It’s January, Christmas jingles made way to those Chinese New Year songs that seems to always resurrect the career of a few non-Chinese singers who sings in Mandarin but nobody ever care the rest of the year.
To many of us gluttons, this time of the year also means that we can have yee sang (鱼生) again! One of my favorite Malaysian invention (yah, they claim it’s from Singapore, or Hokkien province in China… I don’t care)
Gu Yue Tien at Chulan Square, classy place
My very first lou sang session came with the courtesy of Meena’s invitation to the food review session at Gu Yue Tien in conjunction to the Standard Chartered’s Extravagant 8 Menu.
From 20th Jan to 17th February, Standard Chartered credit card holders enjoy great deals at 8 restaurants with special customized menu priced at RM 888++ per table for 8pax.
my very first yee sang for CNY 2011
First dish was of course, the yee sang I’ve been waiting for since some 11 months ago. The version at Gu Yue Tien is a little different, fresh salad with addition of sengkuang, raisin, crushed nuts, crackers, oil, strawberry sauce, and of course, plenty of fresh raw salmon.
The taste is a bit sweeter and a bit fresher tasting, it was so good quite a few of us had second servings.
Gu Yue Tien soft boil egg with foie gras
Next came the dish I had my eyes set on the moment the menu was sent to me via email – Gu Yue Tien’s soft boil egg with foie gras. According to Chef Frankie, he had the idea to create this dish from a visit to some charity cooking event in New York, East meet West.
It is basically a soft boiled egg, with most of the egg white taken out and replaced with foie gras sauce with chunks of foie gras in it. It was rich, savory, and pure heaven, I had two!
seafood soup with crab roe, salt bake Spanish Iberico pork ribs
No real Chinese dinner is complete without soup, and I really give Standard Chartered a big thumbs up for NOT serving any sharks fin in all their Extravagant 8 menu.
So we had seafood soup with crab roe that comes with prawns, scallops, crab meat, and other goodies instead. Tastes better than any sharks fin soup that I had before (I’ve since stopped consuming sharks fin though, and I think you should too.)
Then there’s the salt baked Spanish Iberico pork ribs. I’ve had plenty of ribs before, but boy, this one really tops them all. Slightly salty, tender and juicy on the inside while crispy on the outside, the ribs is superbly flavorful and absolutely addictive. If you go to Gu Yue Tien, this is an absolute must-order dish.
steamed giant grouper, glutinous rice with fresh water prawns and wax meat
Fish is another classic dish during CNY, we had steamed giant grouper with minced ginger and yellow bean paste. The fish meat is indeed tender, and I’ve always enjoy the thick but tender giant grouper skin as well. This dish is a good follow up from the ribs, with minced ginger countering the savory pork after taste.
Steamed glutinous rice with fresh water prawn & wax meat was the last main dish of the night. An unlikely combination of seafood with wax meat, but it is one that turned out very well. The wax meat imported from Hong Kong, and fresh water prawn sourced locally, the two ingredients tasted awesome themselves, but also give the glutinous rice a rich and very delicious taste.
pan fried nien gau, chilled mango cream with pamelo
We wind down the night with the CNY-compulsory nien gau (sticky cake), only this one is pan fried with sesame; and chilled mango cream with pamelo to cool off and try to clear off the super savory+yummy after taste in our mouth.
At this point, my stomach was protesting, and my brain shutting down due to food coma.
KY & Haze, Bald Eagle & Chef Frankie,
Mei Yee & Lionel, KK & BabeKL, Meena & Alison
For those of you who holds a Standard Chartered credit card (or know someone who does), don’t miss out on this great offer. I throughly enjoyed every dish at Gu Yue Tien, and if your taste bud is anywhere close to mine, I have no doubt you will too.
Chef Frankie is also one of the most friendly and inspiring person, he shared the story of stepping into the kitchen at the age of 13 to becoming an executive chef to owning Gu Yue Tien, amazing stuff.
Now chef, how about some of that ribs again? Gu Yue Tien is located just above Gaucho Grill at Chulan Square.
Address:
Gu Yue Tien
Lot 5A, Chulan Square
Jalan Raja Chulan
50200 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.148518, 101.716114
Tel: 03-2148 0808
I went to Singapore for a couple days, my first time there in the last 13 years. A short trip for an interesting event, a competition organized by Brand’s that we eventually came up first… running up (which involved only two teams.)
Details of the trip shall come soon, but first, I want to also make you envy by showing you this little toy David sent me a day prior to the Singapore trip for review. A Nokia XpressMusic 5800!
Nokia XpressMusic 5800
The phone actually exceed my expectations, very polished touch enabled user interface. Still a few bugs to iron out prior to the full release I bet. Full review on this blog soon, stay tuned.
Singapore MRT
Singapore MRT is a lot busier than I remember, and commuters don’t seem to line up nor actually let passengers get down first prior to barging into the train. I thought that was a little surprising.
Brand’s bloggeer’s challenge
The Malaysian team did not win (sorry folks!), but Red Diva, KK, Suanie, Sultan Muzaffar, and I did try our best. It was a pretty close call. More on the event on this blog soon.
Brewerks at Singapore
Suan brought me to Brewerks, a microbrewery along the Singapore river. Good beer, good company, but my alcohol tolerance is still tragically low.
this reminds me of the Rainbow bridge in Tokyo
The scenery at Clark Quay at night is very nice. The photo above is what you can see from Brewerks. Strangely there are quite a few people jogging along the riverside at 9pm, and they’re almost all whites. We’re still deciding if they were exercising or showing off.
Singapore River at night
The river cruise looks like something I might want to try in my future visit, Sheryl and I had a pretty good riverboat tour back when we were in Chicago a number of years ago when we were both very much together in the States.
I was at KK for a business trip and I came across this entry in the local newspaper that reads “MILF rain mortar on troops in Mindanao”. It immediately caught my attention, and then I read further..
MILF action in Philippines
Good thing they clear up what this stands for in wikipedia’s MILF entry.
this isn’t your friendly next door milf
