For the past 2 years, my family and I have been to Damansara Village at Damansara Jaya for steamboat reunion dinner over CNY, and if a place passes my mom’s taste test, it will surely passes mine.
The restaurant is a venture of the infamous Patrick Teoh, his daughter Melanie and Son-in-law. The original place was, and still is doing so well that they decided to open a branch right at the heart of KL. The new place is aptly named Restaurant Damansara Village at Imbi
indoor and outdoor seatings, the fish pool, and live seafood aquarium
Together with about a dozen other blogger friends, I was invited by Patrick himself for a review session. I am hesitant to be writing about the same place twice (tho different branch), but I was assured that the menu is different. Furthermore, how could I resist a an invitation from a celebrity that is named Patrick Teoh KY?
Yes, the truth is stranger than fiction.
village steamed chicken, bamboo clams
Other than air conditioned dining area (as well as al fresco) and nicer decoration, Damansara Village at Imbi also offer more than just steamboat. Our motto of the day was to sample these offerings.
According to Patrick, there isn’t a chief chef per se at this establishment. Every dish is a recipe from someone’s relative/friend, and every ingredient is sourced directly from some of the more interesting locations.
For example, the village steamed chicken (RM 49 for half) is cooked with 100-day free range chicken from their own farm (usual intensive farmed chicken is slaughtered at about 6 weeks) and steamed only with salt. The texture is quite a lot firmer and I do like the richer flavor too.
The steamed bamboo clam is served with slices of chili, fermented beans, and some spring onion. The combination worked for me, seafood with a dash of spiciness and the saltiness from the beans. I like how there put 2 clams in one shell too!
pork knuckle vinegar, pepper pork tripe soup
Next we had the pork knuckle vinegar. Fatty pork knuckle with glistering layer of fat served in sweet vinegar that is not overly strong. This dish always work for me, I kinda wished I had some sambal and rice to go with it though.
Pepper pork tripe soup (or the spicy soup 辣汤) reminded me of Kien Kee at Seri Kembangan. It was very peppery, fragrant, and full of 3-layer pork, tripes, and other innards. I wouldn’t rate this any lower than Kien Kee to be honest, it was tasty!
steamed snake head, steamed duck
Then come the steamed snake head. Instead of the more common farmed snake head, those served at Damansara Village are caught from the wild. As such, the meat is quite a lot firmer. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer the farmed variety with its’ smoother meat, though what we had was decent too.
For the first time of my life, I had steamed duck! Just like the chicken, this one is cooked with nothing but salt. Though not completely void of the strong “duck smell”, this dish still manage to end up tasting pretty good. However, I will only suggest this to duck lovers, casual diners should stick with roast duck instead.
salt bake crab, village special steamed clam
The seventh dish of the night was salt bake crab (RM 48), another traditional recipe that even I know how to make – kill crab, rub with plenty of salt, throw in the wok, fire up). And sometimes the simplest method is also the tastiest method, provided you have superior ingredients. Though they were a bit smallish in size, the taste more than made up for the size, they were very, very sweet and flavorful.
Steamed clam (RM 20) was cooked with plenty of dried wolfberrie (kei chee), cilantro, Chinese wine, and some other herbs. The clams were juicy, and I liked the combination of the ingredients too.
damansara village steamboat with herbal soup
After the eight dishes, I was already quite full, but Patrick wouldn’t let us go before trying the very dish that made the name Damansara Village famous – the Pulau Ketam style steamboat (RM 18.80 per portion) with additional Chinese herbs (RM 12)
Other than the typical servings of fish ball, dumplings, meatballs, mussels, vegetable, tofu skin, and so on, we also added flower crab to flavor the soup, and some live shrimps (RM 23 for 300g). As full as I was, I couldn’t help but to devour a few more of those oh-so-yummy shrimps. This is a must order add-on.
patrick teoh and the food bloggers at damansara village
After the excellent dinner, we hanged out till way past closing time and had a pretty good time with Patrick and the gang that includes Gareth, Kim, Suan, Reta, FA, Huey Fang, Sue Lynn, Eiling, Yiling, Cumi&Ciki, Meena, and more.
The food was honestly better than I had anticipated, and I think I’ll be bringing mom to the new outlet next year!
map to damansara village at Imbi
Address:
Damansara Village at Imbi
32, Jalan Utara, Off Jalan Imbi,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.144715, 101.717166
Tel: 03-2141 1678
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
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
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!
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
