Food Finds
On my first visit to Kelantan, we managed to try two meals outside of the “kenduri kahwin” that brought us there, first was the nasi kerabu Liniey, and the second was this quintessential Malaysian breakfast set at Kedai Kopi Wah Mui.
Kedai Kopi Wah Mui, Kota Bahru
This little old school restaurant is located by the main touristy area of Kota Bahru (if you can call it a touristy area at all), just across the road from Muzium Diraja Istana Baru, or the royal museum of Kelantan, a place Sultan Yahya Petra lived from 1939 to 1960. Worth visiting if you’re into a walk down the memory lane for a bit.
Anyway, back to this kopitiam.
Kedai Kopi Wah Mui is operated by a Chinese owner, but the Kelantanese way is such that everyone is a customer so long as halal food is served, and in this case, it is.
I ordered the simple classic mix of roti kahwin (toast with kaya & butter), half boiled eggs, and kopi ais for some afternoon tea time indulgence. It was simple, and for the lack of a more sophisticated word .. tasty! Love the richness of kaya, how the eggs are executed perfectly, and crispy toast bread.
roti kahwin, telur setengah masak, and kopi ais
If you want a simple 1 Malaysian breakfast (or afternoon snack) and a good cup of coffee at Kota Bahru, this won’t be a bad choice.
Address:
Kedai Kopi Wah Mui
1448, D1, Bandar Kota Bharu,
15000 Kota Bharu, Kelantan
GPS: 6.133082, 102.237111
Hours: breakfast and tea time
Welp, it’s been almost three years since I last have an entry on cooking, I guess it’s not better time than now to put in one of my favorite dishes mom used to cook when I was a boy – Nyonya seafood curry with salted fish bone. This really came about because I managed to get some really big whole salted fish from the Filipino market in Kota Kinabalu.
ingredients for seafood curry pot
As the name of the dish suggests, this is a classic Penang style Nyonya dish. Unlike normal curry dish, the presence of salted fish bone gives it a better taste character that’s much better than salt ever would. It is also a dish that has pretty much everything in it – vegetable, seafood, santan, and with steamed rice, makes a whole meal.
blending onion, ginger, garlic
Anyway, here’s the ingredient list of the version mom makes:
“tumis” chili paste with oil, and then add seafood
Cooking instructions:
add vege and santan next
Remember to serve this with a nice plate of steamed rice, low carb diet be damned.
viola, it’s all done, seafood curry with salted fish bone
I promise to not let another 3 years passed before putting up another recipe on this blog, and this is in fact, the 100th. You can find more of my simple recipes here.
One of the most best things in modern living is convenience, we can contact anyone at anytime, have news delivered to us via the the internet, and of course, gets food delivered to us by a few clicks and swipes via services like GrabFood.
But of course, modern convenience also has some downsides, one of which is the increasing use of plastic as an enable. Plastic, however, is also linked to climate change and environmental pollution in several ways, from air quality to ocean toxicity, plastic wastes contribute to ecosystem disruption.
Upcycling Workshop, officiated by Shaz Mukhtar, GrabFood social media manager
As the major player in food delivery business in the country, GrabFood is in a unique position to make an impact in reducing single-use plastic by working together with merchants & eaters to reduce the use of single-use plastics, starting with cutleries.
The first step GrabFood took is by introducing a toggle option in the app to allow customers to opt for single-use plastic cutlery. Next time you use GrabFood, please do not opt in for single-use plastic cutlery unless you are stranded somewhere and absolutely have to use them.
Getting it done with otherwise waste material
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE are the three major steps in saving our environment, in that order.
To send the message across, together with others, I was invited to participated at an upcycling workshop conducted by GrabFood in ME.REKA, a makerspace in Publika. ME.REKA is a space where you have access to tools and expertise in making whatever you have in mind – be it wood & metal working, 3D printing, and so forth.
getting busy with it
Our tools were hot glue, scissors, knife, spray paint, ropes, with material to be upcycled being plastic spoons and bottles.
