size :P )

When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find that the portion was just right for me :D (and again served with 3 mini bottles of Heinz sauces)

Though both the spaghetti looked very plain and unappealing, they tasted great!!

The spaghetti meatballs were full of tastily marinated meatballs, the spaghetti soft and the sauce was just a perfect complement. By the time I was done with my spaghetti, I was actually pretty full but I couldn't resist taking a bite of the hot dog while it's still hot and it tasted good too! Grilled just right. Because of this, I decided to keep it til the next morning for breakfast, to go with ketchup :D

One thing I liked was the pretty decent sized dessert made up of pineapple and 2 types of honeydew - probably for the sake of giving kids some fruit elements. The fruits were not very fresh though they were quite juicy.

Oh and I absolutely adored the huge kickass apple juice served too! It filled up the glass to its fullest! This is what I call value for money ok?

Overall I was the happiest when I had the kid's meal.. Maybe that goes on to prove that I'm just a kid at heart afterall eh? :P

Häagen-Dazs Flavours of Summer

During PChoon and myself's recent visit to with Häagen-Dazs', we were delighted that they are offering a 15% discount off the Flavours of Summer in conjunction with Häagen-Dazs' 15th Anniversary in Malaysia!

Check out its Sensual Summer Moments menu...


These 'creations' adorn very romantic names indeed.... and each comes with a description of how it's being inspired


Jewel Blush
Summer Drops
Taffeta Blossoms
Aprica Romance
Sunset Frills

We had Jewel Blush, which is described as...


'A tribute to the hottest shoe design from the runway this summer - bejewelled strappy sandals! Scoops of Rasperry Sorbet, Apricot & Cream, Belgian Chocolate and Macadamia Nut ice cream presented on a bed of checkered chocolate sauce accentuated by silver pearls'

Let's compare... Häagen-Dazs' original version......... (from Jewel Blush on Voize)


To the one featured in The Star (Flavours of Summer in The Star)


And finally, the version we were served that night....



Not bad isn't it? Normally we won't get anything near to the prettily decorated ones as illustrated in the menu, but this one did not disappoint at all :)

In case you're wondering - we substituted some of the flavors that we did not really fancy hence the reason for the mis-match in the colours

And we still could not figure out if the silver pearls can be consumed - but it was damn hard anyway

LauEE Home Kitchen Fine Home Dining

Took my grandma, mom and dad to a nice Shark's fin place in celebration of my dad's birthday :)

It's a very private home dining where prior reservation needs to be made, but we'll soon find out why it's all worthwhile. I was so worried that I couldn't find the place but I found it at last :D

Apparently my Sar Chek (third uncle) frequents this place quite often and brought my grandma and my dad along previously, but this place operated from a bungalow at Pulau Tikus.

The very tastefully decorated interior......... This is kinda like the 'signature' of the owner's 'home', as with his previous bungalows





Table setting


Vinegar and home made chilli sauce that the owner claimed goes well with anything from shark's fin to noodles


Cilantro leaves to go with shark's fin later


We ordered...


2 pots of Large Braised Shark's Fin (RM 50 each)




These were served in boiling hot claypots and were just marvelous - check out the ample shark's fin within.. genuinely good stuff! I normally have my shark's fin with green chillies but we tried with the home made chilli sauce and it was like a match made in heaven - the chilli sauce was so spicy!

Crab Claw Tang Hoon Noodles (RM 35)



The crab claws were huge and it was easy to consume too, given the fact that only the claws were left covering the crab meat and the rest are readily exposed. The crab meat were very fresh and were not overcooked even with the tang hoon noodles together. One thing to note is this dish had strong pepper fragrance to it and it had loads and loads of garlic cloves underneath all the tang hoon

Goose Legs Noodle (RM 30)



When we ordered this goose legs dish, we did not realize that it came with noodles as well, if we knew we would most probably ordered something else that did not come with noodles. Nevertheless, the goose legs were soft and flavorful and unlike the ones we had at Red Bali before. Too bad we did not enjoy the noodles that much because we were all pretty stuffed with the tang hoon from the crab claws dish.

We all loved the home made chilli sauce - even my dad who's pro in consuming cabai etc found it to be extremely spicy and had to stop half way


Thai Fruit Jelly Dessert (RM 8 each)


After all the 'heavy' mains we had and the spiciness built-up within us from the chilli, we initially wanted to have Bubur Cha Cha but we were told that we had to pre-order them so that they would be freshly prepared. So we ended up ordering 2 thai jellies to be shared and they were very timely indeed. The cool and chillness of the jellies were comforting and did a good job ending our sumptuous meal :)

The bill came to RM 181 for 4 pax - about RM 45 per pax for fine home dining shark's fin :)


If you're looking for a home style yet fine dining private setting for a nice pig out of the best of the best - this is the place to be.

Please call to make reservations about 3 days ahead -
Tel : 016-4322 986
Address : 318-A HTE KEAT ESTATE, PENANG
Direction : Take a 3 o'clock turn at the Air Itam roundabout, go straight and uphill right til the end of the road. By then you will be able to see the bungalow on the left.