Tag / wantan mee
April 10, 2013
While many Penang hawker dishes such as char kuih teow, hokkien mee, and laksa are famous all over Malaysia, wantan mee is always a bit of an odd ball. Being a traditional Cantonese dish in a predominately Hokkien area, wantan mee was sort of adopted by the islanders.
the wantan mee stall at kedai kopi seng thor
Like languages and culture, food that is separated geographically from its place of origin usually evolve and adapt to the local taste. This is evident in the case of wantan mee in Penang as well.
sambal goes very well with wantan mee
A prime example is the wantan mee at Seng Thor kopitiam at Carnarvon street. The dry version comes with both deep fried and boiled wantan, vegetable, charsiu (bbq pork), and the all important Penang style sambal belacan.
While the chasiu isn’t nearly as good as those you usually find in Klang Valley (for some reasons charsiu in Penang is usually dyed and not nearly as flavorful), I like the extra dimensions offered by deep fried wantan, and of course, the sambal belacan makes a huge difference, pretty much transformed the entire dish like how chili pan mee is different from normal pan mee.
If you love sambal and food in general, you should try wantan mee here (and many other stalls in Penang).
of course, you shouldn’t miss the best ochien in town
Of course, if you are already in this kopitiam, don’t forget to order the fried oyster omelet here. One of the bests ever.
Address:
Kedai Kopi Seng Thor
160, Lebuh Carnarvon,
10100 Georgetown, Penang
GPS: 5.415495, 100.33468
February 5, 2013
Hunting for food is one of the things I do very often, be it breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. And if you haven’t notice already, I tend to share them across various platforms whenever I find a dish worthy of your taste buds.
Armed with a Samsung GALAXY Camera as my weapon of choice these days, I want to show you aspect of food photography which coincide with my favorite category in Samsung’s This is My Moment, Live campaign – the top down view of some of Malaysia’s Best foods.
I always love this angle of view when it comes to food photography, it represents the diner’s point of view when food is presented on the table. You get to see everything, the glistering fats, the contrasting colors, and sometimes even a hint of steam rising from the hot dish.
Here are five food photography tips using photos taken with Samsung GALAXY Camera, resized for this space.
1. Go Close
Sometimes you want to get close while still incorporating everything. The sambal, cockles, cuttle fish, prawns, tofu, noodle, and those coagulated pork blood all within the frame. It spells a delicious bowl of Penang curry mee (SS2 Restauran Okay)
2. Divide and Conquer
It’s often effective to snap photos of the dish after it’s separated to serving size. This makes the photo less busy and further enhances the main ingredient(s), in this example, the massive river prawns. (Pan Heong, Batu Caves)
3. The Little Things
Don’t forget the little things in your photo. The example above includes the chop sticks and sambal condiment, and sometimes you can crop away the dishes a little bit to avoid the photo looking dull. However, you should also try not to have anything irrelevant creeping into the photos, such as the glove at the top left corner of this photo.
4. Contrast
Contrasting colors make for visually striking photos. Red bowl, black table top, yellow noodle, and green chili featured in this wantan mee dish. (Jalan Brunei off Jalan Pudu, next to Caltex) The only missing major color is blue, which isn’t a color associated with food anyway.
5. Everything In It!
Lastly, the simplest way is to include everything on the table in one shot. This is especially useful when you want to convey the size of the dish, like this big breakfast set with two extra side dishes and a piece of pie at Antipodean (Bangsar). Try to arrange your dishes so it fits into the frame properly, and do make sure that there aren’t too many distractions (tip #3).
So if you’re like me who takes a lot of food photos to share, consider submitting them to This is My Moment, Live. Two person who’s 5 pictures submissions have been selected by Samsung will get a RM 100 cash prize!
Good luck and happy clicking!
January 31, 2013
One of the biggest advantage of riding to work is the flexibility in breakfast choices. No longer am I confined to the route of LRT or just the food stalls within walking distance of the office. All I need to do is to leave home half an hour earlier, and so that’s what I often do these days, exploring breakfast places around KL in the wee hours.
old uncle’s been preparing wantan mee for a while now
The area behind Berjaya Times Square is one of my favorite places to explore. Being one older part of town, it’s littered with many old school eateries.
And it was by random choice that I ended up at this nameless kopitiam at Jalan Brunei just behind the Caltex gas station. Business always seems pretty brisk in the morning, so I thought I should give it a try.
bbq pork, minced meat, lard, pickled chili, wantan
There is only a stall operating in the morning, offering wantan mee and sui kao mee.