By cutting the spoons and sticking them around cut up plastic bottles, we were able to make some pretty neat looking small vase. Check out some of them below, and of course, one made by yours truly. It was overall a pretty fun session and one that sent the message across pretty clearly.
succulent vase upcycled from single use plastic waste
So remember, for your next meal via GrabFood, please do not opt-in for single-use plastic cutlery and use those metal ones from your kitchen or office pantry. If your office doesn’t have cutlery, bring some metal ones to work.
Kuih Teow Soup is one of my favorite Penang style hawker dishes, and unfortunately also something that is a bit tougher to find in Klang Valley due to the overlap that pork noodle & classic Teow Chew fishball noodle provides. So whenever I find a good one, I want to document them.
Hock Seng Kopitiam, Ara Damansara
I previously wrote about the version at Do Re Mi kopitiam at Ara Damansara, well, this is an updated post as the stall is now moved to a new location just a few shops away at the corner, with this kuih teow soup guy running the whole show.
Note though that this is a kopitiam with more than just the kuih teow soup stall.
I spoke to the owner briefly about the history of his stall.
The guy decided to run this stall after retiring, picking up the family recipe originated from his grandfather & father’s stalls back in Penang, with the original stall started business way back in 1907, over a century ago.
According to him, the soup takes 6 hours to prepare, starting from late at night until the wee hours to achieve that subtle yet sweet & savory taste that’s unmistakably a “proper” kuih teow soup signature.
chicken, duck, pork slices + fishball
As for ingredients, there’s chicken, duck, pork slices, as well as fish cake & home made fish ball. Add in kuih teow, bean sprouts, spring onion, garlic oil, some vege and a side of cili padi, you have a complete bowl of goodness perfect for a great start to the morning.
Penang style kuih teow soup
If you’re a fan of kuih teow soup or comfort food in general, this one’s worth checking out.
Address:
Hock Seng Kopitiam
C-G-1, block c, Jalan PJU 1a/20b,
Dataran Ara Damansara,
47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.120365, 101.578803
Tel: 012-332 2717
Hours: 6 am to 4 pm daily
We’re definitely blessed with a great selection of street food in Malaysia, from your typical char kuih teow stalls to burger tepi jalan, to nasi lemak shacks.. but if you look harder, you can also find authentic street food originated from neighboring countries, case in point – Little Rara with its authentic Thai fare.
Little Rara Thai Noodle House, Kia Peng
The restaurant is located at the carpark next to Menara HLA by Jalan Kia Peng, a stone’s throw away from Pavilion KL. The set up is as “authentic” as they get, seemingly putting up together by someone who happened to have a set of table saw, hammer, and nails. There’s no such thing as air conditioning or tinted windows, but you are somewhat shielded from rain should it starts pouring.
The place starts operating by 5:30 pm and does work up a crowd pretty soon. While the set up is old school, they do have a proper digital queuing system, color me impressed.
tomyam talay meggi
Like most proper “street food” stalls, the kitchen is pretty much open. There’s a BBQ grill where they prepare beef/chicken/corn, a stall for noodle (wet & dry), plus a drinks’ kitchen.
We started out with their famous tomyam talay meggi (RM 19 for small), it was basically tomyam maggi on steroid. Packed with prawns, mussels, squid, egg, and ultra strong tomyam flavor. Love it.
bbq beef, pad thai
BBQ Beef (RM 13, Australian beef apparently) goes well with the accompanying sauce, and it wasn’t over cooked either. Portion though was a bit small I thought.
However, the must-order from the grill turns out to be their BBQ Corn (RM 7 for 2). They were ultra sweet and almost half caramelized, I need this for movie night!
mango sticky rice & the excellent bbq corn
We also had seafood pad thai (RM 12) which I thought was quite competent, and a dessert in mango sticky rice (RM 8) which turned out to be just average.
Over all thought I really liked the place and the intense flavor of their tomyam & those corns. Will definitely order those two again when I revisit, and perhaps try some of their other dishes.
Address:
Little Rara Thai Noodle House
Menara HLA, 3, Jalan Kia Peng,
50450 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.151342, 101.713584
Tel: 012-372 2706
Hours: 5:30 pm to 12 am, Closed on Sunday
