Last night the infamous #porkgang had our first ever annual dinner at restaurant LYJ. Even though we’ve been having lunches, dinners, and activities like go-karting and such for quite a number of months, it was actually the first time all of us showed up all at the same time.

A little bit of background.

It all started on Twitter, we were organizing dinners and had too many people’s twitter nickname to include on every replies, in a flash of epiphany, I came up with the #porkgang hastag since we love to eat pork, and the group name was formed.

The members are: Kim, Gareth, Suan, Kerol, Eric, Jac, Cheesie, Horng, Ruby, Terence, Haze, FA, and of course, yours truly.

at restaurant LYJ, they serve pork lard with rice, as Kim pointed out

Anyway, for the dinner, Jac and Kim came up with the idea of Poon Choi. Poon Choi (盆菜) is basically a whole lot of top dishes served in a basin (traditionally wooden) to be shared with a bunch of hungry souls.It was said that the origin of Poon Choi came from the people serving their best delicacies to the Song Dynastic’s young emperor and his soldiers who fled from Mongol troops.

Though we’re not fleeing from anything, we felt like we deserved to eat like an emperor at all time, so Poon Choi it is then.

When it comes to Poon Choi, the one place that consistently came up from search result (and recommendations) is Restaurant LYJ at Sungai Buloh. Naturally, we went there.

yee sang is a must, the first one for #porkgang

The restaurant is located at a pretty old school part of Sg. Buloh, parking isn’t the easiest, nor finding the place without the help of GPS assistance, but it is one place that is definitely worth a visit or three.

Since it was still Chinese New Year, (the thirteen day, with thirteen members, how apt) we started off with yee sang (RM 28) – for prosperity, health, and wealth!

glorious poon choi, what you see is only the top layer

Everyone arrived at the dinner table at around 7:30pm, and by 7:40pm the glorious Poon Choi is served!

The RM 238 package comes with 1/2 boiled kampung chicken, 1/2 crispy roast duck, 12 salt & pepper prawn, brewed ma-yao fish, sea cucumber, stewed pork, fish maw, abalone, pork knuckle, chicken legs, and mushroom; while the RM 480 package adds brewed oyster and pork ribs, a whole can of Australian abalone, 12 scallops, and shark’s fin. A plate of vegetable (in this case, kai lan) is served with the Poon Choi.

Naturally we went for the RM 480 package for the 13+2 of us.

kai lan, the glorious pork lard rice, and the second layer of poon choi

The dish is separated into two layers, with the dry ingredients (scallop, chicken, duck, prawn, ribs, abalone, oyster) on top and the soupy stuff at the bottom layer (mushroom, chicken feet, pork knuckle, fish, fish maw, stewed pork). The entire thing were rather delicious, the only criticism, if any, were that there were a bit too much arrowroots for my liking.

As we called ourself the #porkgang, we naturally ordered their pork lard rice (RM 3) to go with everything. It was probably the most impressive rice that I’ve ever had, just very very flavorful. Cheesie said she’s already missing the pork lard rice even as we were having it, I certainly could use a bowl now!

the whole porkgang, all 13 members showed up for the first time

With the yee sang, 10 bowls of pork lard rice, six beer, and that basin of goodness, total bill came to RM 620 for the 15 of us, or just short of RM 42 per pax. It was an awesome feast and I couldn’t wait to go back there again!

restaurant LYJ isn’t too difficult to get to

Address:
PT 11, Jalan Perkhidmatan,
Kg Baru, 47000 Sungai Buloh
Selangor
GPS: 3.196949, 101.569118
Tel: 03-6140 2698
Operating Hour: 11.30 am to 2.30 pm, 6 to 10 pm, closed on Mondays

Tags:  cheesie,  eric,  FA,  gareth,  haze,  horng,  jaclyn,  kerol,  kimberly,  lard,  poon choi,  pork,  porkgang,  ruby,  suanie,  sungai-buloh,  terence

Posted by KY | 37 Comments »

Most everyone here will say that the best bak kut teh is found at Klang. I do agree with the statement to a certain degree, but I also believe that the dish has matured beyond it’s original location and now you can find pretty awesome bak kut teh in many places around town and perhaps even in another state (but not Singapore, please!).

Yap Chuan Bak Kut Teh at Puchong

I’ve heard about this elusive bak kut teh place at Puchong for quite a while from Horng, who happens to work in Puchong, and we finally went there a couple weeks ago when FA was in town and suanie was hungry for some meat.

The claim-of-fame for this this particular bkt place lies with the fact that the chef/owner started the restaurant at the tender age of 14, and actually won the best bkt award 2-3 years back. Just to show that the lack of education is not a hinder to archiving early success in life.

soup and dried bkt, steamed fish, tofupok and fuchuk

The restaurant is pretty airy, quite clean and comfortable for a bkt place. We took a table, and grabbed a packet of tea before ordering a pot of soup bak kut teh, dried bak kut teh, and steamed siakap fish (yes, for some reasons they’re famous for steamed fish here) to go with rice and some tofu and fochuk.

