I first came to Restaurant Good Food in search for curry mee, and so when I went back there again to find out that the curry mee has moved (back story in Penang-One food review post), I settled for another favorite of mine instead – the Penang kuih teow soup, or kuih teow th’ng (粿條汤).
restaurant good food at PJ Old Town
Kueh teow soup is a pretty common hawker dish in Penang that is akin to pork noodle in Klang Valley, their soup base is similar, but instead of everything pork, kuih teow soup usually comes with fish balls, shredded chicken (or sometimes duck, or pork), fish cake, and when you are lucky – coagulated blood (of pork or chicken/duck).
kuih teow soup with coagulated blood
The stall at Restaurant Good Food is operated by an old couple who spoke Penang Hokkien (always a good sign), and the kuih teow soup indeed tasted original and comes with all my favorite ingredients, most importantly lard and coagulated blood. It was subtle yet delicious, with the only downside being their somewhat average tasting fish ball.
For kuih teow soup outside the state of Penang, this one is definitely worth eating.
Address:
Restoran Good Food
Jalan Penchala
Seksyen 51,
46000 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.087026, 101.641479
morning till 3pm, close every 1st & 3rd Sundays
Pan mee is one of the few underrated hawker dishes originated right around here in Klang Valley that has seen some revival as of late, most notably due to chili pan mee places such as the famous Kin Kin pan mee, and restaurant Super Kitchen (which I prefer largely due to better service).
While I occasionally enjoys chili version of this dish, the true pan mee connoisseurs will always tell you that to taste the real pan mee, you need to get back to it’s origin and have the good old fashion hand peeled version.
Hock Thai restaurant, at the less glamourous area of SS 2omb
The quest for good old school pan mee brought me to this relatively obscure row of shop lots at SS 2 that is situated somewhere behind the Bomba building and Tropicana City Mall – a corner kopitiam by the name of Hock Thai Seafood Restaurant (they serve seafood tai chao at night)
dry and normal soup version of pan mee, with hand made noodle
I met Michael there and we ordered both the dry and soup version of pan mee (RM 4.50). The ingredients aren’t fancy, you get the usual pan mee leave, flavorful minced meat, crunchy fried anchovies, slices of mushroom, and those sweet potato leaves.
What is special here though, is the hand made noodle. The pan mee was very soft and smooth, almost bordering the texture of koay chap yet unmistakably pan mee. It was positively delicious, the soup that comes with weren’t overly salty either, just subtle and flavorful. Furthermore, the chili paste that is served as the condiment was not a disappointment either.
This was one pan mee that I actually enjoyed eating without overloading the dish with chili.
Michael ordered an extra bowl of kolo mee
A quick check on foursquare revealed that the Sarawak Kolo Mee (RM 5) too is recommended. We ordered a bowl to share, and sure enough it was another awesome choice. The thin noodle reminds me of angel hair spaghetti and I love the mixture of minced meat and deep fried garlic with the taste of char siu oil in it. Would definitely come again for this too.
If you are a fan of traditional pan mee or kolo mee, Hock Thai kopitiam is definitely a place worth checking out.
Address:
Hock Thai Seafood Restaurant
Jalan SS2/103, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor 47300
GPS: 3.12653, 101.62593
If you fancy a tablet, now is as good a time as anytime to get one. Celcom is again running the I LOVE TABLET FAIR at GoMobile 2012. Go check it out at KL Convention Center Hall 1 & 2 (Booth 91) on 11-13th May 2012 from 11 am to 9 pm.
Here are some of the deals you’ll find there:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 from RM 1,228
With subscription to
Save up to RM 790 and comes with free Samsung goodie bag
Samsung GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus from RM 668
With subscription to
Save up to RM 851 and comes with free screen protector worth RM 99
Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 from RM 888
With subscription to
Save up to RM 831 and comes with free desktop stand worth RM 119
With three different sizes of tablet, there’s definitely one that fits you snugly, but if a phone is what you’re looking for, here are some deals worth checking out too.
Sign up for Celcom Broadband at the fair and you’ll also get up to RM 120 rebate (RM 10 x 12 months) and free volume quota for 6 months. For music lovers, if you download and activate Musicube app on any Android devices or iPhone at GoMobile 2012, you can enjoy:
Visit www.celcom.com.my/smartphones for more information.
For those who aren’t in KL, I LOVE TABLET FAIR 2012 is also coming to a location near you:
Penang One restaurant, oh how I am glad I found you. Even though you are located at this god forsaken place that is ruled by the trafic devil, I will still visit you whenever my cravings for Penang food arises.
The back story: last Saturday I had a sudden cravings for a bowl of good old Penang curry mee. I woke up early enough (they usually run out before 9:30 am) and headed to Restaurant Okay at SS2, they were closed for Wesak.
I recalled that masak-masak blogged about this place at Hartamas, so I drove 13 KM to the destination, well, they’ve been closed like 3 years ago.
Not to be deterred, I then drove another 12.5 KM to the curry mee at Restaurant Good Food in PJ Old Town…. to find out that they’ve moved. By then I was too hungry and settled on a bowl of kuih teow soup, which actually turned out to be very good, but that’s another post on another day.
This was when I shared my unfortunate adventure on twitter and facebook, with quite a few of you suggested that I should try Penang One, so here I was, a day later, with another fellow Penangite in Fresh, and the laksa expert in Haze as my partners in crime.
Penang One, delivered daily from Penang for original taste
According to their website, the food here is professionally cooked by the original masters of the selected famous street foods, and then transported to Puchong on a daily basis. By their account, this would be as good as the original.
So I ordered my long overdue curry mee, Haze had laksa, while Fresh asked for a plate of char kuih teow with duck egg.
curry mee, char kueh teow, and Penang laksa
Service wasn’t the fastest considering the relatively low volume of people when we dined, but it wasn’t terrible either. Some 15 minutes after ordering, our food came.
