Every once in a while, it’s good to get your hands greasy and enjoy a sumptuous, thick stack of mostly not-so-healthy stack of the quintessential American dish – the burger. With a obscene ratio of carb, protein, fat, and trace amount of vege, the burger is a simple dish that I can certainly get behind with from time to time (but maybe not daily).
Burgertory, Subang Jaya SS15
Today, let’s look at one of the earliest burger joints that sprung up during the initial burger fad back in 2013 and manage to survive to this day when many from such period has faltered – Burgertory in Subang Jaya
The shop is located on first floor in SS15, you actually have to spend a bit of effort walking upstairs, which kinda make for a good justification for the calorie you’ll be consuming there, I think?
The interior is something that looks pretty fancy half a decade ago, but we’re here for the food, right?
Menu can be found on the wall (see thumbnail below) and consists of options for pork, beef, chicken, and even vege patties. If you want to be creative, there’s also opportunity to customize your own burger by adding more onion, egg, cheese, etc.
The Pig & Cow, Bacon Madness
We tried two burgers here. Pig & Cow (RM 23) came with cheddar cheese, onion, streaky bacon & lettuce, while Bacon Madness (RM 22) is made up of smoked cheese, crispy onion, candy bacon bits, and candy bacon.
We also had it as a set with truffle chips & drinks (+ RM 9), and fries with drinks (+ RM 7.5). The drinks are on free unlimited refill.
look at those onion & bacon!
The burgers were.. very good! The buns were so greasy you’d need a stack of tissue paper to wipe your hands off after, but the patties were good (thought pork was perhaps a bit better over beef in this case), and the bacon candy was excellent, crispy, thick, and sweet, reminds me of a cross between “normal” bacon and bak kua. And with those crispy onion? Heaven!
As for the truffle chips, it was a disappointment, there’s a hint of truffle oil perhaps but it’s also like saying you can see a hint of Chow Yun Fatt in me cos we’re both Asian.. The normal fries tho was excellent and you should choose it over those truffle chips every time.
I’ll go back to Burgertory again, alternatively Spades just a stone’s throw away is also worth visiting for sure.
When I was growing up, burger was roadside Ramly stalls, with chicken or beef patty, fried egg wrapped the meat, a slice of cheese perhaps, couple slices of tomato, shredded cabbage, all drenched in excessive chili sauce and mayo. And for those who wants it a bit more “atas”, you’d go to TGI Fridays or maybe even Hard Rock cafe and pretend to have a bigger bank account than your neighbor (there’s also McD but it’s not relevant here).
Spade’s Burger, Subang Jaya SS15
The burger scene in Malaysia has gone through a wave of expansion several years ago. Starting from those charcoal buns from MyBurgerLab and reaching a peak where you’d find a fancy burger outlet at every hipster joint all across the country, offering their own interpretation of how this American invention should look & taste like.
Alas, like every hype food that came and go, it eventually settled down to a plateau with a few brands that continue to thrive. One of such brands is Spade’s Burger, founded back in 2013 from my home town in Penang.
In fact, I was first told about Spade’s Burger by my brother quite a while ago, and finally managed to give it a try a couple weeks ago at their outlet in Subang Jaya.
Spade’s Burger offers a choice of pork, chicken, or beef as your choice of meat, there’s also salmon & mushroom options for those of you who prefer not to eat anything that can scream.
We went for the more traditional option of Dark Knight with pork, and BBJ with beef. These burgers are priced from RM 10.90 all the way to RM 17.50, you can also combo it up with unlimited refill for drinks and certain sides, we opted for fried bacon strips, salted egg fish skin, and mushroom wedges.
BBJ, Dark Knight, fish skin, mushroom, bacon fries
The pork patty here was so good it legit makes an almost indistinguishable replacement for those who does not eat beef, both types of meat were very juicy and full of flavor. I really enjoyed the bacon bits and cheese crisp in Dark Knight, and thought that BBJ, while very good in itself, was perhaps s tad too sweet for my liking. Overall though, they were both way above average and certainly satisfying.
As for the sides, fish skin and mushroom wedges were on point, while those fried bacon strips were too thin and contained too much breading to allow the natural flavor of bacon to shin, a bit of a shame really.
Will be back to sample more of their other offerings, will miss the bacon fries next time.
This is my version of bacon French toast, one that led me to buy a loaf of bread after not having any for more than two months since the start of MCO (movement controlled operation) thanks to Covid-19 pandemic (this description may come helpful years later).
There are many French toasts recipes, this one is mine.
Ingredients:
2 pieces of bread
1 egg
2 tablespoon of butter
2-3 pieces of bacon
1 piece of cheese
Instructions:
put the egg in a bowl, beat & mix with butter
pan fry bacon
when you have enough oil released from bacon, fry bread after dipping in egg+butter
Another day, another fried rice recipe, and this time it is one of my favorites – bacon fried rice.
I usually do this a day after making myself “continental breakfast” which used up 1/2 a pack of a small pack of bacon, the leftover is just perfect for a single portion of fried rice.
Ingredients (1 portion):
3-4 stripes of bacon
1 egg
garlic, 1 clove, chopped
leek, 1 stalk, cut finely (you can also use spring onion)
cilipadi, chopped (optional)
some mushroom, sliced
cooking oil, 1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
salt, pepper, soya sauce to taste
Cooking Instructions:
heat up wok, fry bacon till they start to get crispy, oil not needed
use remaining oil from bacon, scramble eggs to 70% cooked, set aside
heat up some cooking oil if none left, fry garlic, then leek, mushroom, cilipadi
add rice, add dark soya sauce, add some salt & pepper (less salt since bacon is already salty)
add bacon & egg, stir till you’re satisfied
ready to serve!
A simple meal for one, you can also replace bacon with luncheon meat or any other meat to be honest, but bacon is of course, most superior. Enjoy!
My traveling buddy while at Macao is someone whose diet consists of a heavy dosage of avocado, so after a great many days of subjecting herself to the local diet which has none of this “butter fruit” (as locals call it), we embarked in a mission to find one.
Which is how I ended up at Cafe TOFF.
TOFF, Macao
TOFF is situated just a stone’s throw away from Lou Lim Ioc Garden, a public garden with a beautiful lotus lake that’s worthy of visit. If you’re there and have visited enough churches, why not?
The restaurant, like many other in Macau, is pretty diminutive in size, capable of serving perhaps two dozen customers snugly at any one time. Lucky for us, it was quite empty at 1pm or so on a Monday.
cozy interior inside TOFF
The menu though, is rather comprehensive (see below). They have a decent selection of espresso based coffee from latte, long black, to mocha, and even Marnier mocha, which comes with alcohol. Each cup costs between 28 to 50 MOP.
There’s also a selection of tea if that’s what you fancy.
breakfasts with coffee
As for food, there’s a dozen different types of salad and sandwiches, some with interesting ingredients like parma ham, squid and shrimp, Okinawa pork slices, or even shrimps and avocado. They’re priced between 50 to 68 MOP.
For our brunch, we went with the Big Breakfast (118 MOP) and Toff Veggie Breakfast (108 MOP), each comes with a black coffee or latte, and a selection of different ingredients to choose from.
TOFF Veggie Breakfast & TOFF All Day Breakfast
Overall the food were pretty competent, and coffee did tastes like any good coffee would. It is a Western breakfast that would make it pretty much anywhere, except when it’s in Macau, you do pay Macau prices. Cute place though, certainly would not mind visiting again
