Portuguese grilled fish is a bit like chicken Maryland. If you head to wikipedia and search for Portuguese cuisine, there won’t be any dish described in there that is remotely close to what we are familiar with as Portuguese grilled fish. Similarly, I’ve been to Maryland a few times without ever encountering our version of this Western food chicken dish.
Nevertheless, along with such terms like Balinese cats that aren’t from Bali, we know what we’re getting into when we order Portuguese grilled fish, and we don’t expect it to be Cristiano Ronaldo’s favorite dish.
this stall has been around for decades
My very first experience with this version of grilled fish was actually at this famous stall at Petaling Street probably some 15 years ago when I was studying at Subang Jaya, and it wasn’t just a few weeks ago that I finally pay a return visit after all these while.
15 years ago, Petaling Street had no roof, the stall operators were mostly locals selling counterfeit products, and the Portuguese grill fish operation was a stall next to Hong Leong bank.
Today, the street has a shiny roof, stalls are manned by Banglas & Nepalis selling the same counterfeit products, and nothing has changed to the Portuguese grill fish stall.
medium portion with squid, lala, and sting ray
A portion of grilled fish starts at RM 5 (kembung) & RM 7 (stingray, tilapia, chicken fish) and comes with one serving of rice. The version we ordered had string ray, lala, and squid in medium portion and cost an affordable RM 15.
Other than fish, you can order prawns, squid, bamboo shoots, and chicken wings, and the combination of them.
The preparation method seems fairly straight forward – the ingredients are chucked into aluminum foil, and then cooked over charcoal fire. Waiting time is usually at least 25-35 minutes because everything is cooked from its raw form.
still as good as when I had it for the first time more than 10 yrs ago
While the rice we had that day was a little too wet, the grilled seafood was a blast. Their super spicy sambal is still as addictive as I remember, and there was just no way one could realistically finish the paste without suffering permanent damage to the stomach lining, but we couldn’t stopped ourselves from having just one. more. spoon.
It was another good meal, the old fashion way, and next time, I’m gonna order them with petai. 
Address:
Ikan Panggang Portugis Istimewa
by Hong Leong Bank, Petaling Street
50000 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.144501, 101.697725
Tel: 019 315 9448
After Haze’s appointment to the hospital to get her ankle checked, we found ourselves at Puchong at around 10 am looking for breakfast.
My first suggestion was Yap Chuan bak kut teh, but Haze somehow believes that bak kut teh isn’t appropriate for breakfast… I then thought we could perhaps try the fresh made yong tau foo nearby, but we found out that they weren’t open for another hour.
found this pan mee place by the side of a house in Puchong
As I try to make our way out of the area, we chanced upon this little eatery with a few plastic tables set up by the side of a house that seems to enjoy brisk business.
I had no idea what they were serving initially, but we thought we should gave it a try anyway, and that proved to be an excellent choice.
soup version, with hand torn pan mee noodle
This little place with no name has a pan mee stall. They offer pan mee in soup and dry version, and you can have the noodle in hand peeled, thick, and thin version.
The hand peeled soup pan mee Haze ordered certainly looked simple, but look can be deceiving. The peeled noodle itself were of just the right consistency, minced pork was very flavorful too, and of course, it came with anchovies, fungus, and those signature pan mee leave.
dry version with thin pan mee noodle
The dry pan mee with thin noodle that I ordered came with essentially the same ingredients, but with soup on the side. I love it, and I think the noodle is the star here, as with the peeled version. They just seems to get it right.
And of course, no good pan mee is complete without chili paste, and over here their chili paste is one of the best I’ve had. It definitely has a strong kick to it, but also rather fragrant at the same time, I had a second helping.
these are our OMG this is so good expressions
By the way, they only cost RM 4 a bowl. I think I’ll have this again next time I head there.
Address:
Between Jalan Puchong Batu 14 & Jalan Kecawi
Kampung Baru Puchong, Selangor
GPS: 2.995665,101.622873
Ladies and gentlemen, today we’re going to talk about asparagus. Now most of us associate asparagus as sort of a Western style vegetable, something you find in a fancy restaurant sitting pretty next to your steak (such as this side dish at Mandarin Grill), or being wrapped in bacon and BBQ-ed (ala BBQ Addict’s menu).
