One of the eating places I visited at Seremban during the trip was Min Kok, probably the biggest Chinese restaurant in all of Negeri Sembilan. The massive restaurant sits right next to the main commercial center of Era Square (from Era Baru, nearby Terminal 2), can host over 150 tables, and even have a website!

KY, Captain Sam, Owner Joan, Ringo, Nicholas

A group of us arrived at Min Kok on Sunday morning for their famous dim sum and was greeted by Sam, the Captain who has been in the restaurant industry since before I graduate from primary school. The owner, Joan Chong (seated center in the photo above) is actually just a couple years older than me, a very capable lady who also won the Bursa Pursuit Challenge last year and walked away with RM 100,000 prize money, not to mention owning this huge restaurant. But never mind, I shall console myself with the fact that I own this blog…

Restaurant Min Kok Sdn Bhd

Anyway, lets get back to the more relevant important bit.

Sam told us that a typical morning at Min Kok starts very early, the chefs and kitchen helpers come in at around 4am to start preparing the food as they want to have their dim sum fresh and not left overnight. Some 40-50 serving staffs come in at around 6 something, and usually, there are already customers waiting at the door.

check out the scallop dim sum!

We were served quite a variety of their offering. The steamed dim sum were fresh and tasted very good, I particularly love the scallop dim sum, very luxurious and actually quite hard to find else where. The prawn dim sum, stuffed chili, and ribs were all rather delicious too. We had about a dozen types in all.

porridge, siu pao, egg tart, fried carrot cake

Other than the steamed dim sum, we also had some fried snacks, porridge, fried carrot cake, chee cheong fun, egg tart, and Min Kok’s version of the famous Seremban siu pao. I gotta say I was quite impressed with the quality of food there. The siu pao was actually so good I had to dedicate a picture just for it.

the yummy Seremban siu pao

As for price, the dim sum goes from RM 2.00 (porridge) to RM 5.00 (the scallop), very reasonable especially if you factor in the fact that this place is fully air conditioned, and has plenty of staff to keep a good service level. Which explains why this place is always packed despite having over a hundred tables for the morning crowd.

map to Min Kok at Era Square

Address:
No 7645, Lot 5990,
Jalan Labu Lama, (Terminal 2),
70200 Seremban,
Negeri Sembilan
Tel: 06-761 8458

Tags:  chinese,  dim sum,  era baru,  era square,  era walk,  food,  min kok,  seremban,  terminal 2

Posted by KY | 18 Comments »

Last Friday, the traveling Australian dude Dabido decided to spend a bunch of us to a vegetarian dinner on his last night in Kuala Lumpur. Suan decided that Jade Garden at Bandar Utama Centrepoint would be a good place for such occasion because she knows the food is great, or maybe just because it is a place close enough for her to walk there with her under utilized legs.

acha as appetizer, and the 4 season dish

Dinner was scheduled at 8, but inadvertently we only got to eat at around 9pm. I guess it is a good thing cos we were able to show Dabido the full extend of our culture, including the Malaysian Timing when it comes to having a group dinner. There was 14 of us split into 2 tables, and Suan ordered the food for everyone. Nice and dandy.

imitation luncheon meat, tofu, imitation fish with mango salad, fried vegetable

We had about 7 dishes in total. There’s the 4 season dish with some imitation meat and fake fish balls that actually tasted quite good despite it being a cold dish. The tofu soup was more like a thick broth that goes well with rice, I like the fungus that came with it. Then there’s my favorite, the imitation luncheon meat that tasted almost as good as the real thing minus the oily bit.

kang kung with nuts, tomyam soup, and the bunch of jokers

The imitation fish tasted pretty decent as well, and with no real fish in there, you don’t have to worry about getting your neck pierced by fish bones, which isn’t a particularly nice thing to do, speaking from experience. There’s also a fried kailan that tasted just like any fried kailan you’d expect. Other than that, we also have a fried kang kung dish with nuts and some imitation seafood that I didn’t think tasted very good, slightly too sourish with the imitation seafood a poor substitute for the real thing.

However, the tomyam soup with imitation squid and some very real tomato was an excellent dish. It was actually one of the best tomyam soup I’ve tasted and surely a must-order item if you find yourself at Jade Garden.

