Pan Mee is one of Suanie’s favorite local dishes, a few weekends ago I joined her and a few others to one of the newer Pan Mee centric restaurants that sprung out these few years. We went to Cha Cha Pan Mee at Aman Suria.
Cha Cha Pan Mee at Aman Suria
I must say, pan mee isn’t one of the dishes that jumps to my mind when it comes to hawker food. Being from Penang (you virtually can’t find pan mee there), it took a little while for me to get used to, but I’m starting to like it more now. Especially one with good chili sauce to go with.
original pan mee with poach egg
Cha Cha Pan Mee is located just by Jalan Bukikt Mayang Emas with ample parking space right in front of the restaurant. The restaurant itself is air conditioned and clean.
I ordered the original pan mee with poach egg (RM 6.50). It came with minced pork, pork slice, anchovies, mushroom, fuchok, and of course, the potato leave found in all proper pan mee. It was actually pretty good, and the chili paste was lovely too. My only complain would be the serving size, it was a bit too massive!
stew pork, dried pan mee, seafood ramen
Haze ordered the stew pork with rice (that curiously served with a side of anchovies) and gave very positive feedbacks. The others had seafood ramen and dried pan mee. No one had any complains but most of us couldn’t finish our portion.
Cha Cha is a pretty decent place if you’re looking for a comfortable hawker dining without all the sweat and hassle of a kopitiam. The extra RM 2 or so per dish is well worth it.
Address:
Cha Cha Pan Mee
K-G-1 & K-G-3, Jalan PJU 1/43
Aman Suria
47301 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.12009, 101.59465
Tel: 016-660 0971
Remember the news on the possible removal of One Bangsar a few months back? Well, I wish that won’t ever come true. The restaurants on the stretch at Jalan Ara provides one of the nicest ambiance you can get anywhere, with lush green lawn and quaint interior decoration, and more often than not, excellent food.
Bangsar Seafood Garden
I had actually been to Bangsar Seafood Garden once (during Galvin’s wedding) prior to the invitation by Jade to the food review session. Then again, it was a wedding dinner, and for some reasons I could never remember in details how food at wedding dinners tastes like.
Which means that the food review session was most welcomed. Together with Haze, Suanie, Kerol, Horng, and Cheesie, we went over for dinner a couple weeks back.
butter crab and deep fried mantao
I felt that it is appropriate to write about the butter crab first, even though it wasn’t the first dish served.
The crab’s fabulous, they are fresh, big, sweet, and best of all, soaked in the awesome butter sauce with a hint of curry leave taste that’s so addictive. Do order the deep fried mantao to take advantage of the sauce.
Also, forget about the steamed mantao, you won’t get much health benefit at all anyway if they were to be dipped into butter sauce, the deep fried version tastes so much better.
steamed cod fish with essence of chicken, baked chicken with cheese
No seafood dinner is complete without fish, and for the dinner we had steamed cod fish that came with plenty of mushroom, cilantro, ginger, carrot, and even bean curd skin. Like the steamed haruan from restaurant Yap Yin, a bottle of Brand’s essence of chicken is poured to give the soup base an even richer taste.
Of course, cod fish tastes (well, naturally more expensive too) more refine than haruan.
The baked chicken with cheese reminds me of lasagna, but not a very good one at that. The chicken’s fried, but it was a bit spicy, too cheesy, and just overall a dish that’s slightly too weird for my taste.
Thai style stir fried prawns, assorted greens with macadamia
The Thai style stir fried prawns is another must-order item here. Massive de-shelled tiger prawns cooked with tomyam-ish sauce and served sizzling on a hot plate, very very yummy. Goes best with some rice, but in our case, fried mantao.
The vitamin C quota was satisfied with a plate of assorted greens with macadamia nuts, a luxury if rather tasty dish. Combination of green peas, lotus roots, fungus, carrots, and more were just nice for this purpose.
desserts galore at Bangsar Seafood
A good dinner’s always followed by desserts (or so all the girls say), we had fungus, peanut soup, longan and sea coconut, mango sago ice, and a couple other more traditional style sweet dishes to conclude the dinner.
To be truthful, desserts aren’t one of Bangsar Seafood’s strength. They are decent, but not something to really anticipate after all those awesome seafood.
Cheesie, KY & Haze, Horng, Suanie & Kerol, Jade
We had a good time over the review session, and I’d like to thank Jade for the invite.
Oh, if you want to have a garden wedding, there’s a huge and “golf course perfect” lawn at Bangsar Seafood Garden that’s perfect for the occasion too!
Address:
Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant
One Bangsar, No 63, Jalan Ara
Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.129461, 101.669294
Tel: 03-2282 2555
This is the last food post from the Redang trip last month. After stopping by for keropok lekor, our last item on schedule before heading back to KL was naturally, lunch.
Ed again served as the guide and this time he brought us to Restaurant Golden Dragon in Chinatown
a very straight to the point “non halal” sign
I knew that it had to be at least a pretty decent place soon as we arrived. The restaurant was absolutely packed even on a Monday, and we had to wait for a table. There was a big group of middle aged ladies with “I love Redang” t-shirts, which doesn’t bear any significance to anything but I just felt like mentioning.
long beans, eggplant, salted fish, roast pork and BBQ pork
Ed ordered a large portion of roast pork and BBQ pork, and I made orders of several other pre-prepared dishes to go with steamed rice. We had long beans, eggplant, omelet, bitter gourd, and some soup too.
Though the BBQ pork (char siu) was ordinary, the roast pork (siu yoke) was actually rather good. We actually ordered a second serving of roast pork to make up for going 3 days porkless on the island.
bitter gourd, omelet, soup, rice
While the other dishes were commendable, my favorite had to go to the salted fish fillets. The aroma and taste was just so “right” I used it to replace soya sauce. Omelet with salted fish, roast pork with salted fish, bitter gourd with salted fish, egg plant with salted fish, they were all awesome!