You will be right, but I’ve always known asparagus from Sambal Belacan Asparagus, one of my favorite dishes from childhood, a Hokkien/Penang Nyonya specialty of sort.
ingredients for sambal asparagus – sambal, garlic, ginger, dried shrimp
This dish is also surprisingly simple to make, but it is mighty handy if you’ve already have some ready made sambal belacan. For instruction on how to make a jar of wholesome sambal belacan, click here – sambal belacan fried rice.
Anyway, here’s the ingredients:
the secret is the steaming
Cooking this dish is fast and simple too!
Instructions:
a few prawns go a long way
The secret to cooking asparagus is really the steaming part, since the vegetable can be a little tough if not properly cooked, but frying it too long will get the outer layer burnt. So there you go, another recipe from yours truly who reignite the cooking passion ever since our kitchen is renovated.
I’ve recently gotten Astro B.yond PVR installed at home too, and check out what sort of programmes we have recorded.
Yes, mostly cooking shows. It’s brilliant, I can’t tell you how many times I missed out crucial part of cooking show just because they go over it a tad too fast. With the PVR’s record function this problem is a thing of a past. Of course PAUSE and REWIND function comes in mighty handy too.
I’ll be reviewing the PVR’s function soon too. In the mean time, happy cooking!
A week or so ago when I was downstairs getting ready to go for lunch, a huge Land Rover Discovery suddenly stopped right in front of me, the driver side window rolled down and the driver who turned to be my colleague yelled:
“Hey KY jump in, join us for lunch”
Restaurant Rose 911, authentic Negeri Sembilan food
So I joined 3 of them who were already in the car, and we were on the way to Restaurant Rose 911, an old school restaurant in the older part of the city that specialize in Negeri Sembilan food.
Before that day, I didn’t even know there’s a different version of Malay food from Negeri Sembilan, one of Minangkabau influence, my colleague mentioned.
fish, santan laden vegetable (rendang pegaga), and sambal
While the restaurant doesn’t look much from the outside, it actually has an air conditioned area, a semi alfresco main dining area, and curiously, another smaller dining area that appears to be empty.
According to my colleague, that area’s usually seated with drivers & such when their “bosses” dine at Rose 911. Interesting, and sure enough the clientile consists of kampung folks and high ranking business execs alike.
ikan kembung bakar, dessert (badak berendam)
As for the food, more than half of the dishes to choose from were milky yellowish in color – meaning highly laden with kuah lemak (coconut milk base), turmeric, chili and such good stuff.
I particularly love the rendang pegaga, a type of leave cooked with chicken feet, gizzard, liver, and of course, plenty of santan. The ikan kembung bakar with chili and two other small portions of vegetable were all very old-fashion-good too.
For dessert, we shared a plate of badak berendam (soaking hippo), a traditional Negeri Sembilan kuih made of glutinous rice flour, grated coconut, palm sugar, and of course, more santan. It was delicious as it was sinful.
My rice with drinks came up to RM 8, pretty reasonable. Give it a try, this is definitely different from your usual nasi kandar. Opens for lunch till about 4pm everyday except Sundays.
Address:
Restoran Kak Rose 911
No. 25, Jalan Satu
Kampung Pandan
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.143901, 101.737293
Tel: 03-9281 2996
One of my favorite quick meal is fried rice, and of all the different versions, one of my favorites would be the good old fashion sambal belacan fried rice.
Since it isn’t exactly a popular dish at hawker centres or Chinese/Malay restaurants, I thought a simple recipe could be helpful for those who are a bit adventures in the kitchen.
sambal belacan fried rice with prawns
First of all, to make sambal belacan fried rice, you must make sambal belacan. No brainer right?
The ingredients couldn’t be simpler, I got them from local market
sambal belacan’s ingredients – chili & belacan
Here’s how you do it
The mortar and pestle was obtained for RM 35 at a local market. You can use a blender but it won’t taste the same though. I keep the finished product in an air tight jar in the fridge.
Haze’s pounding it the old school way
So now that you have the sambal, here is how you make the fried rice, ingredients:
stir to perfection
Steps:
Salt is not needed since belacan provides the necessary saltiness to the rice already. The result is two servings of really spicy, fragrant, and rather delicious old school sambal belacan fried rice. Sambal took about 30 minutes to prepare, and fried rice another 15 minutes or so.
Of course, we made more than enough sambal for just cooking fried rice, the actual main intention was to use it as condiment for tau eu bak (braised pork belly with soya sauce), which will be the next recipe I publish here.
