A couple weeks ago baby Marco’s father invited me to have a food tasting session at this curiously named Bermuda and Onion at Cangkat Bukit Bintang. Since I was bringing a couple guests, he reminded me that this place serves pork, more pork, and nothing but pork! My drool started flowing just from hearing that magic sentence.

love the decoration of this place

During the weekend, parking around the area was surprisingly easy to find. We were greeted by this absolutely beautiful interior decoration the moment we stepped into the restaurant, the lime green wall, egg shaped lamp on the curvy ceiling fan, the patio, the bar, the chairs; this place looks like something out of a romantic movie, a striking contrast from the nearby Jalan Alor kopitiams.

bruschetta, parma ham with asparagus, prawn, and okra on skewers

As 2 of my buddies and I waited for TBG and her lesser half, we were served some bruschetta with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to start the day off. Very nice.

Then the pork dishes began, in a small way at first. Out of the three skewers we had, two of them had pork in it. The prawns and parma ham was absolutely fantastic, the asparagus and bacon was equally delicious with it’s contrasting texture and taste of vegetable vs meat. Ladies fingers and tomato gave a pretty good balance to counter the meat just a little. It was a very good start, and I was quite impressed already.

cold cuts, caesar salad, parma ham with rock melon

To warm up our stomach further before the main dishes, we were presented three other appetizers: cold cuts, caesar salad, and prosciutto and melone.

The cold cuts came with three different types of meat with some olives. I love two of them but find the harder type a little bit too much to handle with it’s dryness and more pungent smell (purists would love it though). Caesar salad came with plenty of prawns, bacon, Parmesan cheese and egg. It was very refreshing and delicious!

However, my favorite of the day has to go to the prosciutto and melone. I never knew parma ham could go so well with rock melon, the saltiness of the meat and the sweetness of the rock melon was absolutely brilliant! You must order this when you go to Bermuda and Onion, do not forget this!

wild boar fettuccine, bread dumpling soup, pork chop ala mustard

Then came assault of main dishes. The wild boar fettuccine was pretty strong tasting, with generous chunks of wild boar meat and mushroom cooked with fresh herbs. The speck ‘canedarli’ gnocchi is a homemade Italian bread dumpling served in double boiled chicken broth and Parmesan cheese. The chef explained that they’d have made this bigger in Italy as compared to here.

Then of course, there’s the pork chop ala mustard that came in a huge plate. A generous slab of pork chop is pan seared, and served with creamy Dijon mustard sauce and plenty of mash potato. Very rich and creamy but really good.

sea bass and roasted pork belly

Just as we thought the lunch session is coming to an end, two glorious dishes appeared. The interesting looking sea bass and roasted pork belly.

The sea bass, as with most dishes from this restaurant, didn’t escape the influence of pork. Mantled with parma ham and served with mixed sauteed vegetables, it gives you a false sense of enjoying “healthy” seafood but of course, with a more satisfying experience through the taste buds.

As for the pork belly, what can I say? Proper and glorious layers of pork skin, fat, and meat served in a thick brown sauce with mashed potato and Lardoni bacon, I can’t help myself but to continue slicing it up and chew em down despite already being very full.

hot restaurant manager Sharmini, and good Chef Max

We capped the day with a hot cup of cafe latte, it was definitely the best lunch I’ve had in a long while. Chef Max and restaurant manager Sharmini were very friendly, as with baby Marco’s parents as well.

Price wise, I’d think this place is pretty reasonable. The skewers are RM 8-9, my favorite parma ham with melon at RM33, other main dishes are priced at around 30+ to 50+. Give it a try!

Bermuda & Onion is located at Changkat Bukit Bintang, nearby Jalan Alor

Address:
no. 41 Changkat Bukit Bintang,
50200 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2145 8333

Tags:  belly,  bermuda,  cangkat bukit bintang,  delicious,  dining,  food,  italian,  mustard,  onion,  parma ham,  pork

Posted by KY | 18 Comments »

The streets of Bangkok is dotted with many hawkers selling all sorts of food for those with an appetite for adventure. While noodles and rice dishes are mainly found in food courts and small restaurants, many hawkers offer bite size snacks at road side. From the more mainstream sausages to cold drinks to fried insects, you can find virtually anything.