The soup bak kut teh was top notch, right up on par with some of the better ones I had, rich, thick, and very herbal, this is Klang version as opposed to the teow chew style BKT soup. The tofupok and fuchuk, however, were just ordinary. For a good bowl of fuchuk, I would still head to subang teowchew bak kut teh.

FA, Horng, Suan, and KY having some awesome bkt!

The dried bak kut teh here reminds me of the one at Lai Choon, Klang but slightly more sophisitcated. There were dried red chili, sliced okra, and dried cuttle fish to add to the taste. The sauce is thick and rather strong, I usually have it with some soup, but the meat is quite a bit more flavorful though. I like it.

Now, I was at first quite skeptical about this whole steamed fish thing, but the steamed siakap (red snapper) turned out to be a surprisingly good dish. Topped with lime, plenty of sliced onion and the slightly salty and sourly sauce, the fish felt like a mixture of Chinese and Thai style of preparation, but the end result was quite splendid.

I think the guys can attest that we had a very satisfying brunch at Yap Chuan Bak Kut Teh, and even though it is almost all the way to the Cyberjaya/Puchong toll, I wouldn’t mind making that journey again. We paid less than RM20 per person, which is pretty reasonable considering there was fish too.

Will definitely go there again.

Address:
Yap Chuan Bak Kut Teh
53, Jalan BPU 2,
Bandar Puchong Utama
Selangor
GPS: 2.994486,101.621094

Tags:  Bak Kut Teh,  bkt,  FA,  horng,  Puchong,  steamed-fish,  suanie

Posted by KY | 31 Comments »

Last weekend I went to Singapore for the 2nd time in a month, and instead of being on a mission to do Malaysia proud like the last one, this trip is all about having fun. I went to the V-Post Nuffnang Christmas Bash thanks to the invitation from Nuffnang. Chartered bus, hotel room at Marriot, party with a bunch of bloggers from both sides fo the straits, all expense paid. What more can I ask for?

The costume party has a pretty, er.. unique theme. We’re each assigned a letter V, P, O, S, or T and are supposed to dress up as something corresponding to the letter. For example, in the picture below you see Jolyn as Tape mesure / Tailor, Vivien as Student, and Ginni as Playboy Bunny. I was the Potong Stim Pirate with very minimal effort spent in fixing up my so called costume.

Jolyn, Vivien, and Ginni in the taxi on the way to the party

The other traveling bloggers include Suan as a Trekker, Huai Bin as Osama (who changed his letter to P, as I shall explain later), FA as the Shopaholic, Eiling the Vampire, Cindy as Venus, Audrey the Virgin Bride, and Ninie as probably another Vampire.

party people at the place to be

The party was hosted at DXO, which was quite a distance (in Singaporean term) from the hotel. Now one thing about this city-state I can do without is the 2,500 traffic lights you have to go through to get anywhere.

Outside the club Nuffies such as Tim, Nicholas, Pinky, Firdy, Yee Hou, Robb, and Ming were already waiting. Curiously, I also met Mike Yip, who seems to appear in every event regardless of location or organizer. Kenny was lurking around as an old man as well.

myself and Jolyn, the old man who’s hairy and bald at the same time

The whole place was rather packed with people and with the MC, Randall, running the show. There were several games and prizes to be won, and I walked away with an Osim pace counter after being the first one to name all the Nuffies in order of their letter to spell out the word NUFFNANG.

Audrey won the best costume with Cindy as runner up, and Mike Yip got a pair of tickets to Manila as the first prize in lucky draw too. I guess we didn’t do too bad at all.

While the party was pretty eventful, I thought it’ll be nicer if we were given more actual party time to dance and shake what our mamas gave us. However, there were only myself and a few other fellow Malaysians doing that during the limited party time given.

Audrey sleeping like an apek, and Huai Bin missing out the party

Overall it was still a very fun trip, we managed to catch up with a few buddies and met quite a few new friends at the same time. In the last picture collage you can see how Audrey doesn’t sleep like a Virgin Bride, and the only picture I snapped at the party, of Huai Bin missing out 75% of the event. So Huai Bin’s P stands for PASSED OUT

Next up would of course, be the fifth installment of  X’mas Eve Party at home! See you!

Tags:  audrey,  cindy,  eiling,  FA,  ginny,  huai bin,  jolyn,  nuffnang,  party,  suanie,  vivien

Posted by KY | 23 Comments »

It never ceases to amaze me how communication technology brings people together. Ever since my old batch of ex-housemates moved out of my place over a year ago, we actually haven’t met for the longest time.

It wasn’t until a week ago when Huey Fang finally joined facebook that Carol decided that we should meet up again after such a long lay off. So we did just that last Saturday.

