Mamak rojak (or pasembur in places like Penang) must be one of my favorite afternoon light meals. Sometimes I just wish that some of these stalls actually sell them at supper time too. The mixture of cucumber, turnip, potato, bean curd, prawn fritters, hard boiled egg, and cuttle fish in that sweet, nutty, and spicy sauce would make perfect supper!
This is of course, not to be confused with fruit rojak that is usually offered by Chinese hawkers.
cuttle fish is my favorite ingredient in rojak
Here at Klang Valley, most mamak rojak stalls operate from a van and usually offers chendol as dessert/drink to go with the main. The more enterprising ones sometimes offer mee goreng, mee rojak, and maybe even mee rebus too.
Lucky for me, one of the better rojak stalls operates right opposite Taman Bahagia LRT station, within walking distance from where I stay. While some people insist that there are better rojak stalls, I happen to like this one quite a bit.
The queue isn’t usually very long, and their chendol actually sucked, but the rojak is quite awesome. The ingredients are fresh, and most importantly, they get the sauce right, with a hint of spiciness (you can of course, have it super spicy if you like) and sweetness in that thick, nutty flavored concoction.
A serving of rojak with hard boiled egg goes for RM 4.50, you save RM 0.50 if you choose to not have egg with it. They also serve a few other dishes that I’ve never tried, and don’t bother with their chendol.
Ah, by the way, I would have taken a close up photo of the stall but the owner said he was worried about IRS people. hahaha
Address: Opposite Taman Bahagia LRT
SS2, Petaling Jaya, Selangor GPS: 3.111591, 101.612602
Thanks to the infamous Robb of Nuffnang, I was invited as the “featured blogger” on a sharing session at Italiannese, Mid Valley Gardens. Previous featured bloggers include fehmes people like Cheesie and Cindy , so I guess this blog must be doing pretty decent huh?
Timothy Tiah, Nicholas Chay, Robb Chew, Pinky Tham, Firdauz
So I arrived at Italiannese, Mid Valley Gardens just in time on the faithful 12th of Oct to find a boat load of people who are already getting friendly with each other, and warming up their camera flashes too.
The usual suspects from Nuffnang were there. Robb, who engineered the whole event, the boss Tim, Nicholas, Pinky, Firdauz, Chingy, and Yee Hou too. Other friends like Sidny, Rojaks, Simon Seow, Debra & Victoria Foong also attended the event.
There are other familiar faces I have met during the Nuffnang’s pajama party and the more recent Haloween party who made their way to the sharing session too. It was in all, over two dozen of us filling up an entire section in the rather nicely decorated restaurant.
We went through a round of rather informal self introduction (and I found out some of them are practically half my age @.@), followed by a short speech from yours truly which mainly touches a little bit about this whole food blogging business and a lot more about the constant question I get about my weight (or the lack of it)
Jou Yin, Josephine, Debra Fong, Victoria Fong, Yi May
Just as we were almost done with the talking session, the servers started to bring in the food, which is just brilliant timing wise.
Carlifornia shrimp salad, mini cheesy pizza, quattro platter
We got started off with the quattro platter that includes deep fried risotto balls, fried calamari rings, stuffed mushrooms, and zucchini fritte. Calamari has always been one of my favorites and the one served up here certainly did not disappoint.
The California shrimp salad was a fresh departure from the usual Caesar or garden salad. However, my favorite has got to be the mini cheesy pizza, very thin, crispy, and flavorful.
Sicilian pizza, bread with olive oil & vineger, lamb shank
The Sicilian pizza is some what an acquired taste, soft texture with a heavy mixture of cheese and tomato flavor in a somewhat unfamiliar territory. I wouldn’t say I like it. The lamb shank though, is pretty flavorful and well cooked to a soft and tender texture, I just wish there were slightly more sauce to go with it.
bowls of pasta, chocholate and hazelnut cake
The main attraction of the day was of course, the pasta bowls. I think Italiannese’s idea is a pretty good one, with the smallish servings of the individual bowls you get to taste more varieties.
The pasts themselves were pretty good. My favorite would be the angel hair aglio olio with shrimp. There were even lasagna too.
Chingy is here, I did not manage to capture an individual pic
We concluded the dinner with some hazlenut cake before everyone went off to our separate ways. It was a pretty good session and it was nice meeting you guys!