Terence, Kim, FA, Ed, Horng, KY & Joe, Kerol & Haze
Including drinks, we only had to pay RM 8 per person for the meal. It was really cheap considering the amount of items we ordered. I’ve read that they serve pretty good “tai chau” during dinner time too.
Address:
198 Jalan Kampung Cina
Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu
GPS: 5.333684, 103.132921
Tel: 09-622 3034
A trip to the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia is never complete without having keropok lekor, and when it comes to this particular wholesome snack, Terengganu is usually regarded as the best place to have them.
Keropok Lekor Zahela Embong, as recommended by Ed
Traditional keropok lekor is made of fish meat, sago, and a bit of salt, there are some that uses flour in addition or instead of sago too. The concoction is then made into unsightly phallic shape that is then boiled and optionally fried.
The keropok is usually served with chili sauce. Here in Klang Valley, you usually get some mass produced chili sauce like Kimball, but in Terengganu, it’s often some home made goodness instead.
Keropok Lekor with chili sauce, yum max!
The keropok lekor stall of Zaleha Embong is conveniently located in between the town of Kuala Terengganu and Merang, the jetty for departing to Redang Island.
Our dive guide Ed, who’s been to Redang more often than just about anyone I know, swears on this stall, and I do agree that the keropok lekor here was really awesome. It was delicious, slightly salty and tasted like an offspring of fish cake and prawn fritters. Don’t miss this one if you find ourself heading to Merang Jetty.
Terence, FA, Horng, Kim, Kerol, Haze, and KY
The same stall sells other local products like dried cuttle fish with sugar, salted fish (wet and dried version), and various other prepacked keropok too. I spent RM20 on those other nonsense in making my colleagues in KL happy, they loved it too!
Address:
Keropok Lekor Zaleha Embong
near Kg. Merabang Likar
21020 Kuala Terengganu
GPS: 5.457598,103.034248
Tel: 09-669 4762
Before earlier this year at Sipadan and Mabul islands, my previous diving trip was Redang, way back in 2005. After the very first dive at Mabul island, I realized how much I actually missed diving and promised that I would do it perhaps 4 times this year.
I guess I over achieved, it is June and I’ve went on 4 diving trips already. This time at Redang island, it was a trip organized by Terence to con our buddy Horng in getting his PADI Open Water certification.
Terence chasing the green turtle
Together with Haze, Kim, Kerol, FA, Joe (went to Tenggol with), and dive instructor Edvin from OceanXplorer, we started our journey just after midnight from KL to Kuala Terengganu on Friday.
The drive took a little less than 7 hours, which proved to be a bit of a mistake in scheduling. As our boat does not leave till past 9 am, we ended up having to spend over 2 hours at Kuala Terengganu for breakfast. Should have left at perhaps 1:30am instead to optimize the journey and catch more sleep prior.
Haze, Kerol, FA, and Kim. bottom rigth: 2 vagabonds found on the boat
In contrast with the departure point to Tenggol at Dungun where there were perhaps half a dozen people heading to the island, Merang Jetty was absolutely packed. There were tourists representing all continents, a cacophony of foreign languages and various local accents served as white noise while we board our relatively comfortable boat.
A little less than an hour later, we arrived at Redang.
KY & Haze, Joe, Horng getting his PADI certification by Edvin
While Tenggol was a hidden paradise, Redang felt more like a well oiled machine all prep up for tourists.
Boat load of people being herded to the resort registration counter like sheep by hounds, tractors hauling your luggage, loud PA system announcing snorkeling time, and huge dining area not entirely unlike school canteen.
freaking lucky Horng, Eagle Ray on his first ever dive
Having said that, while I don’t particularly like the commercialization of the island, it does have advantages some can’t live without.
There’s projector with Astro showing world cup, convenient store, pub by the beach with dance floor and all sorts of alcohol, and even eateries offering pretty awesome Cantonese noodle and lor mai kai (glutinous rice with chicken).
Terence, Horng, KY, Joe, diving at Redang on 2nd day
I did 5 dives at Redang, the first was the shore dive in conjunction with Horng’s very first compressed air breathing experience in the ocean. We saw a magnificent spotted eagle ray!
puffer fish, nemo’s cousin, and cleaner fish on my fins
The second dive we did was with the resort’s dive operator at the site just a couple minutes from the beach. The dive turned out to be pretty forgettable, not a whole lot to see and a tad too many divers at the same time. I did manage to get some cleaner fish to service my fins though 
Luckily quite a lot of people left the island on Sunday (our 2nd day). The lesser crowd was a blessing, and though not related, the diving was much better too.
blue coral fish, moray eel, more nemo, blue spotted sting ray
Our second dive at Tanjung Tokong dive site had the best visibility I’ve ever experienced, we could see well over 30 meters. It was like diving in 1080p HD quality.
We ended up visiting a lot of nemo in our 5 dives. There were other usual suspects like moray eel, trigger fish, cleaner fish, shrimp, puffer, porcupine fish, green turtle, and blue spotted sting ray. There weren’t a lot of nudibranch though.
Unfortunately, there were also some signs of coral bleaching due to the warm ocean temperature, hopefully that will reverse itself in due time.
another eel, ikan kembong?, cleaner shrimp, porcupine fish
While the diving weren’t superb, they were still pretty enjoyable. The excellent vis at Tg. Tokong was a savior, and of course the feeling of being in water with total freedom and almost total quietness was always something I love.
Kim and Kerol did a discovery dive with Ed and totally loved it, I think there’s probably more certified divers in #porkgang next year. As it stands, all the guys are certified divers, and none of the girls are. Lets change that soon guys!