Horng, Heuy Fang, KY, Carol

Just as we were struggling to find a venue, I received an sms from Xaviera inviting us to Bondai Grill & Pub’s soft opening at Curve. Perfect timing, so Horng, Huey Fang, Carol, ah Chan, and I went there right after dinner and joined by Suan, Ee Laine, Bob, and Jack.

Of the three ex housemates, I’ve known Horng (also known as Honry) for 24, Huey Fang for 15, and Carol for 12 years and counting. They are some of my best friends whom I know I could count on for anything, and I do mean anything.

ah Chan, Jack & FA, Xaveira and Suan

I’ve known Suan virtually for at least 8-9 years and in person for over 5 years, FA for just a bit shorter than that, and Xaveira, ah Chan, and Jack pretty much before the conception of this blog. They’ve all been very good friends over the years.

I haven’t had such a great time since forever. Lotsa laughters, lotsa chit chats, and even a few heart to heart sessions. Thank you guys, and here’s to friendship.

p/s: We need to do this more often.

p/s 2: facebook album here

p/s 3: I wish I have one, with LCD tv please

Tags:  ah chan,  FA,  horng,  huey fang,  jack,  kerol,  party,  suanie,  xaviera

Posted by KY | 25 Comments »

While having lunch with Eiling the chocolate lady a few moons ago, she came up with an idea of a short trip to Fidani, the chocolate factory she works at. We thought it’ll be pretty neat to emulate Charlie’s method and issue visitors a golden ticket each as invitation.

A couple weeks ago the chocolate lady passed me boxes of freshly made chocolates with just the right stuff in it, and last week a dozen of us danced our way to Shah Alam for a weekend lawatan sambil belajar sambil makan (study & eating trip).

Golden Tickets!

There were more than a dozen of us: Suanie, FA, Cheesie, Kim, ST, Rachel, Nicholas, Grace, Eyeris, Hsu Jen, David Cheong, Ziling, and Yiling. The last two are younger sisters of Eiling, who affectionately refers themselves as the EZY sisters. *gasp*

master chocolatier chef Amer explaining on, Eiling giving her speech

A huge box of chocolate was on the table as we entered the meeting room, we attacked the chocolate right away. By the time Eiling came in with the master chocolatier chef Amer, we were already half way through with breakfast, libido building up from aphrodisiac overdose (ok ignore the last line)

Chef Amer then went on and gave us an entertaining and informative lesson about chocolates. On the ingredients (cocoa powder, cocoa butter), the best temperature to keep chocolates (21 c), the history, the difference between good and cheap “chocolate flavored confectioneries” (with loads of sugar and artificial flavoring), and even how Fidani got its name (from the owner’s daughter).

fine chocolates, made by hand

After the lecture, we were given a tour of the factory, and it was actually the first time the big chef allowed outsiders to enter his well organized workshop.

Pretty much the whole chocolate making process is done by hand over here. From the industrial chocolate fondue fountain machine the melted chocolate is poured into the mould just to be emptied leaving a chocolate shell if fillings are to be added, then more chocolate is poured to complete the process. Other types of chocolates require different treatments, like those that’s covered with crushed peanuts, or the special durian chocolate.

how do you like my donkey and KY chocolates? =)

The packing and boxing process are done manually too, the only machine we saw other than the chocolate fountain is the expiry date label machine that costs over RM 30,000! That thing can magically spray perfect expiry date on anything passes underneath it. Very neat.

check out how Grace messed up her attempt

After looking around, it was the time to make our own chocolates! We poured melted chocolate on into the mould and did our own decoration with white chocolate and some bits of other ingredients. I made a dark chocolate and a milk chocolate bar. I think you must find them very awesome.

Some of the noobs messed up majorly and over poured chocolates, spilling it all over the mould. I think you can appreciate that from the collage of 3 photos above.

ze Joker!

The above photo of Kim just reminds me of the funniest scene in The Dark Knight. Two of the EZY sisters looking ahead while the Joker standing behind, up to no good.

look at Cheesie so happy with her chocolate bags!

After the tour, we went back to the meeting room to sample some new chocolates not in the market yet and gave our feedbacks. That basically meant we were eating even more chocolates.

and one for the team!

Before we left, Eiling gave each of us a big goodie bag filled with at least 2-300 ringgit worth of fine chocolates. That’s gonna be my supply for at least the next few week. We headed to ah foong bak kut teh for lunch right after, ahh, it was a Saturday morning well spent.

Fidani chocolates are available at Genting and KLIA, KKIA, Penang IA, LCCT, Kuching airport, and Langkawi airport and Jetty. Excuse me now I am going to have some chocolates!

Tags:  cheesie,  FA,  fidani,  gareth,  kimberly,  suanie

Posted by KY | 52 Comments »