Bacon Stick for 20 baht each

I noticed that many snacks choices consist of pork. There are pork sausage, bacon sticks, grilled fried pork, deep fried pork skin, roasted pork, ah, it was good for the pork lovers, maybe not exactly so great for health, however.

My favorite would be the bacon stick we had at the Chatuchak weekend market. For 20 baht (around RM2), you get mini sausages wrapped with bacon on a skewer. The union of sausage and bacon was a match made in heaven as the juice and slight saltiness from bacon compliments the texture and taste of the sausage oh so well. You have to try this if you manage to find the stall!

grilled pork strips on a ring

Grilled pork strips on bamboo string is a pretty common snack that can be found at many places. The meat is marinated and carries a pretty salty taste, while pretty good, eating too much of these will make you very thirsty.

deep fried pork skin

Another sinful snack would be this little bowls of deep fried pork skin that goes for 10 baht that we found at Chatuchak. These are very crispy and goes well with a little bit of Thai chili sauce. Now imagine having this with a cold beer watching your favorite football teams on a big LCD TV, with the air-cond full blast, and maybe a hot chick dancing on the side…

roasted pork (siu yok)

Roasted pork isn’t usually served on rice over here, you just have it as snacks to munch while walking around the weekend market. I guess we deserved it since we were getting enough exercise from walking under the searing hot April weather in Bangkok anyway, right?

colorful Popsicles

Then there’s the Popsicle stalls. The popsicles are actually made on location, usually with bottled fruit juice poured into a metal mold. A wooden stick is added as the handle. The mold is placed in a contraption consisting two parts, a top with little holes to hold the molds, and the bottom container filled with dried ice.

The seller often stirs the top part of the popsicle maker attempting to freeze the products faster. A stick costs something like 5 baht, and they were perfect for the weather.

fried mini banana (including the skin)

Other than the meat items, I also tried this curious little deep fried banana Terence bought. It was basically some species of mini banana sliced down in the middle, deep fried. While they look rather uninspiring, these things were actually very sweet and rather tasty. It is similar with our own “pisang goreng”, but sweeter and more concentrated.

Of course I enjoy every bit!

You can do a fair share of walking and eating in this city. Next up would be the various type of meals I had to sit down to eat. Stay tuned!

Tags:  bacon,  banana,  bangkok,  bite,  dining,  food,  fried,  ice cream,  pork,  streets

Posted by KY | 32 Comments »

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I am a huge Bak Kut Teh (肉骨茶) fan. It all started when I was a young boy when our family used to have bak kut teh almost every Sunday. The pork, the soup, the “yau char gwai”, it is simply the best Chinese food invented from this land. The last post on this category appeared some 3 months ago, so the time is right to have another one!

my personal pot of bak kut teh

Most of the bak kut teh at food courts and kopitiams that I have tried over the years have not been particularly rewarding, but that has never stop me from trying new stalls once in a while. My luck came when I found myself at Ming Tien some months ago without knowing what to order, so I fall back to my default feel-good food, the Bak Kut Teh.

ahh, the strong herbal taste of the soup

When the steamy pot of goodness arrived, I was utterly surprised by the aroma and flavor of the soup. Strong with herbal taste, the soup is pretty sweet and not over powering. On top of that, they serve old school oily rice that goes very well with the meat. No wonder there are comments on my ming tien dumpling post recommending me to this stall.

Ming Tien food court is located at Taman Megah, PJ

For a single portion, the price is in line with other bak kut teh places at around RM 8 or so. Try it out if especially if you frequent this food court. I reckon this stall sells the best bak kut teh in any food court that I’ve tried so far.

Tags:  Bak Kut Teh,  chinese-food,  dining,  eats,  food-court,  herbal,  meat,  PJ,  pork,  taman megah

Posted by KY | 27 Comments »

We were running around figuring out what to eat a couple Fridays ago (it’s harder than hell to get agreement from 2 girls on what’s for dinner), Kerol suddenly just decided to started driving with a purpose and said she’ll just surprise us.