The curry mee (RM 8.50) is purportedly from Pulau Tiku’s Keong curry mee. Prawns, cuttle fish, coagulated blood (YES!), tofupok, long bean, cockles, and mint leaves. That’s about all the ingredients you’ll ever need in a bowl of good curry mee, and the sambal too was top notch, fragrant and spicy.
Char Kueh Teow (RM 9.90 with duck egg) is of Kampung Jawa Pee Chuan’s recipe. Fresh had it and she didn’t speak a word while eating, it was as good as original, and really comes with those huge prawns and all.
The asam laksa (RM 7.90) that Haze had was from Lorong Selamat’s Ji De Chi, and when asked about how it tastes, she replied “just like those in Penang lor”, and then continued slurping away. It passed her test.
chee cheong fun, kueh teow soup (with blood too!), ice kacang
Since we were already there and that their portion rather close to Penang serving size, we decided to go for seconds.
Fresh had the chee cheong fun (RM 3.30) from Lorong Macalister and I took bite too, no disappointment, the only other place in PJ to get this version of chee cheong fun would be at O&S restaurant in PJ.
Haze’s second order was the duck meat kuih teow soup originally from Lebih Cecil. There’s duck meat, shredded pork, fish cake, and even coagulated duck blood. Now if you like pork blood, you’re going to love duck blood, they are quite a lot smoother and has an even more exquisite taste to it. I love it. The fish balls though, were just very average in my opinion.
I had ais kacang (RM 6.50) Swatow Lane New World Park, and it tasted just as I remembered, except for the serving size being larger here. All the ingredients you’d expect is in, give me a bowl of ais kacang anytime over any Snow Flake shaved ice.
KY, Fresh, and Haze, we were well satisfied
Prices are a little on the high side, but not any more than other Penang themed restaurants such as Penang Village or Little Penang Cafe. The difference is, this place isn’t halal and really do serve you the original ingredients in all their dishes.
By the end of the afternoon, we were very well fed and very well satisfied with the food from Penang One. The 6 different dishes we tried did not disappoint, and I can’t wait to go back there again, we still need to try the Hokkien mee (Jalan Burma), Yam Cake, and Bak Chang (Cintra Lane).
more photos at KYspeaks.com facebook page
Address:
Penang One
No. G5, Jalan Puteri 2/1
Bandar Puteri, Puchong Jaya
47100 Puchong, Selangor
GPS: 3.024748, 101.615945
Tel: 03-8052 0181
Web: penang-one.com
Hours: 9:30 am – 9:30 pm
Being a mom has one of the toughest job descriptions ever. In this upcoming Mother’s day over the weekends (see? even their “day” falls on a weekend so they don’t get days off from work), it’s time for a role reversal and cook her dinner instead.
But for those who can’t or otherwise not capable of doing so, bringing mom for a nice meal would be a good alternative.
Utara Coffee House at Armada Hotel, Petaling Jaya
Last weekends a few of us were invited to Armada Hotel’s Utara Coffee House to sample their Mother’s Day promotion – Loveably Mama:
Mothers also dine for free (subject to 2 moms per group of 10, call for more info). On top of that, the first 10 moms get to have free caricature drawings, plus there are goodie bags, games and prizes too.
the usual buffet spread – fresh oysters and prawns among the dishes
OK, now on to the food choices at Utara Coffee House.
The buffet spread, while not the biggest I’ve been, does offer pretty decent selections considering its price point.
there are some exquisite entrees too, the girls preparing laksa
There’s the raw bar with fresh oysters, prawns, as well as sushi and a selection of sashimi (from their Shokudo Japanese restaurant I assume).
There are also those exquisite little salad and prawn thingy served in a shot glass, cold cuts, satey, and even a noodle bar where you make your own nyonya laksa.
wide variety of food, including many local delights
For the Peranakan promotion that they are having, you’ll also find otak-otak, nyonya chap chai (mixed vegetable), ayam pong teh (stewed chicken), kiam chai ark (salted vegetable duck soup), jui hu char (fried cuttle fish, or nyonya hokkien sengkuang), loh bak, ayam buah keluak, sambal petai, and so forth.
Desserts include kuih kochi, sago gula melaka, kuih onde-onde, pulut tekan with kaya, ang koo kuih, pasembor, and pulut tai tai.
we tried their duck soup, sashimi, sushi
I had some oysters, salad, and cold cuts from the buffet (normal everyday line up), then for the review, we were served several items that were going to be available for Mother’s Day.
We started out with kiam chai ark (salted vegetable duck soup), and it was as authentic as they come. Slightly spicy and absolutely flavorful, something I’m used to growing up in a Penang Hokkien family where Nyonya food is our staple.
The asam sting ray (wish I took some rice) and jiu hur char (sengkuang with cuttlefish) too tasted very similar to what my mom used to make, I really liked them.
asam stingray, nyonya hokkien sengkuang, pulut kuning and rendang, dessert
I enjoyed the pulut kuning too, and while the ayam rendang was good, I must say that I am more used to curry chicken as a companion dish instead. Sushi and sashimi that we had were decent, but as with most buffets, they aren’t exactly going to be those type of offers a life changing experience.
My takeaway from buffet at Armada was that it was genuine, with food true to the origin (Chef is an experience guy originally from Penang and had extensive working experience overseas), and offers very decent value for money.
More photos at facebook page
Address:
Utara Coffee House
Hotel Armada Petaling Jaya
Lot 6, Lorong Utara C,
Section 52, 46200 PJ, Selangor
GPS: 3.104199, 101.640964
Tel: 03-7954 6888 (ext 4557)