Jaime, Suan, Dabido, Jack, Erna, Reta, Paul, Kim, ST, Tim, Samantha

In all, it was a very good meal, and the total bill came to about RM 370 for 14 of us. That translate to about RM 26 per person for a pretty good vegetarian meal. The price is just slightly more than the Restaurant Kuan Yin at Seksyen 17 that I went, but with a nicer ambiance and free and easy to find parking spots at Centrepoint.

Thanks Dabido, see you at Perth!

map to BU Centrepoint

Address:
Centrepoint, Bandar Utama,
Petalig Jaya, 47800 Selangor
GPS: 3.137988, 101.610124
Tel: 03-7710 2939

Tags:  bandar-utama,  centrepoint,  chinese,  eats,  imitation fish,  ky,  luncheon meat,  vegetarian

Posted by KY | 15 Comments »

After helping Suan to come up with her latest post aptly titled “according to ky..”, I figured I should do a quick research and verify whatever crap I told her. This is important as the woman put my words on the INTERNET for everyone to see. Half way through, I had a feeling I’m onto a great discovery.

You see, fertility rate needs to be roughly 2.1 children born/woman to sustain the population. While looking at this list of total fertility list rate by country, I noticed the bottom three countries:

• 224 Singapore 1.06 2006 est.
• 225 Macau 1.02 2006 est.
• 226 Hong Kong 0.95 2006 est.

I reached the conclusion of:

Chinese on small island + $$ + education = extinction!

Lucky I’m not in Penang anymore.

Tags:  chinese,  extinct

Posted by KY | 6 Comments »

With the onset of the famous Malaysian haze season and hot weather, undoubtedly some of you might be experiencing sore throat and maybe even ocassional fever these days. Which is nothing the ancient Chinese has never faced, hence the remedy, traditional herbal tea. Ya ya, you can tell me you order your “leong char” from kopitiam and maybe you drink it from one of those herbal tea shops, but nothing beats the economy of scale and wholesomeness that you get by doing it yourself.

good old herbal tea & rock sugar

Well, it’s easy really. Get the pre-packed herbal tea from one of the traditional Chinese Medicine shops, and I happened to know one at Taman Megah that sells more type of herbal tea leaves/herbs than you have fingers. They are priced from RM 5 to RM 10 for quite a big packet that is good enough for a huge pot.

Then of course, you boil it for an hour or two. Sift the solid stuff out when done, and add some old school rock sugar if you can’t take it straight. I prefer mine with the original taste though some types might be more bitter than most people can tolerate, but that’s what makes it great, no?

how easy can this be?

This stuff does wonder to the throat, I mean, if the Chinese Opera can continue singing for the demi-gods this month, what other proofs do you need? It’s simple to make, doesn’t require any fancy wok-works, and will make your mama proud. Take care of yourself, fight the haze, inside and out.

this is where you can buy them

Tags:  chinese,  herbal-tea,  ky,  traditional

Posted by KY | 17 Comments »

Undoubtedly many of you have heard of Madam Kwan restaurant at KLCC (and other branches.) My colleagues and I decided to have our lunch there after getting tired of Isetan take-outs. We usually did not consider the place cos it isn’t exactly budget lunch, and it is always packed with way too many patrons, but since we head out a little earlier today, we thought we could avoid the crowd.

Jabot (top left) so happy with her noodle

We got there at around 12 and already we had to be put on the waiting list. Luckily it didn’t take us long before a table was available. A big crowd did build up outside the restaurant approaching 1pm, however.

We ordered noodle with mushroom & chicken (basically like dried wantan mee but with chicken and mushroom,) char kuih teow, and cantonese noodle (滑蛋河 - wat tan hor.) The mushroom was very good, however the noodle might be a little to the salty side. Lucky it came with the soup, so you can always blunt it abit.

The cantonese noodle and char kuih teow are cooked with chicken, shrimp (look at the picture below), and squid. According to my colleagues, they are pretty good. The serving is pretty big, so prepare a big stomach and don’t be like Shah, wasting more than half a plate as she was a bit over confident and had a serving of mushroom soup as appertizer.

Shah (bottom left) enjoying her mushroom soup

The price is quite reasonable, an entree with a drink costs around RM 20. Madam Kwan is at the 4th floor of Suria KLCC.

p/s: I even know mandarin, are you impressed?

GPS: 3.157581, 101.712102

Tags:  chinese,  halal,  malaysian-food

Posted by KY | 11 Comments »