15 minutes later, we arrived at Ah Foong Bak Kut Teh (阿峰肉骨茶), which was just as well since I never shy away from this uniquely Malaysian Chinese food. After all, this is the 10th time I blogged about a bak kut teh place.

friendly kopitiam setting

For the 3 of us, we ordered a portion of traditional soup bak kut teh, a portion of dried bak kut teh, sour and spicy vegetable (酸辣菜), a bowl of tofu pok (tofu with thicker skin), and some yau char kuai (油炸鬼). We also have extra string mushroom in the soup bak kut teh too, since the girls love that thing.

wet and dry bak kut teh, sour and spicy vegetable, tofu pok

Service was very good in this place, the boss made sure that we had a good experience, and gave us extra soup in bowls to avoid the customer running out of those very delicious herbal soup (unlike Ah Sang, who are too stingy and will ignore your 3rd soup request). The sour and spicy vegetable was very good too, it gives a contrasting taste and texture to the meat from bak kut teh.

The yau char kuai too, was still crunchy. Same can’t be said for most bak kut teh places, most of the time I get soggy yau char kuai instead. Ah Foong also has red chili, chili padi, chopped garlic, and fried shallots with soya sauce and dark soya sauce available on every table, nice. As for drinks, choose they have several types of Chinese tea to choose from.

chili, garlic, tea, and yau char kuai

The dinner only costs around RM30 for the three of us. Very reasonable and above all, very delicious. The soup was thick and full of flavor, and the meat well cooked tasted just the way they should. I’ll definitely go there again and again. This place is opened for lunch and dinner.

Ah Foong Bak Kut Teh is just opposite Sunway Pyramid

Address:
446, Jln PJS 10/11
47800 Bandar Sunway
Selangor

Tags:  Bak Kut Teh,  bkt,  chinese-food,  dining,  kopitiam,  pork,  soup,  sunway

Posted by KY | 13 Comments »

I have spotted this relatively new Teo Chew Bak Kut Teh (潮州肉骨茶) restaurant for quite some time before finally have a chance to step in and get a taste of what it is all about. As you might aware, Bak Kut Teh is one of my favorite local dishes, as I have devoted a whole sub-category for it.

Restaurants in SS2 come and go, there is a new restaurant almost every month, and similarly, a failed food outlet at the same rate. Luckily, this survival of the fittest cycle has led to the improvement of the quality of food offered in this region.

clean and comfortable eating environment

The menu offers quite a variety of food to choose from. There are of course, bak kut teh, with over a dozen different pork ingredients to choose from (ribs, fatty meat, liver, intestine, etc), loh pork arm (卤猪脚), vegetables, and even Teo Chew porridge and noodle. I ordered the first 3 items for myself and my sister, and two bowls of rice, of course.

meat, meat, chili, vege, perfect!

As with many bak kut teh places, red chili, chili padi, and chopped garlic is available on every table. There’s also normal and dark soya sauce that goes so well with the meat and chili. The restaurant is also very clean and comfortable, a welcoming departure from most bak kut teh operations.

The bak kut teh, while not spectacular, was decent, with the meat cooked to a very soft texture. The soup though, is not as thick than the Klang version. However, the loh pork arm that we ordered was fantastic. Again, the meat and skin cooked to a very soft and easy-to-chew texture and the broth just perfect. It tasted very juicy, and went well with the chili and garlic combination. It makes me salivate just writing about it, even just having had lunch!

The entire meal, including a couple glasses of Chinese tea, was around RM 20. Which is pretty standard for a bak kut teh meal for two.

Teo Chew Bak Kut Teh is at the heart of PJ

Operating hours are 7am to 3pm, and 6 to 10pm. Closed on Mondays except public holidays.

Address:
26, 28 Jalan SS2/66,
47300 PJ, Selangor
Tel: 03-7875 2025

Tags:  Bak Kut Teh,  delicious,  Eats,  meat,  PJ,  pork,  soup,  SS2 SS3 SS4,  teo-chew

Posted by KY | 7 Comments »