The wantan mee (a tad under RM 5) comes with everything you’d expect in a plate of wantan mee and some. There’s wantan, minced meat, spring onion, charsiu, pickled chili, and even lard. It can take 10-15 minutes before your plate of wantan mee is served, the noodle is springy, the combination of various pork ingredients work their wonders, and is everything you’d want in a wholesome hearty old school breakfast.
the sui-kao (dumplings) are very yummy as well
Their sui kao too are of top quality, packed with black fungus, minced carrot, pork, and prawns.
If you are a fan of wan tan mee or sui kao mee, this is a place to check out. I’ve been back several times since.
Address:
Ban Lee Hin Kee kopitiam
Jalan Brunei (behind Caltex)
Pudu, Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.137286, 101.711544
July 6, 2012
A month or two back I was a man possessed looking for curry mee, and a friend on twitter mentioned New Grand View kopitiam at Taman Megah. Despite only about 5 minutes from this place, I’ve never even really noticed the existence of this neighborhood eatery, so naturally we went to check it out after one of my weekend wet market shopping spree of pork, chicken, and vegetable.
New Grand View kopitiam at Taman Megah
As this is a quieter side of Taman Megah with only one kopitiam at the whole shop lot island, parking is a relatively breezy affair if you don’t mind walking more than 10 meters.
The kopitiam itself though, is fairly busy, and you might have to wait a few minutes or share table with others during peak hours.
dry and normal soup version of curry mee, KL style
As it turned out, the curry mee was decent, but not quite what I normally would crave for (no pork blood or prawns). It is of the KL variety with cockles, chicken, tofupok, and long beans. If you love this style, you will probably enjoy it more than I do.
The unexpected food find here turned out to be the wantan mee stall that offers quiet a different varieties of wantan mee derivatives.
the “char yok” option with dry wantan noodle
I’ve had the normal version with wantan and chasiu, chicken feet and mushroom, and char yok (fried pork with namyu) with fungus so far. Though the chasiu is decent and wantan is pretty good, I love the other two versions quite a lot more. The phoenix’s claws were fat, juicy, and full of flavor, char yok with fungus absolutely tantalizing and definitely “original”. Reminds me of the nasi lemak with char yok at Segambut (non halal).
If you haven’t stopped by this kopitiam, perhaps it is time to do so. 
map to New Grand View, Taman Megah
Address:
New Grand View restaurant
Jalan SS 23/11
Taman Megah,
47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.118003, 101.612908
August 5, 2011
From afar, Pau Kee is just another one of the many unsuspecting kopitiam by Imbi area. And by from afar, I meant from Win Heng Seng kopitiam, a place that I frequent quite a bit for lunch for it’s char kueh teow and pork noodle.
Eventually curiosity got the better of me (and I do get bored of same dishes very fast), so I decided to give it a try several weeks ago.
Pau Kee – Ipoh Hor Fun
Pau Kee’s main dish is Ipoh hor fun, steamed chicken, and prawn wantan, much like the excellent Soo Kee at Paramount Garden, but in addition to that, they also have wantan mee, and Ipoh style curry mee (with curry chicken).
The one benefit of them serving all these different dishes is that you can let your imagination run wild and have combos such as wantan mee with curry soup, or dried “wantan mee” but with hor fun instead.
Ipoh horfun that looks and tasted like the real deal
Their ipoh horfun though, is a thing of beauty. Look at the photo above, the prawns at center on a bed of shredded steamed chicken on top of the horfun (kuih teow) and bean sprouts, accompanied by spring onions that is precariously cut. Then there’s the soup with a ring of floating chili oil, I mean, it’s beautiful isn’t it?
Fortunately, this thing tastes as good as well.
steamed chicken, soup wantan mee, dry wantan mee, curry mee
I’ve been there a handful of times since, and tried their curry mee (another excellent dish with pretty thick curry broth and fragrant sambal), dried wantan mee (prawn wantan and shredded chicken was good, but the sauce was a bit lacking), steamed chicken (smooth! I’d rate this just below Soo Kee), and sui kao soup (just above average).
The dishes are around RM 5 and up, the portion of steamed chicken above costs RM 8, so prices are really very reasonable. Oh, there’s air conditioning too.
Restaurant Pau Kee
No 10, Jalan Utara (next to Honda showroom)
off Jalan Imbi,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.145417, 101.715629
Tel : 016-375 1360
